The Steel Guitar Forum

Has anyone tried one of these?
http://torresengineering.stores.yahoo.n ... vkit1.html

I have a Fender Super Six, and was thinking about just going through and basically making a "new" (old) amp. I've done some minor amp repair, and this looks pretty straight-forward--just take out the old parts, and solder in the new--right?

1.) Torres is not that well thought-of in the amp community... he's been making hack mods for a long time. I'm not saying the parts kit would be bad, but there are many other options, look into it.

2.) If I were to go through a Super Six and blueprint it I'd also replace the plastic wiring with cloth-covered wiring... I have a friend that took his Torres-mod-hacked Twin (sounded horrible) and took it to full blackface circuit AB763 , including the wiring... he obtained a picture of the insides of a BF Twin and copied it slavishly... the result was stellar. The deal with cloth solid-core wiring is that it will stay where you put it, unlike the (much cheaper) plastic multi-strand wiring of post'68 Fenders. Much of the mojo of these amps was in the lead dress... there is no lead dress with plastic wiring.

My best recommendation would be to obtain a new circuit board kit for the AB763 circuit... pull the entire board/wires out, leaving the tube sockets and pots. Then you can go back to stock, should you ever desire to... or sell the board, it has some vintage cache'. Fender amps were soldered from the bottom, that's how they get the domed look to their soldering... you can't get that from the top, it stands out like a sore thumb. Stuff the board, then solder it from the back like the ladies did long ago.

Also, on a Super Six, the alnico speakers lose magnetic sync with age... watch them when playing bass notes and see if they all 'woof' together, mine didn't. You can re-mag them, replace them with ceramics, or put in a different baffle... or get a repo Twin cabinet for 2 12's or a 4ohm 15". The amp was not a popular configuration, for a reason... huge monster being one of them.

I have to agree about Torres. I have seen his rebuild kits and better quality parts can be had for sure. From Torres you will get a bag of caps and resistors, nothing marked, all just thrown in there. You need to test all the components anyway but geeze, what a mess. You will be changing the amp to fixed adjustable bias from bias balance if you follow the AB763 Twin circuit. A good thing.

I'd sit down with an AB763 layout and make a bill of materials then order my parts from Antique Electronic Supply. Mojotone has the correct 20 guage solid push back wire and good quality eyelet boards. If you want to install a preassembled main board Marsh Amps has them available.

Don't forget filter and bias caps. I would also change the dropping resistors on the cap board.

If I were going full overhaul on that thing I would talk to Mike Pascale at http://vintagefenderamprepair.com/

He sells kits, and actually knows what he is doing as opposed to Torres who has a terrible reputation. Mike sells kits with original vintage fender parts as well - makes a huge difference.

I would skip the fiber board if you do a complete rebuild. The black fiber has carbon in it which becomes conductive over time - this will create a lot of noise. You can skip the whole mess by getting an eyelet board from Watts tube audio.

Thanks for the tips, y'all! That's exactly what I needed to know .

Ethan - I recently upgraded and replaced a bunch of components in a Fender Super Six. I was able to get a lot of help and advice from a local experienced amp tech.

He advised I replace all the eletrolytics (including filter caps) and upgrade a number of resistors to metal film. He also upgraded the power (removed the death cap, added 3 prong plug) and added the bias mod.

It took about 40-50 hours for the caps to burn in, but now I'm pretty happy with the sound of the amp.

Get the schematic and layout here:
http://ampwares.com/schematics/Super-Six-Schematic.jpg

http://ampwares.com/schematics/100W_Mas ... in_Rev.pdf

Here's my post about the amp.
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... 3e4e9ba66a

I bought one for my 71 pro reverb less the power supply caps. "i had already replaced them. A little pricey. Get a schematic of your amp and list all components you want to replace and order from Hoffman amps or another supplier. Doug Hoffman offers a lot of fender knowledge on his website.

I bought one for my 71 pro reverb less the power supply caps. "i had already replaced them. A little pricey. Get a schematic of your amp and list all components you want to replace and order from Hoffman amps or another supplier. Doug Hoffman offers a lot of fender knowledge on his website.

"Much of the mojo of these amps was in the lead dress."

Abdo-lutely! Many times I have watched my tech replace a wire on many models of Fender amps. He said, "It's too short, and it runs in the wrong place. With the chassis flipped it was on the far right side. He'd run his new wire so that it went around the board, not across it.
I've also seen him scrub many boards with cleaner because the top layer had become conductive. Both these procedures really quieted down some somewhat noisy amps. But he did the wire thing to all amps.