Sunday, March 05, 2006

Primary components loaded

It is hard to believe that 48 hours ago, my amp was just a bunch of parts and a blank aluminum chassis. Here it is with the pots, knobs, switches, input jacks, transformers, and lamp loaded:


The clearcoat did a great job of covering up the white paint (flat) and my ink drawings, it is about twice as good as anything I *thought* I could make.

I will put more effort into this step on my next amp (wishful thinking, huh) because to be honest I had no idea it would even work. I really imagined spending an hour penning the faceplate and then seeing it melt when I sprayed it with lacquer. (If that happened, it probably would have looked cool!)


You may think that the lettering looks fancy, but to me all I see is tax maps, with wording that looks like this:
4.01
80 Ac.
79.59 Ac.(c)

Maybe some time I will create an amp that is stylistically based on such maps, with lines, parcels, roads, North arrows and stuff on it. I would not put it in a cabinet, but leave it out for that cool effect. That would be my office amp!

The clear coat did not drip as bad as I thought - but it is VERY noticeable. I have to learn to be more patient with spray painting.


Notice how optimistic I am about my date of completion.


Well, I have to get on the actual guts of this amp, but first I have a business trip in Chicago. I am going to be thinking about soldering this thing up for a week! Oh well, I know I will finish it before Spring Break is over. (I am 37 years old, and I still get to say 'Spring Break' like someone 20 years younger than me.)


--gh

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