here is my take on this, owners who own vintage amps that are good enough to save as a survivor need to do... A. vacuum seal the entire amp, tubes separately then store in touring case, B. remove all vintage parts and components and replace with 3rd party if it's to be "gigged or used".. C. kept in an airtight vacuum sealed case when not is use and used sparingly like once a month for showing off or whatever.. B. donated to the smithsonian cannot have your cake and eat it, one is way ahead to just replicate the amp using better components to achieve that vintage sound, then gig the hale out of it! if you have a smithsonian quality vintage amp you want to retain its antiquity hermetically seal it and then put in fireproof touring case! period! also, these amps are not desirable or wanted for their age, they are desirable for their tone production, fact of the matter is you can build a more reliable cheaper amp kit from mojotone, and once you beat on it for 10 years still get your money back out of it.. I have a smithsonian or better quality princeton Reverb silverface, no jokes, ITS BRAND NEW, but so old... so old.. the fender RCA tubes are brand new, here is what I think happened, the tube slots got loose and failed to hold the tubes properly, so it had intermittent issues, owner played it maybe 4 hours then tossed it in the case in the closet, it was unsealed 45 years later and sold to me, now its back in the case, ridiculously new, speaker, everything, I wanted to make sure it worked, played on it 20 minutes going through all pots, reverb, and tremolo to make sure it all functioned, it does and some, its back in the case tucked away.. I am having a custom made seal and vacuum sealer nipple installed on it, going to suck all the air out of it, equalized to the lowest tunes pressure, slightly less prolly.. it will be in a museum one day, I really want to trace the original owner so him or her may have the posterity of first owner on the card next to the amp, and mine under it as second owner and donator.. I am not 100% sure this is why the amp was stored, as the same auction had a deluxe reverb blackface BRAND NEW, and a deluxe reverb silverface, brand new! which went for ridiculous prices, to this day I am not sure how I got the princeton? I attribute it to a bidding practice, but seriously $1250? huh? whereas the blackface deluxe reverb went for $5500, and the silver face was $2800 I believe, too rich for my blood, hale $5500 thats a soldano SLO 100 full stack FFS...

A stable, reliable bias supply is key to survival of not only output tubes but both transformers. After that, filter cap replacement; and examination/replacement of screen and grid-stopper resistors for tolerance and any sign of heat-stress; and checking output-stage coupling caps for electrical leakage. Any of these components failing can cause major damage, but IMHO the bias supply and filter caps *must* be replaced. If a customer won't agree to that after you've tried to explain the importance of changing those parts, tell him to take it elsewhere.

I've never seen crimp connectors inside a Fender amp and question their originality. Anyway, wire nuts don't stay in place well on stranded wire, and twisting them onto typical 20 or 22 guage solid wire sometimes used in amplifiers may tend to fatigue and weaken the wire, and I'd avoid using them on amps that are subject to shock and vibration from transport and gigging. Crimp fittings are a more reliable choice, assuming one has proper crimpers and uses them correctly. If you twist the wires together and solder them lightly, then either connector would probably work to cover the bare wire ends (the crimp fitting has to be able to compress the metal in order to stay in placen the wires), but a butt-splice crimp connector would look nicer and is easier to cover with shrink tubing as an extra precaution. (By the way, Big Clive recently tested some no-name solder-containing butt-splice variants that you are suppose to heat with a match or heat gun in order to solder the wires together, but they worked poorly. Name brand versions might be better but are expensive). PS, I was a Tele-data installation tech in a previous life ---- we mostly worked with 66 and 110 punchdown blocks. Prior to that I was a car stereo and alarm installer for 15 years ---- I must have crimped a zillion bell caps, butt splices, bullet connectors, forks, rings and spade lugs.....

I do too; and if I may share, I personally just rebuilt a 66 Super Reverb and used F&Ts (they are hidden under the dog-house cover) and the rest of my work is obvious; Modern parts ( almost no orange drops ) but cloth-wrapped tinned wire well placed throughout. I went cheap on the speakers and used ceramic Fender Special designs that were take -outs from a hot -rod Deville 4-10. The thing is a MONSTER ! Sometimes we stumble onto something good, sometimes we have to scrape something off of our shoe.

Green light!

@@PsionicAudio nice!

You said it! Carve your entire comment in stone! These "cork sniffers" are a colossal pain in the ass. They would rather have the thing be unusable, not working, or in serious danger of going up in smoke, possibly electrocuting somebody, or at the very least, sounding like a turd. Leo probably would have suggested putting tbese idiots in the rubber room. They're kind of like the coffee fanatics who obsess over the volcanic ash content of the soil the beans were grown in, and the elevation of the mountains, and the time of day the beans were picked, and what color shoes the guy was wearing, etc. Just stupid irrelevant crap dreamed up by comic book nerds and other clueless knuckleheads with too much time on their hands. Its just a shame when this mentality bleeds over into useful products that creative, productive people want to use to make art. Lots of people out there who don't have both oars in the water.

No amp has the caps visible with the cover on

Just a bump in the coating. Been like that since it was made.

Hammond makes some very good transformers. But my prices on Mercury are competitive with Hammond/Heyboer and that would be my choice. If needed

@@PsionicAudio thas cool to know , cheers

Make great amps great again

@@shckltnebay it’s great to make great amps great again

@@PetraKann Yee-Ha !

it all matters, the better made and sealed caps are best, then using a meter to insure polarity and install accordingly, hale if a guy was to use sheiling on all cap leads that helps minimize noise and bleeding.. I am going to build a mojotone amp from kit, all premium components and trannys.. then I am going to use electronics encapsulant to seal the entire board save the tune sockets which I will use toilet paper rolls to keep encapsulant away form, the encapsulant is what they use on car ECU's aso forth, its gel like and heat resistant.. I figure this should really up the amps performance, ZERO bleed anywhere and no wiring come loose form vibration so forth... only hope its while before it needs servicing, you have to warm this stuff up fairly hot to melt it.. a real concern for me tho is heat, will it build up and destroy components? prolly, but I should get a few good hours out of it, then I'll figure out how to deal with the heat destruction... lol

If a car collector found a '57 Chevy that had been garaged for decades and still had it's original belts, battery, tires and lubricants, would he (or she) jumpstart it and drive it away, or have it towed to a mechanic to get it put into safe, reliable working order before taking it for a cruise? 🤔

Agreed Matt. Leo was a pragmatist and designed the amps to be easily serviced. I think he would be surprised at all the preservation nonsense and if he was still here, would be offering upgrade kits with F&T and Vishay caps and all sorts of modern things. Hiding new caps in old cardboard tubes - humans are weird is right.

@@jahmosaxe7109 , apparently you know nothing about amplifiers. Go blow up your own vintage amp; or electrocute yourself because the amp doesn't have a grounded cord and its wiring doesn't confirm to modern electrical codes.

Dunno. It didn't share.

Inconclusive

Who was insulted? Mr. Whipple?

@@PsionicAudio 🤣

@@PsionicAudio That you remember Mr Whipple is astonishing! LOL!

Interesting. You’re insulted by references to toilet paper rolls. That makes the interwebs seem quaint today.