Just spent some time building

[aron]

I made a small version of Gus Smalley's booster. (Beginner project) . Boy is it great with a Strat and single coils! Talk about chime!

Fixed a ProCo Rat (type B) that I got from someone long ago. Wow was it screwed up. It was oscillating and mis-wired.
I verified that the board worked and then proceeded to hack it to death. The owner had replaced all the pots and put in junk jacks, pots etc...

I put in a 3PDT, cut the board in half and chassis mounted pots. Drilled a larger DC jack hole and put a standard BOSS style jack. Mounted the PCB on the switch correctly and put in an asymmetrical mod (from Jack's site).

Now it works perfectly, but I'm not sure I like the RAT tone. :-(

[petemoore]

  I fixed up a buncha tube amps. ''Death prong'' amps.
  First things first, me and the chassis' are constantly bolted to ground.
            Last weeks amp is a 12a_7 dual triode gain stage> 12a_7 PI, 6SN7GTA PP Output.
  It Started out as a transistor amp gutting. Turns out 1 watt does crank a 12''.
  The GTA was chosen because it can use a 12v heater supply, it's on AC, pretty quiet. The 1rst preamp tube got the full monty regulatored supply.
            Yesterdays job was another [5$] RTR amp conversion. This one has 6x4, 12ax7, 6au6, 6aq5, a little louder, tubes are great joy ! It came with the 'full batch' of new Nichicon filtercaps installed, tubes recently shined, input wire dangled [wrong input point for Magnetic/Phono source, ? made oscillations]...1 insulated jackplate and a voicing change [less bass], 1 re-selected input point and it passed all 'initial tests', sounds great, cute in the Vintage RTR box, has an incandescent signal phototransmitter [bulb gets brighter with higher input levels], and an on indicator lamp, it still needs a tone control, and I'm thinking that the photo-level-indicator lamp might be the first 1/2 of a compressor, [or ? possibilities welcomed].
             Just before yesterdays amp [and right after a rebias and re-housing] found me tearing apart a large RTR [many tubes etc.] and building into that a "BlackFaced Beast"...this one's getting stage use and garners fine commentary...Big PT/5y3, 12au7 preamping two single ended 6v6 outputs...I don't think it's funny, single ended is nice, double-SE is even nicer [SE amps tend to be <15w]....just happen to have a 'dual-or-stereo twelves' wired cabinet.
                Before that the Field Coil Speaker and associated extensive amplifier technologies wound up blowing my mind, a 10'' Jensen FC Speaker [circa 40's] went into a hardwood stereo speaker cab I brushed off / wiped down, Wowzer.
              Fixed up my buddy's Bassman 50, observation of the construction showed: Amazingly heavy/large Irons [3], and chassis, brass plate for Gnd. etc.
  Still needs tubes, I offered free tube retainer bending [bent right next to where they were originally bent], the retainer teeth were all 1/4'' away from the bakelite tube bases...no wonder the tubes kept falling out [lol]...the valves have had extreme damage, I will probably replace the cathode resistors> baked appearance and driftages...   
  -------
  I made a small version of Gus Smalley's booster. (Beginner project) . Boy is it great with a Strat and single coils! Talk about chime!
  Haven't tried one pushing a cranked amp, or in many years, I have many boosters yet this one has merits which I believe warrant my interest.
  Fixed a ProCo Rat (type B) that I got from someone long ago. Wow was it screwed up. It was oscillating and mis-wired.
  I verified that the board worked and then proceeded to hack it to death. The owner had replaced all the pots and put in junk jacks, pots etc...
  I had a Rat to step on for a while, cool effect, but I found the 'on/off' switch imparted such an amount of tonal alteration that I had great trouble trying for a more 'nuanced change' when bypassing.
I put in a 3PDT, cut the board in half and chassis mounted pots.
  Sounds pretty radical.
  Drilled a larger DC jack hole and put a standard BOSS style jack. Mounted the PCB on the switch correctly and put in an asymmetrical mod (from Jack's site).
  Pets can be time consuming !
  Now it works perfectly, but I'm not sure I like the RAT tone. :-(
 

[Sody54]

Gus's booster is a fun build.  I believe I've done 4 or 5 of them.  Keep playing with different values, switchable input caps, switchable tranny's.  Good stuff. 

[Paul Marossy]

I'm not sure I like the RAT tone

I know I don't... too harsh for my taste.

[Dai H.]

I haven't used a Rat in ages but how do people use theirs? If memory serves I think (for me) it was two ways. One for medium distortion and one for lead boost with the filter rolling off highs and thickening the tone.

[aron]

I should try and fool around with it more. I put a 250K pot for the drive/distortion. It doesn't sound as bad as I remember. I have an original big box board somewhere.