what up with this amp

[Mages]

My dad has a friend who's an old player, been playing for years. He told him I was into guitars and whatnot so he gave him this amp.

a fender showman? I took it out of it's cabinet here.









what is this? it doesn't look like the pictures of 60s fender showman's I've found on the net (has dividing line between second channel and tremolo, holes for switches look longer than normal, doesn't say fender etc. under showman label, cabinet looks wrong (plywood, wrong grill cloth)). it has no date stamp or serial number. so what is it? has a lot of japanese parts inside, electrolytic caps say shin-ei. oh, but the transformer on the right in the above picture has fender stamped into it. the other two are "TEC" "Triplex Transformers".

haven't plugged it in yet. don't have a guitar at my dads house.

[HNB]

Maybe someone just put Showman covers on it?

[laterallateral]

^^^ Yep that's what I think too. Aftermarket faceplate.
Circuit looks unusually sparse. Reminds me of an old Japanese Twin knockoff I used to own. Loook into Pine Elecrtonics and Pepco Amplification. Might be a lead here.

How does it sound, though?

[ekwatts]

It's possibly a Japanese knock-off, but still a hand-wired valve amp. I don't know much about old Fender amps but even if it isn't what it appears to be badged as, it still looks good. If it sounds good then clean it up, change the plates and rock it.

[AaronGuitarDude]

If I am not mistaken, that is an "copy" of bassman, correct if I am wrong, probably a fake fender?

[laterallateral]

Yeah, no... The component layout is all kinds of wrong but It's definitely a copy of a Showman, what with the vibrato and 4 6l6 and all.

[Mages]

I c'nae play it at the moment, don't have anything on hand to plug into it or plug it into. I have no idea if it even works really.

the face plates appear to me as if they were made for this amp. none of the pots or switches have been moved around. there is residue of a rectangular shaped badge on the grill cloth. it's possible that originally it may not have been an outright fake but akin to something more like a "Tokai Les Paul Reborn".

but yeah it seems like it is at least based on a showman, although I imagine some of the details of the circuit aren't exactly the same. it's just wired without the usual turret board used on a showman. and they've sort of arranged the tubes in a way that's more convenient for assembly rather than someone actually having to change the tubes. it might have been built from a schematic rather than actually looking at a real showman. it's a fairly clever bit of work I wonder what else this outfit was responsible for.

anyway, still interested to hear what it sounds like, hah.

[paul_]

Seems awesome so far. I bet it's capable of sounding really nice, might need some tweaks... do you know if he's been keeping it going, retubing/biasing, etc?

[weed_killer]

maybe similar to some servicemen ripoffs, like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-GABBY-DUAL-SH ... _765wt_936

[NickS]

That seller has some curious stuff. This, for example:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-FENDER-BASSMA ... 6107991511
The shape is right for a certain period (I had a transistor Bassman that shape) but would there be more Fender branding/detail on the back panel?

[Mages]

yeah... those are interesting.

I don't know about maintenance except it looks like at least the output transformer has been replaced (with a real fender transformer) if not all of them.

I'll update whenever I'm able to do more with it. it's not on the top of my list right now though.