Project: Carlsbro PA 60 Head

As mentioned previously Mr. Foxen of Ampstack has given me a Carlsbro PA 60 to work on.



From what I can tell from info-mining the internet this is a early-mid 70s model, probably a late Mk II. All other Mk IIs I've seen pictures of are point-to-point wired whereas this is on PCB, but I cannot find any reference to a Mk III so kind of assuming that at some point during the Mk II being in production it was changed to PCB construction.)

I have done initial solder refreshing and resistor testing. During the course of this testing I learned that sometimes resistors in circuit test at a lower ohmage than they are rated for and that by popping one end out of the board you can make sure they're sound. One of the resistors is duff (cheapo non-original, natch) plus the HT fuse has blown so that needs replacing. There was also a bodged in power cable which I've now removed.





Next I'm going to clean up the valve sockets, pots, input jack, etc. and after that is powering up with no valves to check voltages.

Finally here is a bit of random human interest stuff. The amp was apparently built by Trev and tested by people who as far as I know exist only as initials.

Hondo II Rickenfaker

Regular readers will be aware that I'm quite keen on the aesthetics of Rickenbacker 4000 series basses, but less keen on Rickenbacker as a company, so I compromise by being into so-called Rickenfakers.

Yesterday I bought a Hondo II Rickenfaker (not sure what the actual model name is) that needs quite a bit of TLC; at the very least a new switch, replacement machineheads, and a lot of cleaning.


 It looks awesome. And is far closer in apperance to a 'proper' Rick than my Retrovibe RV-4.

There are more pics over on Flickr.

Now it's lunchtime, and I'll start the cleanup this afternoon.