Just ordered My 5E3 Kit.

[Revv23]

Now the hardest part, waiting!!!

It's coming from Stephen over at trinity amps. If you haven't dealt with them or seen their stuff be sure to check them out. http://trinityamps.com/

As always Stephen is a pleasure to deal with!! They offer high quality reasonably priced products and amazing customer service...Plenty of tone there too.

This will be my third trinity kit. I have a sIII (18w with a standard normal channel, and a lower gain TMB channel that acts more like a JTM - rather than the typical overdone TMB most are used too.) that gets played for a few hours a day; and a TC-15 that I don't play as much; not that it's bad I just really like my 18w. Funny thing about G.A.S.

I usually get my cabs from Stephen @ trinity but this time I went with a Mojo Cab. I'm sure Stephens are great but the deal I got on the mojo was too good to pass up.

I also have a BBQ 12A125A coming in, and I have a ToneTubby AlNiCo 12 I can try from my 18w.

I'm currently a Strat player but I have my first Tele coming in from Ron Kirn Signature so I figured i needed the historically correct amp to go with my new tele.

If all goes well I'll have the amp going 100% about the time the tele shows up on my door step!!

More to follow!

-Mark

[Revv23]

Hate to be the first to reply to my own thread but I thought I'd include a few pics of my current stuff.



This is my trinity "stack" lol. the speaker cab is a tone tubby alnico 12" and a tone tubby ceramic 12" mixed in what they call a "bomb". With some fancy switch wiring I can run off of both or one or the other to mix and match my sounds/ volume. 8ohms with both 4 ohms with one or the other.



My strat in it's current form. It's a MIM from the 90's that I messed with too much as a kid... I don't mind it makes some nice noise for me. It is the same as the one with the maple neck in the first pick. the RW neck comes from a buddy's MIM that he left at my house for too long!!!



You can see a few things in this pick... aged looking pup covers and knobs... I think it really makes the tinted white finish look classy... much classier than most MIM strats IMHO.




The Pups are kinman and I managed to smash a callaham bridge in there... yup - i bought the expensive crap. Live and learn. Did I pay too much? Absolutely. Does it sound awesome? Absolutely! In that sense I guess I didnt pay too much.

Ok back to the 5E3 Build I promise.

-Mark

[Big Mike Blues]

Lookin good!

Let us know how it goes.
I've been slowly amassing parts for my own 5e3 build. i did a couple metro kits, so I'm going 'commando' on this one. LOL

[javabirds]

I have been through two MOJO tweed deluxe cabs and they were both great!! Have fun!

[telex76]

Too bad they don't make left handed amps.

[Revv23]

Originally Posted by telex76

Too bad they don't make left handed amps.

Is that why I always drop my pick when shutting this thing down?

[acalan]

Always good to see another lefty here.I'd like to see what an amp kit looks like. put up a lot of pictures if you could. It might be this years winter project for me . thanks

[Revv23]

Originally Posted by acalan

Always good to see another lefty here.I'd like to see what an amp kit looks like. put up a lot of pictures if you could. It might be this years winter project for me . thanks

I plan on doing just that my friend. I might even bust out my sm57 when I'm done fer ya. :)

You can't go wrong building you own amp. Save some money and impress your friends with good tone and your magical abilities.

*disclaimer* if these kits werent given to me with a guide I'd have no clue how the damn things work!!! But my buddies don't know that ... Do they??? * end disclaimer*

[Revv23]

Took a few shots of her last night... Sorry for bad cellphone cam. Ill bring my point and click back from work...



The back of my "bomb" cab... notice one alnico and one ceramic. compliment nicely IMHO.



The "business end"



The tubes they are a glowin. :)

More to follow.

-Mark

[teleamp]

Originally Posted by Big Mike Blues

Lookin good!

Let us know how it goes.
I've been slowly amassing parts for my own 5e3 build. i did a couple metro kits, so I'm going 'commando' on this one. LOL

careful with the soldering iron when going commando

[Duke]

I'd love to hear da bomb speaker duo you have there. Droolworthy! :)

[Revv23]

Originally Posted by Duke

I'd love to hear da bomb speaker duo you have there. Droolworthy! :)

I've never taken a clip before but if i get a chance' before the tweed shows up I will. It's sounds terrific. :)

Is there a way to take a sound clip and merge it with video? Because I have my iphone as a cam and my sm57 as a mic.

