Hi all,
I'm brand new to the forum and a lover of all things guitar and electrical. I'm a first year electrical engineering student in Australia. I've built and modded several pedals Boss, digitech and done very minor maintenance to my amps a dsl401 and a laney vc110.

So here's my question. I wanna tackle a build of a 100 watt hrm bluesmaster. As a first amp build is it plausible if I am careful and use my dad a qualified electrician's watchful eye. I love the bluesmaster and really hope I can achieve this, also I don't have the money to buy multiple kits for "practice" being a uni student and all.

Also reverb wise I have a kit outboard fender gc15 witch I am building(It has direct instructions) will this work in the passive effects loop or will I need a c-lator.
Thank you all for your patients with my newbie questions.

The Dumble builds are VERY complex and while I don't doubt that someone could do one as their first build, it might be a good idea to check out Nik's 5E3 kit.  It's simply a classic Deluxe circuit, and so it's pretty straightforward.  That may be a good intro to the entire concept.  If you decide to go forward with a BM, though, head over to ampgarage.com and check out the community there.  All these guys do is build D-clones and Trainwreck clones. 

I'd probably get the C-lator to use with the outboard tank.  It's more than just having a loop buffer; the unit adds presence and depth to the tone. 

My bluesmaster 50w was my first amp build, but certainly not my first electronic project - I've been building modular synth components for years, and various other things. I think the key is to really have solid soldering skillz, and a pretty good grasp of basic electrical circuits. And some decent mechanical chops won't hurt.

How long is hard to say - it took me about a month I think, but that was only about an hour of work a day, maybe 3-5 days a week max. I would just do one part of the assembly at a time, and make sure I got it right. I did a lot of online research of every aspect of what I was doing - researching how others did it, looking at all the pictures of others versions, etc.

Somewhere deep in these forums is a detailed thread about my build process, and it had a lot of pictures but the links may be dead on those - if you find it and want it fixed up let me know. There are several other similar threads - I used this one as a basic reference - http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=1160.0

As far as complexity - hard to compare, as I'm usually doing pcb type stuff. Most of the soldering was fairly similar to the panel wiring I often do, although some things like the ground connections took a bit more heat than I usually use because they're attached to large heat sinks. You don't want cold solders on your grounds!

You have it right the second time, Chimp. 

Right now concentrate on your studies and take on an amp oroject that won't tax you as much, +1 on starting small.  It's about the journey, not the destination anyway.  What you like for your tones today will likely be different a few years down the road.  May I suggest that there arre quite a few ways to get sweet, harmonicaslly rich cleans and dirt to sustain through low cost, inexpensive, personally rebuilt vintage amps?

Besides, having a major project like your 100 watt build is going to have an ongoing emotional cost, you won't be able to keep your mind off it enough to really concentrate on your stuidies, because it IS a big deal.   Almost as distracting as a bunch of drunken Sheilas coming into the pub while you're just trying to get an adult beverage. 

Start with something single ended.  Then do a push pull design.  Rebuilding a vintage amp or three is pretty challenging, ande it takes some serious research and experimentation to learn how to make lemonade out of a lemon, it's in that hightest level of learning educators call synthesis! 

I think that after rebuilding three old 60's amps to sound better than they ever did I know much more than before, and the process of sourcing parts for those rebuilds was interesting as well.   But the best skills I learned were how to use that hot soldering iron tip to help remove wire crimped tightly around a connection along with getting skills using solder braid, needle nose pliers to bend, cutting and bending parts just right before trying to put them in, how to make bends and cremps that make it easy to install the parts, these are all best learned by experience on simpler projects IMHO.   If you're good at it, you can sell what you build for at least partial recovery of the costs at least.

!00 watts sounds really cool top read about, have you spent a lot of time playing through a 100 watt tube amp?   You want your amp to help your playing.   It's bad to have to compensate for an overly powerful amp.  These designs are better at lower volumes than most 100 watters, but they stiill run up your power bill more than an 18 watt build will, for example.   

I think there are very good advises here.  I agree with comments from Jeff and 212.  However, I just completed my first amplifier build following similar experiences (pedals, smaller projects and... an airplane).

The key with a larger project is to get organized and see it step by step.  As an example, I saw the footswitch connector and associated switches as a one evening project. Same with transformer wirings.

The main challenge is not soldering wires.. really, it is to be able to see what is coming next and avoiding conflicts.  Otherwise, you end up undoing and redoing or messing up the wiring. I do have some wires in my project that cross in a way that I would have liked to avoid.  This is probably where previous amp. building experience is a big plus.

I focused on quality…  not being a technician, I wanted to avoid debugging as much as possible… I did some mistakes that were discovered at later stages in the project (like wrong resistance at one place, a two mixed wires).  Prior to connecting AC, I printed a new copy of the layout and looked at each part one by one (corrected two more mistakes).   Then, all worked with no bug! Yes!

Do not be in a hurry to start soldering (I did my first solder probably 4 hours into the project). Build a stand, organize the parts, prep the chassis then mount the voltage regulator and bracket reverse and start there.

I posted some lessons learned under a different thread… have a look at this.

It took me about 50 hours to build mine.  With the personality I have, this was intense and I did not sleep well as I was always visioning the project (at work, during family dinner, in my sleep, etc.). I did the build in one week.  Of course, if one is more relaxed, it would be a nice project to do over a month.