1957 Fender Tweed Twin Clone Build

As I mentioned before, I had a fun time building the ’59 Bassman.
I could not leave it at that…

I have completed a build on a ’57 Twin combo amp. I really like the 30 -50 watt amps that use a push-pull, 6L6 output configuration. With this build I decided right away that I would use the Sozo premium caps, add an adjustable bias for the power tubes and a slight mod in the input section. The “front end” of the Twin is a bit different from the Bassman.

'57 Twin board

'57 Twin chassis

Each input uses ½ of 12AY7 into another 12AY before the power section. I changed ch 1’s 12AY and put in a 12DW. And put in a nice balanced gain and balanced triodes 12AX7 in the phase inverter circuit. I also used late distortion Svetlana power tubes.

Back to the ch 1 mod. So, the 12DW is an interesting tube in that ½ is a 12AU style and ½ is a 12AX style. I installed a switch so that the player can switch between the two styles of tubes to alter the gain going into the tone section. This can work extremely well with boost and distortion pedals. And left in a jumper to “jump” the ch1 signal to ch 2 and mix in a bit of “bright” sound using the standard 12AY circuit.

A side note about 12_ _ 7 tubes. The AX, AY, AU tubes have different gain structers which an amp designer can use to create how an amp will sound. The AX has a gain factor of 100 while the AU has a factor of 40. What this means is the AU will sound cleaner until it is pushed hard, and then break up. The AX style will distort faster with a different break up tone than the AU. The AY has an even different gain and current factor. Pretty neat stuff.

Anyhow to wind up the build I used Eminence Cannabis Rex speakers to deliver a nice smooth tone across the guitars frequency range. My guitar guru Kris says, this is a great amp for blues style player and sounds incredible with a boost pedal.

Again, if you are looking for a quality Tweed style amp, contact me. I would enjoy building any style for you. Or, if you have a tweed, blonde or blackface in need of repair or upgrading. Let me know.
THIS AMP IS FOR SALE! Contact me if you are interested.

'57 Twin Amp

3rd Coast Engineering. 3rd . Coast . Engineering .

One Comment on “1957 Fender Tweed Twin Clone Build

  1. Looking for direction for a similar build. Do you sell schematics/layouts for custom amp builds? Looking for a 1-channel, tweed twin. Master volume, phase inversion selector, w/ send/return fix loop. I have a couple RCA 5u4gb’s, 6L6’s and some 12ax7/ay7’s laying around and want to put them to use. Please email me. Thanks,

    Sean

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