Building a Fender 1963 Vibroverb Clone
This was project started back in 2013 when my dad and I noticed that Marsh Amplification were producing reproduction 1963 Vibroverb chassis, faceplates and turret boards. I ordered a set when my dad did after I finished my JCM800, and they sat in a box until July 2024 when I finally found the time and money to order the rest of these parts.
Wiring and cabinets
Luckily, my dad had some old his old vibroverb head and extension cabs sitting around and all I needed to buy was the hardware to go on them and I already had some old laser cut badges in a box from my fender champ project.
Most of the parts came from Tube Depot or Mojotone, for me I had to make sure I ordered the correct international voltage transformers and I managed to buy them when the exchange rate wasn’t entirely awful. Most of the caps are new except I opted to use some old mustard caps I had in the stash where I could. I followed the main wiring diagram with not much changes except I added in some extra fuses, omitting the ground switch and wired the speaker outputs slightly different. I originally used toggle switches for the Vibrato and reverb pedal switches but later changed them to the correct RCA jacks due to induced noise.
Testing
I had a fair few issues powering it up for the first time. I was using new old stock tubes and trying to get a matched set of power tubes was not easy. I did use a variac to bring the voltage up slowly so as to not damage the transformers which were the least replaceable part of the whole thing. I was chasing a hum for a while, which ended up being some wiring mistakes, bad jacks/switches and old caps which I swapped out in the end. Most of the passive parts aren’t ‘Period correct’ and neither is the wiring, but I used what I had around to finish the project out and get it working. I had to make a grounding jack for the vibrato as I wasn’t going to use it, and I was chasing a reverb not working issue for a while as well which was a wiring mistake + bad tubes.
Getting it up and running
Once it was all working I buttoned up the missing cab parts and found a weber 12″ speaker to fit the extension cab from my dad, it should 2×10″ but again, i used what I had or what was available. I do want to create a 2×10″ baffle and redo all the grill clothe as it doesnt match between the head and cab but that is a fairly minor concern at the moment, it works and thats all that matters.
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