[Harp-L] Re: Fender Blues Deville tweaked, fine tuned for, harp

[Tom Skailes <tom.skailes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tom

As previously stated, Mark Burness is a great source of help and advice. 
If you check out his MySpace page you'll find details of suggested mods 
for harp for the '59 Bassman, the principles of many of which would 
apply to your Blues Deville. You'd need to compare the schematics for 
the 59B and Blues Deville (widely available online) to identify the 
relevant equivalent components to modify/change. In terms of getting the 
work done you need to find a tech that's happy working on a printed 
circuit board, it can get a bit messy if they get it wrong.

One element of the suggested mods is to lower/cool the bias on the power 
valves. I don't know if the Blues Deville has a bias test point and 
adjustment screw, as per the Twin, but if not, Torres Engineering sell a 
simple device mounted in a valve base, called the BCMA, that you can 
plug in which provides test points to measure the bias using a digital 
multimeter - it's a cheap and cheerful (and safe) method of measuring 
the bias. On my 59 RI Bassman I've added a bias adjustment pot on the 
underside of the chassis that I can easily tweak the bias with.

NB though, the mods don't radically alter the sound of the amp, just 
make it more harp friendly.

Good luck and have fun
Tom

On 29/06/2011 17:42, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Re: Fender Blues Deville tweaked, fine tuned for
> 	harp