Amp Chassis Cabinets, Who's good?

[eugenedunn]

Hey Gang,

I have an old Kalamazoo Bass 50 amp that is in 2 parts: A chassis with all the tubes and transformers, and a small squarish metal flip-top plate that only has the input jack, power switch, fuse, pilot light and 3 knobs for Loudness, Bass, Treble.

Since the old cabinet doesn't exist anymore, I was going to restore this amp and make it gig-worthy.

I have seen some cool steel mesh cages that Antique Electronic Supply sells. This would protect the top of the chassis and tubes, but the underside of the chassis would have to be mounted on some kind of wood or other material.

I was thinking of sticking it into a head cabinet and adding a custom faceplate from Amplates.... kind of an expensive proposition, but oh so cool.

A friend of mine really is pushing to keep the metal fliptop control plate, but it is a weird piece of bent metal that won't easily conform to a usable gig-worthy arrangement. Can you guys offer any other insights of how to retrofit this cool bare bones amp? I don't want to put in in a combo format though... just some kind of portable head or chassis thing.

Here's shots of a Bass 30.... which is how this Bass 50 would've looked like, back in the day.

[Dan German]

I have nothing that's of any help to you, but I want to take your friend's side. I think incorporating that control plate (even if you lose the "flip" ability) is a must.

[eugenedunn]

So, does anybody have a good suggestion on how to incorporate that plate?

I thought of getting Amplates to do a photo silkscreen or reproduction of the plate, but put it in a more rectangular arrangement.... which would be more head-cabinet friendly.

Or how about a more squarish Trainwreck type case with the flip-plate face only mounted to the front. I still think it would looks kinda funky.

The other complicating factor is that the amp does have some hum problems which we thought was related to the close wire routing of the AC power lines to the input signal wires....

I thought about removing the power switch, fuse and pilot light and placing them on the chassis...... away from the control knobs and input jacks. This would substantially minimize that kind of interaction. That was one of the motivating forces behind abandoning the original faceplate.

Any more suggestions? Hopefully someone has construction ideas that go along with strong feelings about the make up of the control plate.

[eugenedunn]

Ok, how about "has anyone had any work done by Amplate?" or used one of those steel mesh cages sold by Antique Electronic Supply in an amp project?

I have to mention again that the original wooden cabinet doesn't really exist anymore, otherwise I would've used it.

[eugenedunn]

I found these nice looking steel cages at radiodaze.com

Anybody use these before?

[eugenedunn]

Anybody use Amplates, shown here?

Or how about Weber VST's custom faceplate service?

[eugenedunn]

So no input? I was hoping someone might have experience with this type of amp setup.

Thanks for looking thoough.....