# Old Amp Score



## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

One of the young guys who works for me came up to me a couple of days ago and asked me if I wanted an old amp he was throwing out. Of course I didn't even have to think about it. Turns out to be this. I'm not sure if it works yet because I refuse to plug it in given the state of the power cord. He said the last he remembers you could feel the current coming of the guitar strings when it was played, whoa! Anyway here it is.





































I think it's around a '68 given the serial # and the rounded edges but I'll have to do some more research and then find a good tech. I can't decide wether I should mod it to plexi specs, which seems very popular, or just leave it alone.


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## CocoTone (Jan 22, 2006)

You lucky bastid!!! I'd leave it stock, as it should sound great once you've had a tech go over it. 

CT.


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

CocoTone said:


> You lucky bastid!!! I'd leave it stock, as it should sound great once you've had a tech go over it.
> 
> CT.


Yeah! I was feeling kinda lucky the whole day  A friend on another forum has recommended Gar Gillies in Winnipeg who is apparently a bit of a guru when it comes to these things. I wonder if that's the Gar of "Garnet Amps". I know the Guess Who used to use them and that would be a Winnipeg connection. I'm tempted to just fix the power cord myself and plug it in and see what happens. I'll wear rubber soled shoes


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

Yep, that *IS Gar from Garnet amps. Of course, you would be asking him to fix his main competition!  

Does the amp have a three prong cord? Often these old two prongers will give you a "buzz" if you stand on concrete with no shoes on . . .*


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

traynor_garnet said:


> Yep, that *IS Gar from Garnet amps. Of course, you would be asking him to fix his main competition!
> 
> Does the amp have a three prong cord? Often these old two prongers will give you a "buzz" if you stand on concrete with no shoes on . . .*


*

I included a pic of the plug. Definitely a 2 pronger and just hanging on by a thread at that  I can't believe someone would have plugged this in *


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## Lester B. Flat (Feb 21, 2006)

Nice find at a nice price! I think the head (late 60's) is older than the cab (early 70's). Also the logo on the head looks like it came off the cabinet. The earlier logos were chrome without the black background. Is it a "Big B" 8-10 cab?


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

Lester B. Flat said:


> Nice find at a nice price! I think the head (late 60's) is older than the cab (early 70's). Also the logo on the head looks like it came off the cabinet. The earlier logos were chrome without the black background. Is it a "Big B" 8-10 cab?


Thanks for the info. I'd sorta come to that conclusion. The cab is a 4 x 10. I took a couple of the speakers out today and they're stamped 1972 and that sounds about right. No name on them, just a DW12 and a serial number. I must say the cab does sound great with my Bandmaster though. I get the feeling from what I've been able to find that the head is pretty early due to the rounded corners and non "flip-top".


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## Lester B. Flat (Feb 21, 2006)

Yeah, I used to have an older 4x10 cabinet with an open space, top and bottom on the back. Yours has the newer front loaded speakers and the chrome strips down the sides. I think they used Marsland speakers in Traynors? Brings back memories of trying to lug one of those up to my bedroom and my father saying, "Why did'nt you take up the harmonica?"


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Let us know how the Marslands stand up. I _heard_ they were the weakest link in an old Traynor rig like that.

P.S Lucky Bastid !!


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## Gunny (Feb 21, 2006)

*Garnet and Traynor repairs*

Davetcan: Gar Gillies is the Garnet guy. His workmanship of construction is fantastic; I call him the Pete Traynor of western Canada since the heavy duty components he used were much like Traynor's.
I work on amps like yours all the time. You don't need to send your new amp off to Winnipeg, there's lots of good guys in Ontario that could help you. If I was closer to London, I'd offer to do it myself.


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## SCREEM (Feb 2, 2006)

what a great deal, have you tried it yet?....get one of those yellow extention cord plugs and fix the power cord, so we can know how it sounds. evilGuitar:


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## mario (Feb 18, 2006)

You got that free? Nice score!


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

Gunny said:


> Davetcan: Gar Gillies is the Garnet guy. His workmanship of construction is fantastic; I call him the Pete Traynor of western Canada since the heavy duty components he used were much like Traynor's.
> I work on amps like yours all the time. You don't need to send your new amp off to Winnipeg, there's lots of good guys in Ontario that could help you. If I was closer to London, I'd offer to do it myself.


