Beyond Recapping: getting the last noise and buzz out of vintage Fender amplifiers 

I remember from fixing cars, there was a level of trouble shooting that involved using the factory manual that involved an implicit assumption that basically everything else involved was perfect. Then there were the cats that understood issues on a deeper level like in this video- where only intelligence and experience will probe further into diagnostic and resolution. People who change components are basically working on the implicit assumptions that it’s components failure and never question the integrity of the foundation the components are embedded into. All being said - issues like this give me a better appreciation for higher quality thick pcb construction. Although that crap can go conductive as well - hopefully only because manufacturers chose cheap thin pcb boards.

Another reminder of the many layers of science, skill and art that go into amp design. You can have a perfect theoretical design but still cripple it with bad layout ( turret or PCB). You can have a perfect theoretical design and layout but cripple the implementation with cheap parts or inappropriate ratings / guages or sloppy work. Or everything can be initially perfect then subjected to time and physics and suffer inexplicable issues... unless you REALLY know your stuff. Masterful content here. Thanks.

Lyle, the new camera and audio is fantastic. Really enjoy learning from your years of experience. Really next level on the content.

Can’t say enough about how invaluable your instruction is to those of us who dabble. Thank you! I also would like to echo that your audio and video quality are off the chart. Thank you for being so detail oriented.

Hi, I’m the guy who asked about the Princeton Reverb II. Somehow, I missed replying to your comment. I’m sorry about that. I appreciate your comment- saved me from making a mistake. At my age I don’t have time to make those mistakes. Again, Thank you! John

Haha I'll take the shoutout 😆😆 Tubes ended up seemingly fine but they were burner tubes either way. She's all good now! But yes, learn from me folks be EXTRA sure where everything goes.

Nicely done! Thanks for sharing your video.

Really interesting to see you doing this. I’d never have considered the wax as a problem. Every day is a school day. Thanks Lyle!

Good tip for getting some of the last noise out of a tube amp! If you have a DMM with a "conductance" function, like some old Flukes, or the 8X - 18X series meters, or a Brymen 786 or 869S, they can measure extremely high resistance leakages while using single digit voltages. For example, a conductance reading of 0.01nS , or , nanosiemens, is a resistive fault of 100 gigaohms, and can help you identify low level leakage from point to point on a board. Of course, component removal like you did is still necessary, but it can help you verify if you have made a improvement before resoldering everything.

Back with a bang. This type of work is so satisfying to watch.

I own a 69 SR that had been overhauled by a famous German boutique builder in the process of which he removed ALL capacitors and most of the resistors. when I bought the amp from the past owner, I received along with it a huge bag of components and the original 700€ invoice. The amp was dead quiet and sounded heavenly. However, some component values had been changed (tonestack, one coupling cap). I changed it back to original using some of the original components which I measured prior for defects. The amp is still dead quiet and sounds even more heavenly. So I wonder if this huge overhaul was really necessary.

You have a great "Radio" voice.

...."because it sucks.' yep you done won son. Thank you for the education and the wit.

Lyle , I picked up a 1965 bassman in the 80s . I tried all types of repairs . Finally I replaced the fiber board with epoxy board from Hoffman . We'll it stopped

Leakage can be so frustrating. I usually reheat/add new solder first and then clean up similar to your video if that doesn't seem to do the trick. Recently bought a clean 1973 Twin Reverb/master volume that needed new cap job. These older Fenders are tanks! Nice job.

there's nothing like watching and listening to a great lesson , lyle really is an artist and a national treasure

Amazing attention to detail, enjoy watching you work, thanks a million.

you truly are very kind to make such information-rich videos. thank you.

“He’s takin’ all the vintage out” had me chuckling. Sounded just like the guys around here (Northeast Arkansas) 😆

Great video, I can see everything. I was fixing an old battery powered Disnei toy and of-course I thought the memory chips had gone caput(hot , sunny, sea-side envirinment) heated up soldering iron and had new wires ready, as soon as I touched the battery terminal the thiing came back to life! Animal sounds, laughter, sound FX etc. The salty sea air had made the battery terminals turn to powder!? Anyway all was well after new wires. As you say it is the fact that you are heating those "cold/dry" connections that causes the circuit to re-connect. Thanks.

Fantastic Lyle...I almost feel ready to look at an old Fender now. I have a '70 Super Reverb here that is staring at me...

"mmm, tone goodness" and "he's taken all the vintage out!" - will be borrowing those quotes for future random conversations...

I really enjoy the videos, but Im never going to be a tech. I used to shake really bad just putting a blasting cap into a Claymore mine.

glad to see you back! I was missing these videos

Superb! I could (and often do) watch and listen to you work on this stuff for hours - always fascinating.

