Hot Rod DeVille Project - Home
Here is another project we had been wanting to do for some time - to build a custom guitar amp of some sort. We started playing electric guitar back in the early 60's during high school (see a short history of our high school band here). We used to "steal" our parents old mono tube amp that lived in an old dry sink with a tube am/fm tuner, and a record changer. We built a crude cabinet (an electric jigsaw was the only power tool I had access to at that point) that had a collection of round and oval speakers from various TVs and radios that a local TV repair shop had given us. We plugged the guitar into the phono input of the tube amp, and that was that. Our equipment left a lot to be desired, but we were having fun!
We worked our way up a bit during those high school days, equipment wise, but not by much. We eventually got a Sears Twin 12 amp (around 40 watts, 2 12" speakers, and the head stored in the speaker cab when not in use), and later a Tiesco 50 (50 watt head, 2 15" speakers) - a Japanese Fender clone of sorts. At one point, we put two of the Sears Twins together (hinged the two heads together, and connected the points where the pre-amp meets the power amp together) which gave us an 80 watt 4-12 monster! We actually used it as a PA for a while (4 inputs, two cabs - it actually worked fairly well). We briefly had a Vox Super Beatle head (solid state, by Thomas Organ, as I recall). we still have the speaker stand from that rig (never actually had the speaker cabinet itself, though).
When we got together for our 30th high school reunion, we borrowed a Twin Reverb (which was having some issues), and really liked it (had always wanted one). We ended up buying a '70s Fender Super Six (basically a Twin Reverb in a combo cab with 6 10" speakers), which was a great amp, but a bear to move around. Later, we bought an empty Twin Reverb cab from eBay, and got a pair of used ElectroVoice EVM-12L speakers. We put the Super Six chassis in that cab with the EVs. We still have this amp, and it is a nice beast, but a beast it is - we think it is over 90 lbs, with a single handle on top (there is a lot of iron in that cab). And it is a bit loud. But we love that we can get the clear Fender sound at pretty much any volume we want - we just hate carrying it around. We ended up aquiring an actual Twin Reverb (mid 70's again) around the same time. It came with some MojoTone 12" speakers, which I replaced with another pair of EVM-12Ls. The MojoTone speakers ended up in a couple of monitor wedges.
We also ended up with an old '70s Super Reverb chassis (missing some parts), and later, a '70s Fender Baseman combo cab (empty). The Super Reverb chassis is the same size as the Bassman, and the only real difference between the Super Reverb cab, and the Bassman cab, is that the Bassman cab is a tad taller, and has a sealed back. We put 4 of the 10" speakers from the Super Six cab into it, and it is an awesome cab. At some point, We want to get that all working too, but that is going to take some serious work. The chassis has some issues, and we suspect the output transformer may be blown.
Recently, several friends have been using several variations of the Blues series of Fender amps (a Blues Junior and a Hot Rod Deville), and we repaired one for someone else. They seemed like decent amps, and we liked the channel switching and drive controls. We were a little disappointed to find that the reverb drive was solid state, but they were nice amps, and sounded pretty good. So, when two Hot Rod Deville chassis appeared on eBay, we bid on them, and ended up getting both of them for a decent price. They sounded like they were very close to being functional, and we had been gearing up to build some cabs anyway, so here we go...