Thanks for the offer :food-smiley-004: 

I just dropped it off at Rob Fowler's place in Cambridge (found a link on the London Power page). He figures it'll take a couple of hours worth of work to get into good shape. Someone else had already been in there, probably a long time ago, and done a couple of strange things. For one the on/off switch had been disabled, plug it in and the amp is live, although the standby switch on the front still worked. He was impressed with the overall condition and said it looked very clean. He's going to install the 3 prong plug, replace the 4 meg volume pots with 1 meg, install a bias control, add screen plate resistors ( I think that's what he called them)to help save the tubes, and tame the treble a bit, apparently these things could be very bright. All going well I should be able to pick it up next weekend, I'll keep you posted.

btw I told him about this place so hopefully he'll sign up.


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## guitarzan (Feb 22, 2006)

awesome! i have the same head.
Traynor YSR1 custom reverb. but mine has the 2x12 cab. i believe it is marsland loaded. i do not like the speakers a great deal.
sound much better with the 2x12 vintage 30's in my dg100 yamaha.
i paid 100 bucks for mine.
i think the logo is original, mine has the same one but it is mounted in the center of the cloth.
let me know what mods you get done. i am curious to what i can do to mine to zone into the Marshall sound better. as is, it is real nice but not jaw dropping.


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## guitarzan (Feb 22, 2006)

here is mine....
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v348/rawkzilla/Dscf0006.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v348/rawkzilla/Dscf0007.jpg


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

Yep! That looks exactly the same. Any idea what year yours is?

So far all I asked Rob to do was to change the volume pots from 4 meg to 1 meg which he said would take away some of the harshness. I got the amp back on the weekend and I needed to swap out a couple of the 12AX7's as they were microphonic. Once that was done everything was good. This thing sounds really nice stock (or close to it). Almost fenderish but different in a subtle way. The reverb is very strong and sounds suprisingly good, not quite as "warm" as the Bandmasters but still very good. I'm not getting a lot of volume out of it, I was actually able to dime it without killing myself (wife was out) and it sounded really great. It takes pedals very well. I use a TIM and MI Audio Crunchbox for my OD/Distortion sounds and both sound great with the Traynor. Because of that I'll probably not bother modding it any further. I like it the way it is.


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## mario (Feb 18, 2006)

davetcan said:


> Yep! That looks exactly the same. Any idea what year yours is?
> 
> So far all I asked Rob to do was to change the volume pots from 4 meg to 1 meg which he said would take away some of the harshness. I got the amp back on the weekend and I needed to swap out a couple of the 12AX7's as they were microphonic. Once that was done everything was good. This thing sounds really nice stock (or close to it). Almost fenderish but different in a subtle way. The reverb is very strong and sounds suprisingly good, not quite as "warm" as the Bandmasters but still very good. I'm not getting a lot of volume out of it, I was actually able to dime it without killing myself (wife was out) and it sounded really great. It takes pedals very well. I use a TIM and MI Audio Crunchbox for my OD/Distortion sounds and both sound great with the Traynor. Because of that I'll probably not bother modding it any further. I like it the way it is.


Not trying to hijack your post, but how do you like your TIM? Is all the hype from the Gear Page true?


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

mario said:


> Not trying to hijack your post, but how do you like your TIM? Is all the hype from the Gear Page true?


It may well be the one pedal that I'll never sell. It really sounds great with the Bandmaster and very good with the Traynor. The boost function is also really usefull for getting that extra nudge when you need it and it has it's own tone control so you can add a bit of bite to it to help cut thru if necessary. I guess in my opinion it lives up to the hype. It also has a built in loop so you can add something like a delay or eq that would only engage with when the TIM is on, although I've never used it.
The Timmy is supposed to sound as good and has a little more gain on tap but you lose the boost and loop.


