Not sure if this has been covered, but I started hand building old amps a few years ago, here's my Deluxe reverb rebuild, all cloth wiring and components from the 60's....Fender offers a "reissue" with a PCB board, doesn't come close....with a Gibson Les Paul Traditional.
and I built a 10" pine cabinet for a 10" Weber Vintage Alnico speaker here;
Not sure why it doesn't post the complete photo, only the left half or so????
If anybody cares to hear any of it, I've been recording in my basement for a while, originals written by, performed by, and recorded by yours truly. Start at the top and work your way down as they get worse as you go down the list. Had an album out on iTunes for awhile but never made any money, I'm sure you can tell why....though an Australian band requested permission to cover "Skinny White Body" and "Take Off Your Clothes", which I thought was pretty cool. Written before I discovered how incredible black chicks are.....
Think he was just kidding about the Mach award thing.
I got a friend of mine who rebuilds amps professionally down in North Carolina. I remember when the Iron Curtain fell he was happy that he could finally start getting a wider variety of vacuum tubes.
He had a bumper sticker that said "Solid State Sucks" ..he was a full blown analog nerd.
I get mostly Russian tubes. I've rebuilt and sold a few vintage amps, and doubt I'd ever go back to solid state. Tubes do sound infinitely better in my opinion, not that you could ever tell by my playing.....
Still can't find anything re "Mach Award", other than something a Cairn Terrier might win for top level master agility champion, and perhaps The Royal-Mach-Gaensslen Prize for Mental Health Research?
So until I figure it out and am suitably insulted, I'll post more of my guitars! AND I figured out how to post the other ones a respectable size....
The fancy Strat with the gold trim is a Mexican Fender. I found various prime U.S. parts off the internet to put together my "Blackie", the old black Strat, with some hopped up vintage pickups. The Tele, which is one of only 140 that Fender put out in a special batch exactly matching specs of their classic 1952 Telecaster, with cloth wiring and nitrocellulose lacquer finish, unlike the poly coating on new reissues was my fav, picked it up used. I played that for years in a band and used to stuff it behind the seat of the S61 or Super Puma went I flew offshore, as we'd typically shut down on the remote platforms for the day while the guys worked. Now I mostly play the Les Paul, a treat from a big overtime check....