Another rare and interesting tube amplifier from the early sixties on the bench. This beautiful Valco Amp has some serious hum issues. Watch several steps to solve the problem. Full service and bias test.
Note that the grounding tie-points at the terminal strips are made with a rivet passing through a painted chassis; these rivet points often didn't make a particularly good ground connection from Day One because of the paint, and as the rivets relax overtime and the metals oxidize, the ground connection becomes resistive. It's a good idea to scrape away some paint around those rivets and solder the terminal strip and the rivet right to the steel chassis.
Somebody must have stupidly coated the input jacks in some type of "contact preservative". Clean, dry metal will *always* make a better connection than metal with greasy residue. I have also found that the sleeve or collar of the input jacks often oxidizes where the sleeve is folded over and loosely riveted to the ground terminal of the jack. I usually clean the metal and solder it at that mechanical junction. PS, if you think the interior of this amp looks like an explosion at the spaghetti factory,, take a look inside an old Magnatone!
Nope! Not this time . It was my 1995 American Standard Stratocaster equipped with Tonerider pickups. It’s the „city limits“ series. Good sound for a reasonable price. Really an upgrade in comparison to the whimpy sounding pu‘s Fender put in their guitars in the 90th. Greetings from Germany
