Electrically they're the same. Won't make any difference in the sound. The only real difference is that it's easier to get higher tolerances with metal film than with carbon - in other words, in the production process you'll get more resistors that are closer to the target resistance with metal film than you would with carbon composition.

If you still feel the need to sub carbons, they're easy and cheap to get at mouser and other places. If I was going to be a component snob when building one of these amps, I'd invest time in getting the caps exactly right - they'll make a much bigger effect on the tone.

I don't have any experience with the mini, but my experience with my bluesmaster is that 10 hours is still too young to tell how it's going to sound. Hang in there for a while longer, and see if it gets better. And keep tweaking things - the controls are all interactive, you may have not just found your sweet spot yet.

Sorry, I have a bluesmaster, so I'm not sure if the pab circuit works the same way. There's a way you can run a pair of wires from the pab circuit to an external pot to control the amount of volume boost you get when it's engaged. When I ordered my kit the pab circuit already had this wire attached with no indication of what it was for, but a little searching here turned up its purpose. Perhaps someone can be persuaded to add to this...

Otherwise I can just advise the usual - practice with what you've got - learn the subtleties of your various volume controls. The one on the guitar is the key for me - always save the last bit for when you really need it.

I'd go with the color coding that corresponds on the layout and the transformer chart for the power tube connection part. The colors on the output side don't correspond with the layout though, you'll want to go with the transformer colors on that.

That makes sense. I see they're all soldered now!

You've got all those wires going to the bus bar that look unsoldered - are they? I always solder as I'm going, otherwise I'm afraid I'd forget something. I noticed a few others like that in a few spots.

Layout's up as of today!

Would like to hear some better demo clips of it. It looks good though.

I'm a little bothered that the front panel is flipped - it would be correct if it were mounted hanging like other dumbles, but then the labels would be upside down!

That sounds bogus to me. An actual experienced amp tech might be able to get the basic thing assembled in 6-10 hours, if they've done it before many times and have everything set up and ready to go. The actual final set up and fine tuning would take a while longer. I don't think a real, experienced amp tech would be boasting about unrealistic times like that. But a good one could probably knock it out in a day if they were good.

I don't remember, but maybe if you look at some of the pictures that are posted in some of the build threads you can tell? I remember not being sure also, but googled the docs for the relays and it solved the mystery for me.

I kind of glossed over this, but I seem to recall that at least 2 of the front panel pots need to be changed, and these are going to be the big deal in this conversion. This part won't be easy, but if you approach it patiently and methodically, you can do it.

If you go to the ceriatone website, you can access the layouts of the 2 different amps. I was able to put each one in different tabs and do some fast switching between them. I don't see any major differences - there are some significant changes in the front panel wiring and parts that'll be a pain to change, but totally do-able. The rest is just changing out parts, mostly on the main circuit board. Adding and subtracting a few parts. Depending on your skillz it looks like a couple of hours of work.

Congratulations! Yes, pics, audio or video would be great, but just knowing it works can be enough!

I've never actually gotten around to getting a proper speaker cab for this. Although what I'm using isn't too shabby - a pair of EV's. Ones in my Mesa Boogie Mark IV combo, and the second one is in a Boogie Thiele cabinet under the combo. I switch the speakers back and forth depending on which amp I feel like using. I don't have a lot of room for another speaker, so I may leave it like this, and get a tonebone amp/speaker switcher.

2 years later, still has the original tubes I installed, still sounds amazing!


Green Amp front by sduck409, on Flickr


Green Amp back by sduck409, on Flickr

Very nice! Good call on getting the bottom hardware in before adding the side stuff - I ended up having to take a bunch of the side stuff out to get the bottom stuff in.

I had a thread with a pictorial history of my 50w BM build here some 2 years ago, but the pictures are gone currently - I could put hem back if you're interested.

Heater wires - They can work either way. I did mine down low against the chassis, with a bunch of silicone glue holding them in place, but if I had to do it again I'd float them in the middle. The important thing is to keep all signal carrying wires as far as possible from them. In other words, if you put the heater wires low, you're going to have to float the signal wires up in the air. While this is fine, and sounds great and works well, it doesn't work for everybody.