Friday, August 18, 2017

When a 1975 Fender Bandmaster Reverb TFL5005D head becomes a combo


I wanted to find a good vintage Fender amp with reverb easy to move and fairly lightweight, well, there's none. During my research I came across the Fender Guru blog where I found this interesting modification you can do to convert a Bandmaster Reverb head into a combo amp because the head chassis fits two 8" speakers.
I read the procedure on how to do this mod and I decided to give it a try because it requires only a few basics electronic and woodworking basics, nothing advanced or dangerous. The only thing I had to be careful was to pick the speakers with the right impedance otherwise I could have literally put your amp on fire.

I took off the original baffle and save it, I got a pine wood board (16mm, 3/16") and cut it to fit the chassis, a tiny bit smaller to leave room for the grill cloth wrapping.

Once I was sure that the wood board was fitting it was time to cut the speaker holes with a router and a circle jig (Jasper 200J Model 200) and mounted the two speakers.

The speakers are: one Weber AlNiCo and one Warehouse ceramic, both 8 ohms impedance wired in parallel. I then stapled the grill cloth.

Finally I screwed the logo. On the left the original, on the right the one I made.

A view from the back without panel.

Bad news... I sold it.

Another example here.

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