I know how fun the wax cleanup is, believe me!

Such valuable information. At some point I will recap and clean my 78 super twin reverb. It hasn't got much historical value but to me. Love the cleans. If I break it I will buy de drri

This is my fav type of video now. Thank you so much!

Always grate information thanks Lyle.

Very valuable info and your subtle humor is amazing!

Great advice and interesting video. Thanks for sharing.

Tks Lyle for this tip that I did not know about the wax causing these issues . . .you are a very 'rare breed of guitar amp tech' .. .stay safe ;-)

Proof there is no substitute for experience! Very nice tip. Thanks!

Fantastic information!

Excellent learning video, thank you!

Really beautiful work.

Many thanks for sharing this supreme level of knowledge. This is maybe the one video I will value the most of all that you've made.

Excellent. Thank you, Lyle.

Youre the best Lyle.

Camera and lighting upgrades looking good!

That’s got to be one of your best videos, Lyle! Great work, oh captain my captain!

CRITICAL KNOWLEDGE I NEEDED TO GET RID OF NOISE IN THE GREATEST TUBE AMPS ....!!! THANKS!!😁👍

Great Wednesday night, Lyle dropped a video and the wife brought me home a pork tenderloin from Culvers for supper.

Brilliant video

Finally a mic and sound recording deserving of your rich baritone! So nice to hear (and see!)

so great to see the late 70’s SR get some love, they’re wonderful amps if you take good care of em.

"He's taking all the vintage out!" 😱

Such outstanding work, I have been absolutely ragged on for this very issue, while pointing out to people, a bad cap, will show leakage on a high voltage capacitor tester if it actually leaks, and that the blue esr meter will show esr values on a small signal cap once you read enough esr values you can tell what’s good or bad, esr on small value caps is very tricky, anyway , in doing vintage work, 100s of blue molded caps tested, I have yet to find one that is actually a bad cap, yet people insist they do, but never have said blue molded cap that was “leaking”? To show me , or let me test, I have said, Its the fiberboards. A little heat goes a long way. Just like you show here. I think the larger problem is few have a real capacitor tester that can test at rated voltage, and esr meters mostly do not work on small signal caps. So they shotgun parts In vintage amps religiously . While seriously devaluing a vintage amp. I will admit many other caps do not fair as well as the blue molded film caps do. However if they are not bad, they also would not need to be replaced, and to know the difference is fairly important on a vintage amp that has a rising value. I still have an open invitation to anybody who thinks they have a leaky blue molded cap , I have a stancore capacitor analyzer , if I find a bad one it will be a first. If someone with proper test gear showed me one, that would also be a first.

The hissing and noise. I wished I knew about wax leakage but the amp is great now for 30 years . I put in Torres bassman magic kit . This amp is loud and proud. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

A lot of people talk about your dedication to good practices and craftsmanship, attention to detail. Not enough people talk about your voice and cadence please read me a bed time story, maybe GPS directions at the very least a few books on audible.

I have never really worked on amps (or really as much) a long time ago my grandfather did a cap job on an amp I had. The board was nothing like these here. Just the cap job alone and how silent the amplifier was after floored me. This is a very good tidbit. I have a fender 75 I would like to approach. It looks like a monster of a circuit.perhaps a difficult one to diagnose. A little problem like this would drive me nuts. For I am spoiled of how the silence sounds.

Hey, I know that “guy” you’re talking about! I was live tech support for a couple hours helping him get it straightened out. I have the luxury of not doing this stuff full time though.

Cool video and very informative..Thanks for sharing..Ed..uk..😀

Learnt something important here.

this is awesome common sense stuff.......that comes with your experience!

I hope you don’t mind, but I binge listen to your low, calming voice to lull me off to sleep at night. Don’t get me wrong, you’re my favorite amp channel. Maybe I can absorb some of your vast knowledge in my sleep lol

The new camera shots look great!

Nice work, Lyle. There’s so much misinformation out there. If only all could see this.

Great Video and VERY INFORMATIVE! 👍🏽😉

Interesting and informative as always, I just hope the tech currently servicing my own late seventies Pro Reverb has the same skill!

great stuff!

Oh my. I never thought about the wax issue. Thank you. And I got the vacuum sucks. Low hanging comedy fruit well played.

fascinating, i didn't know about wax becoming conductive enough... i did encounter insulating materials (such as foam spacers) that measured a few tens of ohms in older amplifiers.

ditto most of the comments another master class much thx sensei

great vid...

On my own amps, I have used glyptol, a red insulative ‘paint’ of sorts at a few critical locations. Once the board is squeaky clean and tested, it can be applied between lands which are likely to be a problem. It’s just my theory, but I believe this can be a permanent solution to make up for sloppy PCB design placing high impedance signal points too near to high potential signal which… happens. From my 1970s work on A/D converters before they were chips.

