NAD: Another Silverface Champ in the house

This was found on Craigslist, the guy was wanting a vintage acoustic archtop. I had a Kay that was just hanging on my wall so we struck a deal.
Its a 1973 model but with later grillcloth it looks like.
It had a really dirty bass control that was causing the amp to cut out. Took me 3 tries with my spray cleaner but its working like new. It cleaned up really fine. Tested the tubes and they were good also.
I tore it all down last night, cleaned the cab twice, once with paint remover to get the white paint splatter off, then some conditioner on the tolex and basic cleaning of the jacks and pots. Chrome cleaner on the chrome and here it is. Sounds great. Has the sticker from the music shop it was sold in on the back and the red warning tag on the power cord.

Sounds like you may have doubled its value. I could never understand why people won't take the effort to wipe the dust off of something before taking a picture of it for sale, yet they still want top dollar. Lazy. It's only a little extra effort to show that nothing has been hidden, and that it's been cared for.

The dust on the amps I get cant just be wiped off. Its usually been embeded into the tolex for 40-50 years. A scrub brush and good cleaner several times fixes that. With taking it apart, cleaning the grillcloth & tolex, vacuuming, blowing out the chassis, polishing the chrome, cleaning the pots and jacks tube sockets and tube pins, conditioning the tolex I can easily spend 2 hours on a small Champ like this.
Longest cleanup was a Super Reverb that had never been cleaned. That took about 6 hours total. But it turned out great and sold quick. I actually enjoy cleaning them up.
Rob

I take 'em apart too. Like you said, it can be enjoyable. I even clean the grills in a bathtub with Woolite. Fill the tub about 3/8" and bounce it around for a few seconds, then dry it with a hair dryer.

That looks wonderful...A+ man... I wish you took a before pic... I keep my amps covered when not using so they always look great and once a month I spray out the back of cab cause you know them dust bunnies be hoppin around outta nowhere. Great find

I always forget to take a before picture. Its amazing the difference. For grillcloth that stuff called Oxiclean is great. I now have a carpet cleaning machine with an upholstery cleaning tool I use on the grillcloth. It applies the cleaner, then sucks it up. Dries in a few minutes and really pulls the dirt out.

Great job on cleaning it up, it probably didn't look that sharp when it was new. Good tip on the Oxiclean, will remember that. Thanks.

Looks great. Congrats, I've got a 73 Champ also.

I have a very clean 72 Champ thats close to this one. Curious about your "conditioner" to keep the tolex in shape, as well as Chrome cleaner. I'm mindful of the the "first do no harm" adage, don't want to go in with wrong stuff and have remorse that the dust was preferable to the cleaner residue or damage. Thanks in advance.

Congrats, nice champ.

Howdy,

Congrats and enjoy that baby!