Let’s see your 50’s-era TWEEDS (and clones)!

My 3rd Rail 5e5.

It's capable of taking 6l6s or 6v6s, currently setup with 5881s.
I like 5e3s, but I've always liked 20+watt, 6L6 powered fenders with a 15" speaker. The 5e5 (not the "a") is essentially a bigger 5e3 with a 15, trouble was finding someone who makes one. Brian at third rail offered "pro-lux" style 5e3s that ran other power tubes, and that was who I went through to get mine. Great guy to deal with.

Running a Weber DT15. Wanted something deliberately inefficient, and it seems to do generally what I wanted. I'm not exactly drowning in options for a 15" you can describe as deliberately inefficient....

Embarrassingly, I have not tried to console steels through it yet. House has been tumultuous, and they're a bit to unpack(I could never be a pedal steel guy...).

Controls wise, it's a 5e3 regarding pickups, knobs, holes/jumpering. It just sounds a bit different, and I cant wait to gig with it.

For the record, 3rd rail and Vintagetone are both able to do 5e5's for reasonable prices.

 

My 5e3 clone that I got in about 2012; had deluxe reverb transformers and a vintage p12N, as well as vintage grounding/heater scheme. Noisy and buzzy, except at low volumes.

After a long thread here attempting to mitigate the buzz, I just pulled the board and rebuilt it from the chassis up as a quarantine project. Now she’s quiet as a mouse, and sounds awesome with a treble booster running into it. I love the lacquered and reliced cab too. Great amp.

before, with the orange drops and a rats nest by the PT, and after, with mallorys.

 

I don't own any vintage ones, but I built this Tweed Deluxe clone using a Mission chassis kit around 10 years ago. It ended up costing less than half of what Fender wanted for their reissue. The lacquered tweed cabinet is from Mojotone and the speaker is a Weber 12A125A. I got the nameplate online for $25. My first and only amp build, it's been a great sounding workhorse. I've been soldering since I was a kid, and just studied the supplied pictures and layout and took my time. Some guys build one in 6 hours. I think it took me around 30 . I've gigged with it a lot.




When I need more stage volume I use this Fender 57 Twin RI (the low power 5E8A). It's the best sounding amp I've ever had. I was lucky to find it used in pristine condition 12 years ago. The only thing I've done to it is add some resistance to the bias circuit so I can bias 5881s in place of the 6L6s. It's my current avatar amp:

 

Sorry but I’ve gotta revive this thread now that I’ve completed my first build, a 5E3x2 kit from Weber.

 

Thanks. Yes, those are 12s. Only completed it last night and made sure I got sound, but haven’t played it yet. I’ll report back in the next few days when I’ve had a chance to play it.

 

5D3 clone in a heavily reliced tweed cab:



Started life as a 5e3 kit, then modded to hell and back and eventually gutted and rebuilt as a 5D3. I like it a lot better now than I ever did as a 5e3 variant.

A Harvard with a 6g15 reverb unit built into the same chassis, in a wide panel style cab:



And a 5c3 in a Gibson style cabinet, but with a vintage field coil speaker and 6k6 power tubes:

 

OK I would love to play.

The Original - 1956 Tweed Deluxe owned since new by my FIL. I took all the sizing for my build off of this amp.



I built my 5E3 Clone with the information I had from the FIL's amp. I am not a huge fan of tweed and it was really expensive when I went looking for it. But I found this cool ostrich skin material for little to nothing at JoAnn's. It has a Weber Vintage 12" speaker, vintage correct OT and PT and some bits from Dave at Boothill with a homemade garolite eyelet board. Cab and covering by me.



I also have a tweed wrapped Bronco but it is not tube driven. I have been thinking of dropping my 5F1 chassis into it and making a little champ.

 

Well you all have seen this one before but here is my Allen Classic 57. It a 5E7 circuit head with a 4 and 8 ohm tap so I can have my Pro, Bandmaster and a Super by using different cabinets. It has a great sound! Thanks John

 

Built this one 5 years ago from the Mojo 5f1

 

Top is my 5E3, bottom is my 5E7. Both have their charms, but the 5E7 is my best amp. This one is odd in gaving 60's Bassman iron and an extra transformer for the 5V rectifier filament. Very heavy amp.

The "5F11" has been demoted from tweed status since it is living with 6L6's at the moment. It is currently hooked to the 4x10 behind it...

