HEATHKIT guitars/amps - any of you guys...?

[jhundt]

I found a site with every Harmony guitar you could imagine, and I found my own "first Electric Guitar"

http://harmony.demont.net/model.php?id=558

My dad was a big fan of Heathkit, he built an osciloscope, a signal generator, etc. When I wanted a guitar, he said "look here in my Heathkit catalog".

Well, I really wanted a St George, or a Ward's Airline, or a Sears guitar - something you could just BUY and play... but Dad thought building a kit would be good for me - and less-expensive.

Back then you mailed in your order with a check (there's 7 or 8 days), then you waited while Heathkit sent your check to their bank (3-5 days), then their bank sent it to YOUR bank for approval (5-10 days) then YOUR bank sent a message to Heathkit's bank that the check had cleared (another 5-10 days). So Heathkit's bank sent a message to Heathkit to ship the guitar (there's another 10 days) and maybe the following week UPS would pick it up. Then a long laborious shipping process (3-4 months) and before you know it, the guitar is in YOUR HANDS!... IF you were home when the delivery truck came by....

Anyway, I won't tell the whole story. I managed to get my first electric guitar delivered; I managed to get the kit assembled. Then - I needed an amp...

My Dad said I could have one for my birthday... IF IT WAS A HEATHKIT!!! And don't ya know - I fell for it. I worked on that kit for 3 months, and I still couldn't make it work. Finally got Dad to drive me to the nearest Heath Service Center... they kept the amp for about 4 months. When I got it back it was finally working! Now all I needed was a fuzz-box...

Sure, said Dad - I'll get you a Fuzz-Box... "why looky here, Heathkit has one!". So I got a Heathkit Fuzz-Box too.

My whole early life as a rock'n'roll guitar player was inextricably bound to the HeathKit company. Did it help me, or hinder me? I don't know... but I sure do remember all that stuff fondly.

Any other HeathKit grads?

[getbent]

yep. We had a heathkit store in anaheim off like ball and lewis st. I used to ride my bike down there... I remember designing and building a system to put music and an intercom in one of my teachers houses... that was a bunch of work and in their converted garage I installed a quadraphonic system. It was a blast cutting holes in the ceiling, building the amps etc... wiring it... I think I was there about 2 weeks and they paid me 200.00 plus all the parts... I even put speakers in the backyard (ala disneyland) the heathkit guys were all really cool to me and helped me when I got stuck... I must have ridden there a hundred times....

I rebuilt an old grundig console sw, record player, receiver tube unit and all the parts to connect it to a cool sw antenna came from there too...

You have made my day! I'd love to hop on my bike and ride down there again...

[ThermionicScott]

Heathkit was great. I'm just old enough to have been able to assemble a small radio from one of their kits (I was about 11 or 12 ). Thankfully, the spirit lives on in companies like Weber and Ceriatone and...

- Scott

[Slow Reflexes]

All the test equipment in my college electronics lab was Heath. Not kits, but the same stuff.

I missed out on the HeathKit thing by a few years, but I've wished it was still around many times.

[Fendrcaster]

My father built his first stereo system from Heathkit kits, 2 seperate amps, preamp, tuner, etc. I fondly remember helping him build the kits, it was a great learning experience and time to spend with my father.
My mother built a Heathkit transistor radio. When it was done, it wouldn't work. So, we took it to the Heathkit service center to get it working. When it came back, there was a tag that the guy at the store had put on it, saying "Be careful, a woman built this"! I guess things were different back in the late '50's.

[Brick]

Built my first amp from a Heathkit. I kept blowing the speakers so finally bought a JBL. Wish I had the JBL. I also build a dwell/volt meter for my auto tuneup needs.

[boris bubbanov]

We built a lot of Heath-kit stuff. Computers, FM receivers, and one of those big ol Solid State guitar amps that 0le Fuzzy likes so much.

Also built one of the Harmony Rockets resold as Heathkits. The harness and other assembly was really not that bad; I got it all together and working great from an electrical standpoint with no trouble, no scratches, etc. But the basic construction of the Harmony guitar was total garbage. The action was like 5/8ths inch off the board in no time and I used the thinnest strings I could find.

[meyekel]

I have a single ended Heathkit guitar amp. It's modded of course but it sounds great nonetheless with a KT66. I can swap tubes with reckless abandon as it's my homebrew Univalve.

[Paul in Colorado]

I had a bass player once who had a Heathkit Guitar Amp. We think it was a Vox Super Beatle in a different package since it had three channels (one for bass) and all the other stuff a Thomas Organ Vox amp had. It seemed to work pretty well.

