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.

image removed

 

[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]

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]

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]

Heathkit TA17 Combo-Amp heads (Vox super beatle?)

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.