Black Mountain Custom Amps

We worked on so mamy different brands in the past 4 weeks: Orange, Fender, Mesa, Marshall, Vox, Ampeg, and Egnater. However, today is Marshall pics day. :) Two interesting repairs: 1) A stereo rackmount Marshall EL84 20-20 with a bunch of problems in the power amp/biasing, including 2 blown output transformers. No surprise the transformers were gone, look at the size of them for a 20W push-pull, compared to a Hammond one. It was impossible to find replacement transformers to install inside the rack, so unfortunately I had to mount them on the bottom of the enclosure. 2) Marshall Jubillee 2555x with a very simple issue... a broken bass control pot. The problem was finding the proper replacement as they use a small size dual-gang A1M pot with D-Shaft, obviously PCB mount. The only place that had it was Brittish Audio in Europe, so... yeah for us in Canada, after shipping, it wound up being a $40 pot!

It has been quite busy here and we haven't had a chance to post anything in a while. Here are some pics of a few of the amps we worked on in the past weaks.
1) JCM800 replica 2) Vox AC30 3) Fender Blues Deluxe USA 4, 5 an 6) Fender Twin II (Rivera Era) 7)Fender "Twin Amp"

Here's my "new" old test bench gem. No, it's not an ancient crt oscilloscope. It used to be one (see second pic), but now, it is a conversation piece with cool functionality: current limiter, dummy load with "impedance" selector and v-out tip jack for voltmeter probe, voltmeter with capacitor discharger, signal generator in/out with input voltage adjustment just to make connections easy, and it still has room for many more! On top off that, now I have a bunch of useable spare tubes, two nice steel chassis and a great power transformer.

As most of you know we don't normally take solid state amps for repair, but when the client is one of the Okanagan schools., we not only do that but go the extra mile! 4 solid state amps for bass in a row! 🙊

Here are the pics of the JCM800 we received with damaged power supply board and heavily modded preamp board. We replaced the bad pcbs with a beautiful turret board.
Looks great, sounds fantastic, and I am sure it will last at least another 40 years.

It's been a while, so why not share the highlights of the past couple of weeks:
1) Fender Twin Reverb II (Rivera era)
2) Mesa Mark IV
3) Traynor Reverb Master YRM-1 1970's

Happy to share that we received the Silver Winner award this year.

We didn't ask for votes this year, so this came as nice suprise!

Thank you all who voted for us! 🤗

Congrats to the
and , gold and bronze winner, respectively.

We are happy to announce we can now easily take card payments. :)

I have been way too busy to post here in the past month, but finally found the time to post highlights of the past weeks.
1) Green Russian Big M**f
2) Silverface Champ
3) Wiring a custom board to replace the pcb in heavily modded JCM800.

Tunnel vision is what you get, quite literally, when you service the dreaded Classic 30 "u-shapped" board. Luckily, I didn't have to pull the board out this time.

There's nothing more rewarding than seeing a client happy with the repair service, modification, or amp built! Happy to share the text message I received earlier today. Thank you, Jason, it made my day!

Here's our most recent project. A Fender Blues Deluxe that no longer had a house, has been re-housed in this Philco Floor Cabinet Radio. It was a bit of work but well worth it. This amp/radio is ready to go to a new home. SEE "THE BEFORE" IN THE LAST 2 PICS

Before and after pics of another succesful Deluxe Reverb Reissue transformation into a vintage style AB763 Blackface Deluxe Reverb. It's a lot of work of course, but depending on the type of repair needed and the existing board damage, it is the best definitive solution.

Happy New Year, everyone. It's been a while since my last post. I wasn't on vacation though, just focusing on the bench as surprisingly I had many amps dropped off during the holidays and for the first weeks of January.
Here are the pics of a few amps I worked on recently:
1) High-gain mods to Traynor YBA1
2) Princeton Reverb reissue needing new power tubes and a tune-up
3) Mesa Caliber also needing some power tubes
4) Fender Blues Deluxe needind some TLC: new filter caps, new power tubes, broken 3-prong power plug with defetead earth pin...

Last weeks highlight and odd finding... I serviced this beautiful Marshall JMP Super Lead and noticed something odd with the tube sockets wiring. The amp would have never worked with such wiring, so after further inspection I noticed the tube socket markings were wrong! That was a huge surprise as they are stock CLIFF sockets. Take a look at the pics. :)

This sweet Marshall Jubillee 2550 was here for a check-up. Aboslutely nothing wrong with it, 100% stock. The client just wanted a piece-of-mind check-up before listing it for sale.

We have been super busy here for the past three weeks. More than 10 amps repaired, including: Ampeg Echot Twin ET-2, Vox AC30, Mesa Triple Rectifier, and Randall RM100

Double trouble on the bench... JCM800 and 900 for a check-up

Scored a nice display piece for the shop for $20. However, I had no idea how big it was until I picked it up.🤣 Look at the second pic. Comparing the scope with a Dual Showman head! I guess I will need to keep just the control plate of the scope.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I haven't posted in a while because thanks to you I have been super busy here with multiple amp repairs as well as some amp builds Here are some of the highlights of recent amps... Three very cool vintage ones: Gibson GA30, Supro 1696TN, Yamaha TA60 and a reissue Princeton Reverb.

A few pics of cool amps that needed some TLC. Unfortunately I just took pics of their boards. Blonde Band Master 6G7 and Traynor YBA-1. Look at the odd capacitor bank that had been previoysly installed in the Band Master

What a great score for the shop today! New amp/speaker cab that doubles as a nice conversation piece!

Most recent amps on the bench:
1) Blonde Bassman due for the usual re-cap and 3-prong cord
2) JVM212c with an issue with the channel switching circuit + some cool custommods
3) Vibrolux Reverb for a check-up/cleaning

The past couple of weeks have been quite busy around here. Star Amp (similar to Matchless) needed a bit of TLC, Champion 600 in for some circuit mods, Rivera Pubster 25 needing a clean up, Marshall AVT150 with toasted power amp chips, Genz Benz with blown resistor in the power supply, Univibe pedal needing a new lamp and finally, Supro 1696N needing a new speaker and a few mods

Canadian holiday, eh? Well, I guess not over here....

Weeks ago I posted picks of the Blackface Band Master that came in. My client brought it here for some advice as he wanted to sell it but wasn't sure if he should have the amp serviced before. Because the original faceplate had some engraving on it, it wasn't collector's piece anymore and because the amp was not sounding great either I recommended servicing it. He had already ordered a replacement faceplate. So, now he wants to sell the amp fully serviced (new caps, screen resistors, replaced faceplate) and sounding fantastic with the replaced faceplate. I would say this amp is the best of both worlds now it's a fantastic sounding Bandmaster that looks as good as a collector's piece but sold for a fraction of the price because of the issue with the original faceplate.
I have seen Blackface Band Masters go for over $2,000 just for the head alone and some either didn't look great cosmetically or have been modified.
Having said that, he is asking $2,600 for the head + original 2x12 - Oxford speakers cab, also included are the original vinyl covers, and tremolo footswitch.
This is a 1965 Blackface Band Master, precisely from AB763 circuit.
Loaded with RCA 6L6 tubes and there's also a great IEC Mullard in the Pre-amp.
I doubt you will come across a cleaner blackface amp for sale locally any time soon. Serious buyers contact me for a test drive!

A few highlights from last week...
1) Garnet Session Man Point-to-point needed a bit of TLC. Dead caps, a couple of tubes, broken 3-prong
2) Blackface Bandmaster due to a recap
3) Hot Rod Deluxe with a bad power tube