[Eric Karonen]

Wow! I dont recall them making guitar amps, but then, I wasnt playing guitar at the time. I would love to solder something together in my old age. (My apostrophes are not working at this time! What a drag!)

We had several Heathkit stores here in Toronto so they musta been huge!

[Tele295]

I have a Heathkit fuzz pedal that a buddy found in a thrift store for a dollar

[jhundt]

I too have a Heathkit fuzz that I built when I was 15 or so. It is huge and black, a beautiful case of cast metal. I think it has a nice old germanium transistor in there, and it sounds all-the-way 60's. I used it for some special effects on a recording a while ago.

[Anchoret]

Strangely, I never built any Heath products, but back when I was doing technical writing I adhered religiously to Heath's unique documentation methodology, which I regard as genius.

[Larry F]

It is said that the first Sunn amps were built from Heathkits. Norm Sunnholm from the Kingsmen and his brother started building robust speaker cabinets and needed an amp to power them. That's how Sunn got started.

[trag-o-caster]

An old teacher of mine, who was also a friend of the family had an old Heathkit tube guitar amp that was something like a Vibrolux Reverb, having 2x10's, and I THINK (but don't quote me on this) it had two 6L6 type power tubes. I remember it being a really nice sounding amp when you cranked it. He let us borrow it for an extended period of time, and it was my favorite amp to play through at the time.

[markophonic]

A friend of mine still plays a Heathkit amp.

I'm about an hour from St. Joseph, MI Where the company was located. Me and my dad used to go to Heath all the time. My dad was always building stuff. The first thing I ever built was a Telegraph key and buzzer for use in an amatuer radio class I took.

I had to build it as part of the class prior to learning to tap out morse code.

We built radios, test equipment etc. I wish I still had the ocilliscope.

[Eric Karonen]

Originally Posted by Larry F

It is said that the first Sunn amps were built from Heathkits. Norm Sunnholm from the Kingsmen and his brother started building robust speaker cabinets and needed an amp to power them. That's how Sunn got started.

Now that's a cool bit of trivia!

[JimLange_FLA]

Originally Posted by Eric Karonen

Wow! I dont recall them making guitar amps, ...

Hi Eric! Yes, they made at least three different solid state amps and before SS made at least on tube amp for musical instruments. I built the TA-17 (120 watts RMS, 240 watts peak) and two TA-17-1 cabinets, each with two 12" Jensen guitar speakers and one 16" Jensen horn. It was the loudest and cleanest-sounding amp I've owned, and I hated to have to sell it in 1976. Hated it so much that I have recently purchased two non-working TA-17 heads and one TA-17-1 cabinet, now have one working and am building a bass cabinet for it with Eminence Legend CB158's. Plan to use one TA-17 for guitar and one for bass.

[dickinsonc]

I've heard that these TA17's were actually a copy of the Vox/Thomas "Super Beatle". Vox denies it.... I finally got a schematic of the Vox to go over.... so we'll see (it SURE looks like a copy from the operational end anyway). I've got two of 'em, both had been stored in the attic for over 20 years... I'm sure the caps have gone south by now.... don't know if they are worth rebuilding or not. If anyones interested.... (and can wield a soldering iron... drop me a note.... (I'm a keyboard guy & run all Crown amps these days)... cl

[Barbeque John]

Actually Sunn used Dynakit power amplifiers, I had an early Sunn bass head which had a Sunn built preamp and a Dynaco power amp. I built a Dynakit FM tuner back in the 70s, I still have it and it still works. All tube, of course, it goes nicely with my Scottkit stereo preamp/amplifier, and Electrovoice Marquis speakers. Electrovoice sold the boxes and components separately, so one could save some money and assemble them yourself, which I did, in 1966.

[dickinsonc]

I believe the Heathkit guys had a superbeatle set up in the lab... because they sure tried to copy the "idea". It appears that Heathkit went for a more "modern" design, the output transistors are direct coupled to the speakers (the Vox uses a transformer like a tube amp). Plus the Heathkits appear to use more stages of amplification (possibly to get the distortion down a bit????).
So.......... completely different design, but attempting to capture the "essence"... Have no idea if they sound similar (would be interesting to fire 'em up side by side)... But I would guess that Heathkit tried to keep the distortion down as much as possible (whereas guitar amp "designers" just let 'er rip... more power scotty and da** the engines).

[dented]

Here's mine, I didn't actually build it though.

