chassis

[Shannon Parks]

I've built quite a few amps in the past few years, and the chassis is always the part I hate. My first DIY ST35 took me about 3 hours of drilling, punching, nibbling, and etc. It came out nice, but when I figure the time and frustration I decided it was worth the $50 to have a custom top plate made. BTW, they can be almost any color.
Check out the photo of my newest at:
www.tubes4hifi.com/st35.htm

Tubes4hifi - how thick are the top plates and what is the material/finish? Pretty slick! Also, what (horizontal) power transformer are you using?

I haven't figured out to post photos on this forum yet or I would just put it here.

Hit the [Img] button, type the link, then hit [Img*] again. Like so:



Shannon

[tubes4hifi]

Hi Shannon,
I must again congratulate you on doing such a nice job on the rev C PCBs. Top notch quality, and also the fact that you are doing so much analyzing and testing and troubleshooting, and great forum here.
This top plate I had made is 1/10" thick, can be any thickness, but this was just about perfect for the size and weight of the transformers.
Can be plain or anodized aluminum, any color. I like the gold, and the medium bronze color available is really classic like the old Marantz and Harmon-Kardon stuff from the 60's.
This plate is 12" x 8" so I could just drop it on top of a cheap Hammond chassis, since I'm not a woodworker. Anybody out there that can make nice wood bases please contact me via email or in this forum, as I'm always building amps.
I got the transformers from a Lafayette EL34 amp, they sound great.
Alot of people don't know much of the Lafayette gear was designed by Harmon-Kardon.
Currently working on a custom Dyna ST70 with a 16" x 10" x 1/8" thick plate in a Welborne wood chassis, but they are kind of costly. But I'll have less than $400 into a custom ST70 using all new parts except the transformers, so I'm happy :happy7:
I'm sure some people are going to want my source for the top plates, but since I got laid off from work last week, hope nobody minds if I'm the supplier so I can make $5 on the deal. The reference on the Welborne site doesn't do this type of work anymore.