Grand Job, Derek!! Amps should come with a hinged back panel as standard - certainly a more elegant solution that the additional stand or the Fender 'tilt-back' legs, in my opinion.
I spent a bit of time in the lockdown making a few mods to my Blues Jr, and then making an extension speaker cabinet for the same. And then I decided the speaker may as well have an amplifier put into it, as I had one without a cabinet... So I ended up making a chassis... And then I figured it needed a badge, so with the help of Powerpoint, a bit of CAD software, some waterslide decal paper, and a can of acrylic lacquer, an acceptable artifact was created! And then I thought I would use a nice Paisley patttern for the faceplate, just because I could
Pics attached for the perusal of anyone who may be interested.
The Blues Jr had a tune-up to include the following:
- Bigger power stiffening capacitor
- 'Blackface' tone control modification
- Tone capacitors upgraded to Sprague Orange Drops with increased capacitance
- Bias trimpot installed to get the valves running at a sensible temperature!
- Jewel light fitted - this was a massive pain in the a$$ and required the rotation of the main power capacitor, but well worth it as any Fender amp with a plastic LED just looks so wrong!
- Presence control fitted
- Small capacitor added on negative feedback circuit to prevent high frequency oscillation
- External speaker jack inserted into the undercarriage
- New valves
I have to say, it feels a lot more like a bigger amp now. Looking forward to being able to take it out and properly test it in a gig situation!