[paratus]

This thread brings back a lot of memories. Back in HS I couldn't afford expensive test equipment, so I built a Heathkit dual trace scope, VTVM, impedance bridge and signal generator for my little speaker company. I had a couple EICO pieces too.

Built a few DYNACO amps. Mark III I think with 2 KT88s if I recall? A local builder put guitar pre's in front of the various DYNACOs and built some very cool (for the time) guitar and bass heads....The company was West, I recall them making Fillmore and Grande models.

[Larry F]

Originally Posted by Barbeque John

Actually Sunn used Dynakit power amplifiers, I had an early Sunn bass head which had a Sunn built preamp and a Dynaco power amp. I built a Dynakit FM tuner back in the 70s, I still have it and it still works. All tube, of course, it goes nicely with my Scottkit stereo preamp/amplifier, and Electrovoice Marquis speakers. Electrovoice sold the boxes and components separately, so one could save some money and assemble them yourself, which I did, in 1966.

Right, it was Dynakit. My friends and I talked about building them, but never worked up the nerve. Most of our dads were engineer types, so they probably would have turned out OK.

[megafiddle]

Heathkit was pretty unique in many ways. They had about the first digital
FM tuner. And i don't think there were too many other color TV kits around.

Good learning experience too. Probably where I really learned to solder well.

I built a couple of their scopes, a signal generator, and the fuzz box.

They had a trumpet shaped horn speaker for guitar which I never had a chance
to hear. Might have been interesting, especially later when new sounds and
effects began becoming real popular.

[kingofdogs1950]

I built a Heathkit Vox Jaguar kit in 1968. Lots of fun, lots of parts. Played many gigs with it through my rolled and pleated 200w Kustom!


Mark

[Geo]

I remember a guy I worked with buying a color TV set and building it.
I bought a HC home stereo consul minus the amp and turntable but it had
Altec-Lansing 15" + horn ported Voice of the Theaters on each side.
Sounded awesome and for that time a high end speaker set up.

[dickinsonc]

Ahhh.. it does bring back memories...
Back in "the day"... I was running a Harmon-Kardon Citation II amp for the front speakers, two 45 watt dynaco's for the rear, and a 60 watt dynaco for the center sub. Worked great in the winter (I could heat the house)....
Whats really scarey is I still have 'em all........ maybe one of these days I can find some rich tube aficionado with more $$ then sense............

[Woody Duke]

Back in the late '60s my buddies and I played in an "Up with People" band in SD county. (90% girls - we liked the odds.) The lead player in the "big city" San Diego UWP group played a strat through a big honkin' Heathkit with a 2x15 cab. He enjoyed putting down our twin blonde Tremoluxes - "Hear that? They're CLIPPING! Too bad you don't have one of THESE..." Whose amp'd be worth more now, you pretentious...?
Later we briefly had a 3rd guitar player who used a Heathkit 2x12 combo. It was loud and he was bad. After a practice we left the Tremoluxi in his garage for the next day's practice: it was the last we saw of them. He claimed they were stolen; we think he sold them for drug money. (The "thieves" left his Heathkit - maybe they had good taste.) So I miss my '64 Tremolux every time I see "Heathkit." Grrr!

[choupique]

My father and I built one of the big console color tv's. Well, I pretty much just sorted parts into cupcake pans and watched closely. He was a doctor and an artist and could do pretty much anything he set out to do. The tv had a built in alignment generator and took about 4 months to build. It even worked at 1st power up. That was great fun and is probably why I've been working in TV studio maintenance for 30 years.

[Warm Gums]

Local GC had a TA-17 for $40 not long ago, wanted to check it out, but it went quick.

[TeleTim911]

I always thought Heathkit was good stuff. I played in a band with a bass player that had one of those and it was a good amp. He later upgraded to (IIRC) an Ampeg. The head stored by flipping it over into the cab. The front of the amp lit up also when turned on.

I had a bunch of Heathkit test equipment, but sold it on Ebay when I was out of work back like 2000 or so. Several oscilloscopes, all sorts meters, capacitance checkers, you name it I probably had it. Wish I could have kept it, but we needed to eat worse than playing with electronics.

[jimbo735]

My friends father worked there as did my uncle the story my friend tells me is his father worked on a piggy back tube amp, He tells me it was a Heathkit amp, and it sounded amazing, He played through it at home. His father brought it home to work on it. They very well could have stole from the vox ,companies are always going through the competitions products. I grew up and live in this area of that company We were into there kits also It was a great experience for me I'm still into the electronic maintenance and troubleshooting and repair.