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## guitarzan (Feb 22, 2006)

davetcan said:


> Yep! That looks exactly the same. Any idea what year yours is?
> 
> So far all I asked Rob to do was to change the volume pots from 4 meg to 1 meg which he said would take away some of the harshness. I got the amp back on the weekend and I needed to swap out a couple of the 12AX7's as they were microphonic. Once that was done everything was good. This thing sounds really nice stock (or close to it). Almost fenderish but different in a subtle way. The reverb is very strong and sounds suprisingly good, not quite as "warm" as the Bandmasters but still very good. I'm not getting a lot of volume out of it, I was actually able to dime it without killing myself (wife was out) and it sounded really great. It takes pedals very well. I use a TIM and MI Audio Crunchbox for my OD/Distortion sounds and both sound great with the Traynor. Because of that I'll probably not bother modding it any further. I like it the way it is.


i am really unsure of the date, my serial number is in a different spot and appears to be stamped on a blank part of the label.
S70034
who ever owned it in the past had removed the reverb tank and added a three prong chord.
mine is loud.
what channel did you use?
the channel bridge trick works with mine, i run a short cable from the top channel 1 to the bottom channel 2 and then tweak the separate volumes for extra gain and tone options. but i will say channel 2 is very bright and has more volume it seems.
i have been running a digitech BadMonkey as a boost and it works fine.
i most often use the 1 channel now that i have the BadMonkey.
i wouldn't doulbt a new set of tubes would really liven mine up. the power tubes are not a matched set. a friend has recently discovered a guy in my area with old tubes, i am hoping they are something special.
it would be sweet to find some NOS tubes from the past.


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

Yes I was in channel 1. I'll try jumping them and see what happens this weekend.


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## bzrkrage (Mar 20, 2011)

davetcan said:


> Yes I was in channel 1. I'll try jumping them and see what happens this weekend.


Dave, which plus did you use to jump?
Guitar input = Top I
Jump Low I > Top II


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

bzrkrage said:


> Dave, which plus did you use to jump?
> Guitar input = Top I
> Jump Low I > Top II


LOL, you realize this thread is 12 years old!

Luckily I still have the amp. I do this, although this is not my amp in the pic. I'll take a pic of mine later.


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

here you go.


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## bzrkrage (Mar 20, 2011)

davetcan said:


> LOL, you realize this thread is 12 years old!


Yeah, I do. 
But, as people have said, search the forum first for answers before posting a question again.
Man, you STILL have the amp, amazing.


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

bzrkrage said:


> Yeah, I do.
> But, as people have said, search the forum first for answers before posting a question again.
> Man, you STILL have the amp, amazing.


Modded to hell but it's still absolutely awesome.


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## Frenchy99 (Oct 15, 2016)

Dave , where did you get the faceplate done ?

Cool that you still have the head !


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

This may be the only piece of gear he owns from 12 years ago!


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## Wardo (Feb 5, 2010)

davetcan said:


> I'll wear rubber soled shoes


Pics no workie on my phone but regardless you might want to wear rubber gloves too when you fire it up .. lol


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

Budda said:


> This may be the only piece of gear he owns from 12 years ago!



My laugh for the day.

Sorry that it is on you @davetcan , my friend.
However, you must admit that it is an extremely witty statement
(not based on fake news and facts)


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

greco said:


> My laugh for the day.
> 
> Sorry that it is on you @davetcan , my friend.
> However, you must admit that it is an extremely witty statement
> (not based on fake news and facts)


And quite astute . But I still have the LP and Newsom


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

Frenchy99 said:


> Dave , where did you get the faceplate done ?
> 
> Cool that you still have the head !


It was a guy in the States but he's been out of business for a while. Used to make amps too, can't remember his name. I sent him all the dimensions.


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

I see mojotone is now offering this service.

Custom Control Plate, Faceplate/Backplate/Logo Capabilities - Mojotone.com


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

Also for those wondering about the name "Busen Amps" I had the amp modded by our own @Wild Bill many years ago, and Busen Amps was the name he was going by at the time. I used the name as a nod to Bill for doing a great job on the amp.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

davetcan said:


> Also for those wondering about the name "Busen Amps" I had the amp modded by our own @Wild Bill many years ago


Has anyone seen or heard from @Wild Bill recently?


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

greco said:


> Has anyone seen or heard from @Wild Bill recently?


I haven't but I sure hope he's doing well.


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