Hey you're back! Missing my fix, love the vintage stuff I learn so much from that. Just wrapped my Vibrolux project and uploaded the final video of the series today. Thanks for dropping by earlier, appreciate the encouragement!

I just looked and saw that you have over 38k subscribers now. Wow! When I subscribe you had 500 and something. Congratulations and I guess I should look more often at how many subs you have.

I dig the subtle humor, yes vacuum cleaners do suck.

Very good. Thx!

Ohhhh 😮removal of the sacred mojo wax!

And easily converted to "quasi" blackface specs. Those old blue epoxy dipped Pakton caps almost NEVER ever go bad. I found the manual for my GR resistance meg-ohm bridge. I can make a high voltage probe, kind of like a snuffer stick only with a 1meg ohm to 10 meg ohm resistor inside of it, and test resistors AT 1,2,5,10,20,50,100, 200, 500 or 1000 volts, and find out if that resistor is good at the high working voltage it sees inside of a tube amp. I can even feed that exact voltage from the amp through the bridge, as it's just a null bridge. You get the needle to center, and read off the resistance. It also does the insulation resistance test too, so you can check those boards for leakage up into actual tera ohms. The voltages to test to tera-ohms are kind of, We'll make it leak, ***damnit!, high voltages.

Lyle this was a great video! You know you could save that wax and sell it … a great surfer vibe! “Fender Sex Wax” - Give your board that smooth vintage tone! 😅😅😂😂😂😂

I'm almost positive that Yeatzee did his work on his Vibrolux inspired by the workmanship that you demonstrate in your videos. So basically, I need to go back into every amp that I've worked on, and do it the right way 🙃

Good stuff

Good info

Thanks!

It'd be cool to see the blue cap leak tested whilst it was out.

Wow. Thanks.

Omg not the tone wax!? All that dc mojo , gone ? Lol Very cool video

If I were restoring an amp similar to this one, and I was the owner of the amp, I'd keep all the original good parts and replace the fiber eyelet board with a new FR-4 Fiberglass turret board at least 1/8th inch thick, and that would fix the DC leakage issues for good.

Outstanding video. Any advice on soldering iron, temperature and solder brand?thanks

Tone goodness he’s taken all the vintage out. Lol

I’m still relatively new to this… So that’s what all that wax was for!

Good stuff! Do you typical clean the problematic areas where HV wires are in close proximity, or do you test for leakage at those points first and then clean? (Assuming the amp has noise but no other issues)

there's knowing how to do something....but knowing when to shut up and listen to the guy who understands why you do something....that's the lesson....

I own Fender amp from that era, it's 1979 SF Bandmaster with MV. Simillar cables, resistors, & caps. Perhaps simillar noise & buzz issues tho. However, the boards get bend and warbly, so the first thing i did is changing all coupling caps then addressing some cable layouts, the noise lowered but it's still there. Then I change some tubes, nothing change drastically. My questions are, Do you think pulling out the board then wash it completely will fix the issue? Or just replace it with new & fresh boards? Last question is, do you think those cables would survive for next 10-20 years? I live in Tropical country anyway, so humidity level can go wild for several months in a year.

Only one click of the ‘like’ button allowed. Not fair. I love saving the old parts! On a 60s board without wax, would you just remove the components and heat the area?

Is there something that would make a good replacement for the wax if for some reason it would all have to be removed? I've seen many videos of techs basically giving up or claiming the amp is too far gone to be worth repairing when encountering this and other issues related to a board becoming conductive.

WAX!! Enough said...

I have 70's one that need a output trasformer wondering witch company would be the best ?

8:56 Mmmm, tone gravy...

I was curious to look inside my 79 Super Reverb and I noticed a couple of white plastic wire had good burn mark on each, how do you address the burn marks, I don’t see the bare wire but it is deep burns. Also I noticed at the first power tube socket, where a tube pin socket was loosely protruding out of its hole, like it became loose, is that a problem or is that normal.

1000th like ...

but, but the wax has all the toanz!

Interesting. I guess this only applies to waxed boards.

I won't show you the vacuum because it sucks. ha-ha-ha, nice pun. Could you possibly do a video on how to remove the MV from these 70's amps? I did one several years ago, but I could use a refresher from someone who really knows what they are doing. I missed your videos btw.

Very informative..strictly a player..with a nerve deafness in the right ear..extremely sensitive to noise of any level

I have a 1967 18watt 2X12 combo that has a hum, it might have this same issue?

The vacuum cleaner sucks--no kidding! 🤣