[Revv23]

OK so it's time to replace my time tested war proven radioshack soldering Iron.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...odsInSession=1



A sad day indeed.

This iron needed to go for a few good reasons:

-Takes about 5 minutes to heat up
-Have to wait about a minute between joints. Esp on larger joints. (like on a turret board in an amp)
-Has cheap plastic screws holding the pencil giving you a "wobbly" point... not good on small electronics (i.e. my PC; I repair computers from time to time also)
-The metal is dissimilar so when you heat it up and cool it down several time the tip no longer fits. This can happen after a single project. And the tip wears out very quickly. It just makes clean soldering impossible.

I don't mind dirty soldering so much as long as my noisemaker (amp) makes the right kind of noise. But troubleshooting is much harder when your iron isn't up to snuff. Oh, and so is soldering.

What to do?

After 100% no research at all I ordered this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I30QBW/ref=ox_ya_os_product

46 positive customer reviews on amazon and free shipping? Can I buy it with one click? Wait let me think about it...Sorry sir you already bought it - you may as well learn to like it and hope those Chinese built a good knockoff iron.


To learn how to solder you can use any of 100 million guides out there but I just happened to stumble across a terrific simple one from one of my favorite sites; beavisaudio.com http://www.beavisaudio.com/techpages/How-to-solder/

A great guide and great site the guy has lots of awesome guitar gadget projects he does.

Iron has shipped:

A few days and I'll bust it out and practice...

More to follow

-Mark

[Revv23]

Iron will be here tomorrow...

Amp is in shipment. I am having a really tough time waiting so I will post a few more pictures. Sorry if this is boring.



60/40 lead solder... rosin core so no need for flux...



My beat up old radio shack iron



look at how bad that tip is... that is after one amp and a few pedals. not even that much work.



really bad... i guess for 10 bucks you cant complain but. . .



My trusty meter... also radio crap brand. it does not read capacitance... I wonder is there any formula I can use or do i need to buy a meter that can read capacitance to read it?


-Mark

[Revv23]

Soldering Iron is in....

Pretty exciting! ( for me anyway) I even got my better camera out.


Well packaged:



ok maybe a little sloppy



Nice pencil! My hand will physically be much closer to the joint, allowing me to be more accurate than ever before. The shaft of the pencil is also much thinner and lighter, making it easier to hold in my hands.


Now one big thing about the amazon reviews on this iron is that the iron doesn't fit in the station. Well... whats the point of a soldering station if your station doesn't hold your iron? So this was a major point of anxiety for me....

So lets test it:




DOH!

[Revv23]

Definitely does not fit... not even a little.

Notice the shaft of the iron touching the heat shield. We DO NOT want this.



So what do we do? We angle the iron in and "wedge" it into the base. Like this:



Works for me. :) I could file it out but I most likely will be to lazy for that. It's a nice heavy metal stand and I don't know why they would make it so it doesn't fit.... but for the $50 or so I saved getting this Chinese iron over a brand name I can deal with it... as long as it works....

so next step - the test! Lets plug her in and grab the solder!


this is about 20 seconds in... already at 300c....


And Bam! Solder cut like butter and took to the tip very nicely. This should do just fine.




:)

-Mark

[Revv23]

Does anyone know where I can get 18 to 20ga solid copper with cloth insulation? I think on a 5E3 cloth wire would look great.

[big-daddy-59]

Originally Posted by Revv23

Does anyone know where I can get 18 to 20ga solid copper with cloth insulation? I think on a 5E3 cloth wire would look great.

Weber sells cloth covered wire.

[Revv23]

thanks, but most of their stuff was 22ga stranded... I like solid hookup wire...it stays where you put it... if you know what I mean... just a preference...

I found some here: http://www.turretboards.com/

I was nervous about ordering from a site i didn't know so I called their contact number and a nice young lady named Jackie answered first ring and told me that they could ship today.

Good enough for me. :) You know when you can find their phone number on their site you might have a problem.

Got 10ft of yellow, and 5ft of green for the heaters... also 5ft of brown, just because.

Should be way too much. Just what I wanted. :)

[Big Mike Blues]

Originally Posted by teleamp

careful with the soldering iron when going commando

I know right?