Ok all you Ultra-Gearheads.....this is for YOU! :D

[Hardrock69]

Ok so sometimes I have dreams of building my own JCM 800 clone.....you know, ordering a kit, and breaking out the ol' soldering iron.

Well, check this forum out....DIY builds for studio gear....Fairchild 670 compressor clones, Neve and SSL channel strips, U47 Mic kits...oh god....

This is the sort of shit I would die to have.....I guess you can pretty much order kits for all kinds of clones these days. Jesus...to have a REAL clone of a Fairchild 670, instead of a plugin....

Man....there is some wild shit here. These are guys who fucking wind their own transformers and stuff.
Pretty hardcore!

http://www.prodigy-pro.com/diy/index.php

Look in the forums marked "The Lab" or "The Drawing Board".

[Seshmeister]

Need to be careful you don't electrocute yourself.

[Hardrock69]

Not worried about that, lol.

[jhale667]

I too would love to build a Plexi clone some day, but I'm tentative about building something that may electrocute me ....faulty guitar wiring will usually only get you zapped, not fried...lol :eek:

[Nitro Express]

I built a Metropolos kit a few years back. If you are a beginner it's best to go with a kit with good instructions and a clear schematic. It's even better if you have someone experienced to help you. The things you have to watch out for is not discharging a filter capacitor through yourself. I bleed the charge off with a big resistor. Lee Jackson has some videos on amp repair and how to build a test bench that are pretty good. I made one with a variac, osilliscope, and isolation transformer.

What's nice about those old Fender and Marshall designs is they are basic and easy to work on and tweek. The more modern amps with channel switching and multiple circuit boards are harder to work on and modify if you want.

[Hardrock69]

True dat. Friend of mine in Seattle has built several amps over the past couple of years. They sound fucking awesome.

[Coyote]

Wouldn't mind trying a Metro 12000 head, m'self...

[indeedido]

I had a Metro 12000 series head last year that I sold. It was nice, but it was closer to Led Zeppelin than Van Halen. Not a bad thing, I was just looking for something more raw. It did Zep perfectly, it needed to be modded a bit to be more VH. Those guys at Metro know what they're doing. In fact, I'm sending my Marshall 1959slp reissue off tomorrow to Mark at Rockstah Amps (ex Metro forum guru) to do the Mod 5 to it. It will be a VH machine afterwards.