Tonefiend Forum

Although my wallet has kept me from making the plunge, I bet there are a lot of DIY club veterans that are eyeing some kits pretty hard.

I've built a couple, but they were simple ones, like the Weber Champ 5F1 kit. I'd been working on my own Princeton Reverb and Deluxe Reverbs, so I figured building wouldn't be tough. All in all a Fender Champ clone like this takes about an afternoon to solder together, once you've sussed out where everything is and how it will fit together.
One thing that's cool about these little kits is that they really show you what the components do, if you're learning how a tube amp works, though reading a little about how capacitors and resistors work as tone/signal filters helps, and reading a book or two on tube amps is always helpful! (Dave Hunter's books, for example.)
But, yes, I haven't had the money to build a bigger amp... I really wanted to make one like the Fender Brownface amps with the harmonic tremolo, but haven't managed to yet.

Anyone tried the Mojotone kits?

I built a Mojotone kit for a buddy sometime ago when they were first doing kits. The instructions were in the beta version and were not ready for prime time yet but I hear they are much better now. It was OK in the long run since I don't need instructions for building a guitar amp (heck I hardly use a schematic to build a guitar amp they are so simple to me after many years of electronic work). YMMV. The parts from Mojo have always been average or better in my experience. Tube amps are a relatively easy and rewarding project for hobbyists the parts are large enough to be easy to install and troubleshooting is easy. Most ham radio and hifi hobbyists pretty much built all their stuff from kits or even just design packs back in the late 50's and 60's it was a rite of passage for them and there were many kit suppliers. You need a soldering iron some tools and at least a DVM to do the job but an 8 ohm dummy load, signal generator, and Oscope really help. But keep in mind I have been doing electronics since I was 10 years old and that was still the tube era (early 60's). Just keep one hand in your pocket when working on hot chassis'.

If somebody would concoct a Vibro-Champ kit with reverb built in, I'd finally take the plunge and try my hand at building an amp kit.