tech school for Gibson's amp wiring

[shooter]

...

[Willabe]

 

[bmccowan]

  Looks like a picture I have of my Mom working at Edison GE during WWII.
The first two amps I repaired/rebuilt were Fenders - a Princeton Reverb and a Harvard. The next amp was a 50s Gibson GA-20. I took off the back panel and thought, "Oh my God!" Once I figured it out and brought it back to life, it sounded great, but was quite the shock. Of course old Valcos, Magnatones, Danos, etc. proved to be no better. Leo really had it figured out

[shooter]

the credit was 1948, "wiring an IBM computer" I tip my hat to those that can wire up the cable harnesses of old.


Us in the field also did the installs, would take about a week to cable up a system, GE's bean counters determined the cost/benefit having Field engineers cable systems wasn't working smart, so they put together a dedicated "cable team", 3 guys day 1, 2 guys day 2, on to the next system.


my 1st Gibson was a simple one GA-8 Pse.  I just smiled when I seen the inside.  was all original '59? the owner was "OCDver-protective"
I cleaned out the guts of the cap-can, stuffed it with new caps, he looked at the rats nest n said "you didn't do anything, it's exactly the same"


I just smirked n said, 'cept she plays well now, He was still playing when I left 

[bmccowan]

I've got one of those GA-8 parallel SEs. It has a ballsy overdriven tone. Late in life I have discovered clean tones, so I don't play it much anymore. I am more DCO than OCD so I just disconnected the cap can and wired axials inside the chassis.
I like Dave Hunter's books and columns but I always thought it weird that he claimed to "design" the Two-Stroke amp when the circuit is pure GA-8. Of course the GA-8 owes its preamp circuit to the Champ and the GA-5. Oh no, I'm in a rabbit hole!