Ah, the smell of rosin-core solder...

[Bob Womack]

I went into the guitar room last night to play. You know, just to play. Not to fiddle with the gear. I turned on the new-old amp that came on the truck last week, let it warm up, took it off standby got ready to boogie a little, and... nothing. No sound. Nada. Zilch. Tubes are glowing. Hit the circuit breaker. Nope. Cycled the standby. No. Checked for dead pots or switches. Absolutely nothing. Tried a different speaker. No again. Tried a different amp output jack. Zero. Now I'm getting worried.

So I turned off the power and took a moment to think.

This amp is a big old tube amp with huge Hammond transformers so absolutely nothing isn't a normal thing. I mean, you can hear the transformers acoustically and should hear a little spill into the speakers. I powered up again and leaned in close. Nothing.

So I tried the last thing: I wiggled the speaker cord. I got intermittent transformer bleed (quiet hum). Ah-hah. Bad cord. Of course: no sound at all from the speakers connected to an old tube amp on standby means no conduction to the speakers. I grabbed a guitar cord and temporarily replaced the speaker cord. SOUND. Marvelous. Gotcha! Powered down. I unscrewed the plug at the bad end and took a look - the inner conductor was broken. Apparently it had been soldered under tension and the stress eventually broke it. The joint also looked a little "cold."

I gathered up my tools and soldering station and went into the kitchen for my first soldering session in a couple of years. We've been doing home improvement so it took a while to scare up all the little items needed from different job sites - side cutters, stripper, screw driver, needle nose pliers. One of these days I'm going to get a "third hand" to hold that one thing more than you've got hands for. Until then I'll probably just keep nearly burning myself. Tin the iron. Cut the cord. De-solder the connector and remove old cord. Strip, cut to length, tin the wires, and re-solder the connection, minding to make sure the case and the little cardboard insulator were already on the cord, facing the right way. Have you ever left that stuff off and done the perfect soldering job, only to look over and see the covers lying on the bench? Duh.

By the time the job was done and the junk was put away I got pitiful little playing done but did have one of those bonding moments when I got the thing working and sounding great again.

Bob

[Grenade]

Nothing like being able to fix it yourself. Congrats.

[TjthePhD]

Nice diagnostic work there.

[clintj]

Nice work! I got started on that stuff changing the electronics on a guitar, with some lessons and advice from a friend who plays guitars and does ham radio work. Graduated to PCB work and building pedals this year. Rewarding, isn't it?

[moon]

We're men. We fix things. And when we're done fixing, we smoke a marlboro.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by moon

We're men. We fix things. And when we're done fixing, we smoke a marlboro.

Or rosin core... Funny: I had a friend (now deceased) who was the Marlboro man for a while.

Bob

[muscmp]

i've been replacing caps and two prong cords in some of my older amps and, being quite new at this, have forgotten covers and sprain reliefs, among other things. however, i'm getting better at knocking out the soldering part.

play music!