ampmaker

“Two months later, I’m still on a honeymoon with my WF. Here is how it looks now that I finished building it’s new housing. With a Strat and a light gain overdrive in front, it nails the SRV – Texas Flood sound, which is exactly what I was looking for! “I used MDF for the […]

“The cab is pine with mock alligator Tolex. The amp face plate is tortoiseshell and Fender speaker cloth was used. The speaker is a Weber 8-in signature 4-ohm Alnico. The sound is great with the Telecaster and the nylon strung Tele.”

He’s at it again! Richard made an SE-5a amp a couple of years ago, and created a ‘stop-gap’ speaker cabinet out of the shipping box. Seems it wasn’t a stop-gap after all – it’s now featuring in his WF-55 project. “I’ve attached a pic in which you may recognise an ‘old friend’, sadly not covered

As-standard, the Champ’s circuit is low gain. It growls with overdrive only when the amplifier’s Volume pot is wound up. Andy wanted more gain options for his WF-55, and the result is this. There are switches for adding cathode bypass capacitors to the preamp valves for more gain, a Princeton-style Tone control, a feedback-defeat switch

“I recently purchased the amp kit with the aim to build a reasonable facsimile of a black-covered 1964 version of the Fender Champ. The project is now complete and the mod of an extra input for lower output pickups has been successful. The photo’s show the finished unit, the logo SH is for Steve’s Hybrid

Andrew’s another builder who opted for a tweed cabinet covering to reflect the WF-55 circuit’s heritage. Like a lot of cabinet builder’s Andrew found an easily available and affordable source for the wood: – a B&Q pine shelf. It’s completed with an 8inch Jensen speaker. Note: For this style of chassis mounting, Andrew relocated the

There are many small combo amps that make ideal donors for use with Amp Maker kits. This one looks and works really well, and was a perfect fit for the standard chassis. “It’s actually a replacement cab for a Harley-Benton GA5 (same as Epiphone Valve Junior I believe), but being no good at woodwork, I

Giovanni must have something of an orange tolex fixation, having previously ordered an orange tolex cabinet for his PP-18. The WF-55 is an easy fit into a cabinet this size – Giovanni’s amp used a donor amp’s steel chassis. Room for future modifications? “There’s not much space left, maybe something in the future. But right

Colin chose an old Epiphone Valve Jr combo for his WF-55. “The amp sounds great, far better than the Epi Valve Junior. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to build the amp and for having the patience to help me sort it. It has to be one of the best sounding amps I’ve heard. I

“I completed my amp yesterday and thought I’d pass along a few pictures! I decided to go with making a head and speaker cabinet separately. Overall I thought the cabinet building process was pretty enjoyable (except for putting that frustrating tolex on!). I think it turned out pretty good… especially since this was my first

Every now and then I get asked about adding reverb, and here’s how one customer tackled it. “Please find attached photos of my WF-55 with reverb. I’’ll post these on the music electronics forum in a few days when I have more time. I might also wait til I’’ve tweaked it a little. “It uses

“I purchased a WF-55 kit from you a few weeks ago which I have recently finished. It was a bit like playing Tetris to get everything to fit in the small cab that I had (had to rotate the power transformer 90 degrees and mount the input socket and pilot on the front of the

Classic styling.

“Thought you might like my WF-55 head box pix (Like a gorilla cage, it’s holding a beast inside, lol). It still works most weekends if we’re in smallish bars/pubs. Use it as an acoustic amp, nice sound and handy size. “Handle on top is off centre to balance the trannies at one end of the

Where to start? The exquisite design? The custom faceplate? The stunning match with a stunning guitar? Well, I think it shows that Christophe is a luthier (and now amp builder). He’s based in France and I strongly suggest taking a look at his Web site: Click here Look closely and you can see that he’s

Here’s a very unusual take on a small combo. Andrea has kept the narrow dimensions of a typical Champ-style amp, but built it taller to make the controls easier to get at.

“Got the wee amp finished… Hope you like my finished job.” John’s come up with an unusual way to house the amp in the combo cabinet: it’s mounted at the bottom of the cabinet – a little like a few amps of the ’50s and ’60s. you may have to stretch a bit to reach

Mick’s first WF-55 was in a blue cabinet shown earlier in this gallery, and I persuaded Mick to sell me the cab. “Since you acquired my blue cab for the WF-55, I’ve rebuilt it as a classic ’57 Champ complete with accurate Tweed cab and Jensen speaker. Chassis is bent up from a 250x250mm off-cut

“I’ve completed the amp and cab and have had great feedback from my fellow musos. Decided to base the cab on the Champ but did not stick to the finer details. I was so pleased with the woodwork I wanted to show it off. “Found things fitted better with the amp in the base and