 

Here's my 2005 Li'l Dawg Champster Special:

On the shelf:

2005 Li'l Dawg Champster Special in the Mancave by biffnix posted Dec 3, 2020 at 10:20 AM

Rear View (2x10 P10r Jensen speakers in pine cabinet)

Rear view by biffnix posted Dec 3, 2020 at 10:20 AM

Looking at the tubes. I really like the vintage look of the old Coke-bottle tube pulls from old equipment.

Tubes by biffnix posted Dec 3, 2020 at 10:20 AM

Controls are really simple. One chicken-head knob controls the volume. Switch is an On/Standby/Off.

Controls. Pretty simple. by biffnix posted Dec 3, 2020 at 10:20 AM

Label inside the hand-made cabinet. This was built before Jim stopped making his own cabinets for his amps. He contracts out these days, but when he started, he made his own cabinets, which are meticulously well-made. Solid pine dovetailed cabinet, wrapped in lacquered tweed. It's a gorgeous amp, and it sounds even better.

Label inside Champster Special by biffnix posted Dec 3, 2020 at 10:20 AM

Here's a link to the photos Jim took while building it:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/biffnix/albums/72157652250978605

 

Funny you should mention that story you came up with. That type of thing NEVER happened. When I dated my wife I am not really sure her Dad liked me. At that point in my life I had not played a guitar for over fifteen years and really had no interest in guitars at all so we never talked guitars or gear. It was only probably six to ten years after we married that I picked up the guitar again.

Funny story, about four years after we got married my wife's parents moved in with us. They were in transition and needed a place to stay for six months. We had a downstairs bonus room that was rehabbed to be a Master Suite and my in laws move in. When we moved them out six months later I had my younger, guitar crazy brother over to help move the in laws out. We were tearing the bed down and after we got the box springs out of the way we started taking the stuff under the bed out. In that stuff was my FIL's 56 safely nestled in its tweed case. I pulled the case out and slid it over by the wall while I grabbed something else under the bed.
My brother notices the case: "What is that?"
Me: "My FIL's old guitar."
My brother: "Really? Can I look at it?"
Me: "Sure, go ahead. Its just an old guitar." (yeah I laugh at that now)
My brother goes over to the case, places it on top of a couple of boxes and then proceeds to open it. It was almost like the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the glow came out of the ark and the look on his face was priceless. He ran his hands up and down the length of the guitar like he was caressing a lover and then he turned and looked at me.
My Brother: "This is a 1950's telecaster!"
Me: "OK, whatever."
My Brother: "Man this is a nice guitar, does he ever play it?":
Me: "Sometimes he hooks it up to the amp in the closet."
My Brother: "THERE IS AN AMP IN THE CLOSET?"
I lost his help for about thirty minutes as he drooled over all the tweed in the room.

 

Mine are all Gibsons

56 GA5 Les Paul Junior 4w - pictured with its partner 55 LPJunior. Frequently sold as a pair in the 50s. I have to be careful that the monster guitar doesn't blow up the fragile 5" x3" Jensen!

59 GA8 Gibsonette 8w - dual single ended. Perfect for small gigs - the sweetest sounding amp I've ever played.

59 GA18T Explorer 14w - perfect for slightly bigger pub gigs. Awesome footswitchable tremolo.

60 GA77 Vanguard. Ultra rare, 1x15" speaker and a monster (for the time) 25w. Vox 'borrowed' the top boost circuit from these! Used for outdoor gigs.

I love these amps - just as good as equivalent Fenders for less than half the price - don't tell anyone...........

 

1955 5E3 Deluxe
1958 5F2 Princeton
1958 5F4 Super

 

Odd balls...Muchxs champ with 6x9. Late 40's silvertone 1301 with 6" rola, Bogen recordplay conversion se6L6 and a octal pp6v6 project awaiting some work

Muchxs Champ by wrathfuldeity posted May 3, 2020 at 1:41 PM

9x6 Alnico Jensen by wrathfuldeity posted May 3, 2020 at 1:43 PM

Silvertone 1301 4 by wrathfuldeity posted Sep 11, 2020 at 8:13 AM

Silvertone 1301 3 by wrathfuldeity posted Sep 11, 2020 at 8:13 AM

DSCF9760 by wrathfuldeity posted Sep 9, 2020 at 9:35 AM

Bogan Guts by wrathfuldeity posted Sep 11, 2020 at 8:10 AM

DSCF9765 by wrathfuldeity posted Jun 10, 2020 at 5:51 PM

DSCF9768 by wrathfuldeity posted Jun 10, 2020 at 5:51 PM

DSCF9779 by wrathfuldeity posted Jun 30, 2020 at 8:58 AM