Scored a cool vintage Gibson amp!

95strat · Cobra Joined: 29 Oct 2005 Posts: 487 Location: Canada

Ok, its not exactly a Gibson, its an Epiphone.... a 1961 Epiphone EA-35T Devon Tremolo (identical circuitry to Gibson GA-8T) which was built by Gibson in Kalamazoo Michigan.

A friend of mine found it sitting on the roadside on garbage day. Overall its in good condition (the tolex is near mint once I cleaned all the dust and nicotine off it) and the grill is also in great shape. The crome control panel is pitted and some of the lettering is worn off, and unfortunately it is missing the back panel and foot switch. So far I have torn it apart and cleaned it and will put new filter caps in it (I need to replace that big one as its leaking!) and of course a 3-prong plug. Check out the pics! Very Happy

owwdatune · Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:21 am Post subject:

THAT is a really cool find--at any price Very Happy

...is it still your friends or is he a really good friend and its now yours ??? Cool

95strat · Cobra Joined: 29 Oct 2005 Posts: 487 Location: Canada

Oh she's mine! Very Happy

SAguitar · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:11 am Post subject:

Life is good! Super Score! Cool

herb · Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 5:32 pm Post subject:

Watch that big brown capacitor closely, it looks like it's leaking or bubbling. Could be trouble. Good find!

95strat · Cobra Joined: 29 Oct 2005 Posts: 487 Location: Canada

SAguitar · Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:11 pm Post subject:

Very cool, 95! Cool

95strat · Cobra Joined: 29 Oct 2005 Posts: 487 Location: Canada

I've got the amp all cleaned up and it cleaned up REALLY well... the tolex is almost like new!!! I still have to make a back panel, but I installed all new electrolytic capacitors and a switch for the tremolo. This amp sounds great! I love the tone of it! I mean, I've always been a Fender amp guy and other then an old Skylark I've never played a Gibson amp that I really liked... but this thing sounds amazing! It gets a great slightly distorted tone.... sounds almost like a 50's tweed Fender but with more bite to it. The tremolo sounds great too.

I'll try to get some more pics posted soon, and I want to get some sound clips of it which I will share with you guys if you want too.

SAguitar · Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:06 am Post subject:

That's very cool! What an incredible find! It's great to pull something like that back from history, and get it roaring again. Way to go, 95. Cool

SunDog · Tadpole Joined: 01 Jul 2008 Posts: 20 Location: Arizona

Awesome find! Sounds like you know what you are doing with regards to the electronics, but I thought that I'd mention a book that I'm reading that you may find interesting:

The Guitar Amp Handbook
Understanding Tube Amplifiers and Getting Great Sounds
Author: Dave Hunter

You could probably find it on amazon. The first few chapters cover the signal chain, components, circuit stages, etc. He starts out by using a simple tube amp circuit from back in the day as an example, and goes into great detail about how all of the components work together. A later chapter is devoted to building your own basic tube amp that can accomodate a variety of tube configurations.

Definitely worth checking out if you are a tinkerer like me!

SunDog