Hey! Good to see you here. I'm glad the 5751 is working out for you. I will second that advice on the EF86. A good quality NOS tube will sound and perform better. You should get years of good service from it.

Lead dress is extremely important. The layout is not the proper way to route the leads. I would go to the Amp Garage and look at pics of Francesca and follow it to a tee. After you get some experience you can do things differently and even change the layout and still have a good sounding amp. With some patience it can be done although it is not recommended for a first time build.

I think I only changed the brand of caps for the cathode bypass and bias. I also eliminated the shielded wire on the second gain stage, I initially had a slight oscillation with the solid wire but I cured it by securing it to the chassis with a bit of hot glue. The cabinet I made myself. It's nice but nowhere near the quality of some of the others. I used red oak from Home Depot and used a high quality poly finish that a guy at Wood Crafters recommended. I ended up changing the front panel to a beautiful piece of African Mahogany to give it a different look.

Well it's not Niks Expression but it is his chassis. I built this one a while back and sourced all of the parts individually. I have made a couple of changes since the pics but it's pretty much still the same.

Hi everyone,

I just found about about the forum from a post over at TGP so I thought I would drop in. Looks like a great place. Ceriatone amps are killer and Nik's a great guy.