Drew's Geezer Amps

Build of a Fender 6G6 Blond Bassman. The blond bassman was made famous by Brian Setzer whose model of choice is the solid state rectified 6G6B circuit. This build is the earlier tube rectified 6G6 circuit. Cabinet by JD Newell.

Cabinet rear.

Chassis and fiberboards are from Marsh Amps. Chassis is VERY robust. But fiberboard Layouts are for a 6G6B circuit which made doing a 6G6 a bit of a challenge. It ended up being more of a cross between all three.

Finished wiring. Caps are period correct vintage Astrons, NOS and pulls. Capacitors in the power section are Sozo vintage fender blue molded/yellow Astron copies. Resistors are mostly carbon comp.

I initially used 600V 0.1 uf Astrons in the bass channel instead of the 0.25 uF specified in the schematics and layouts. Tonewise, the bass channel is very very similar to a friend's 6G6A. The bass channel comes on as very bright and thin with a guitar, but can be dialed in for some very nice loud clean Dick Dale/Setzer esque tones and is very pedal friendly.

The 0.1uF Astrons have been replaced with a pair of 0.22uF black beauties. Not much difference in tone between the 0.1 and 0.22.

Completed chassis with the black beauties.

The normal channel is very thick and gainey . great brown/blond blues tones and also sounds rewardingly similar to a friend's 6G6A.

The bias trim pot is bypassed and for now bias is set by varying the bias range resistor. A trim pot that can only be adjusted from the top is more problematical than having to pull the chassis to do bias adjustments . for me anyway.

The output transformer and choke are pulls from a 1961 blond bassman purchased on ebay. The power transformer is from a 1970 super reverb. Rectifier is a GE, power tubes are Philips, pre's are a mix of vintage USA.

The output transformer is a 45548 . the same transformer used in the early blond twins (4 ohm load) and the 40W Vibrasonic (8 ohm load).