Epiphone Valve Jr. Mods? new hobby!

Well...I was going to mod the hell out of mine when I scored a Merc Mag kit (unused, in the box) for $150 (SCORE~!).  As I looked into the instructions, grind phenolic attach to printed circuit board etc, it seemed like a waste.  I went to turretboards.com and ordered a replacement marshallized board.  At this point, why keep the epi...so I sold it. Now I have a boutique epi kit but no idea how to put it together   For $80 I would dump the PCB and go point to point.  I think Hayboer (sp?) or hammond makes trannines that work for the epi...once you get started there might not be much left!  Happy soldering and be careful, one hand in the back pocket!

ok... PHOTOS????

Now I'm interested to see this thing!

- Nic from Detroit... posting on JB's Forum since 6-2-2006
Ask me about my handwound Great Lakes Guitar Pickups
Since 2010, Bonamassa fans have taken advantage of my JB friend discount = my cost + shipping.

'tis but a box of really cool looking parts at this point, I have to build a chassis now too.  I have saved it for my winter project and have been busily wrapping up everything outdoors before the snow flies.  I don't know if I have any pics of the original epi, but will look for them.  But...Turretboards.com, check out the Epi upgrades, that's where I would start.  After upgrading the tubes of course.  JJ El84 and a tungsol 12ax7 (good place to start for me)

Just plugged my valve jr into my 1980's craigslist Marshall 4x12 cabinet.. (model 8412).

Let me say... for a 5 watt tube amp, this thing gets LOUD. Earplugs loud. No mods.
So people say the first thing to do is get rid of the Sovtek tubes and get JJ's, so I inevitably went to Eurotubes and got a set of JJ's for the amp. My hopes are high that it will sound even better so I can hold off on modding it for now.

Here's what Michael from Eurotubes had ot say about the amp:

"We've retubed a lot of the Epiphone Valve Jr.’s. A JJ EL84 in a grade anywhere between a #24 to a #34 are quite nice with the #34 getting a bit less headroom and the #24 staying cleaner.

For the front end you can either use the JJ ECC83S or the ECC803S. The ECC803S is a lower gain tube with a real thick mid and a little brighter high end so if you choose to use one of these I would recommend a matched triode ECC803S that is at 90+ in gain.

If you want to maintain the amount of gain the amp has now then you can use a matched triode ECC83S that is between 90 and 95 in gain.

If you want more gain then I would use a high gain ECC83S that is 105+ in gain. This makes them grind real good when you crank them but still has a decent clean."

and about the Sovtek EL84
"Sovtek EL84: This tube has a very harsh mid and upper mid-range. If I had to describe the tone in one word I would call it "cardboard". They make your amp sound like a big Wheaties box. The low end is flabby and only gets worse as more lows are dialed in. The highs are piercing and brittle. These tubes are just flat and lifeless sounding without much harmonic content. When over driven they get real grainy and the break-up is quick and not smooth."

- Nic from Detroit... posting on JB's Forum since 6-2-2006
Ask me about my handwound Great Lakes Guitar Pickups
Since 2010, Bonamassa fans have taken advantage of my JB friend discount = my cost + shipping.

I was on another forum a while back when I used to one a Valve jr.  which I asked is the Mercury Mag kit better then
http://turretboards.com/ kit trany.  The response was pretty funny made sense.  Baically they said Yes the Mercury guys do sound better but look at how much you paid for your amp.  now look at how much a kit from these guys cost.  For less then $50 you can replace the Tranny which is the major problem in that amp (lack of iron) next you can get a board for like $100 I think prewired is something like $150 and have the choice of voicing.  After all that your still less then the Mercury guys and have hand wired amp.  But still some people buy these kits because they are proven to work and thats truely why you would buy a Mercury Magnetics kit for.  I did better I just sold it and bought a pedal.

I am really disappointed. My new tubes came in and after putting in the EL84, I played it for 5 minutes and it quit.
There is a hairline crack by one of the pins... causing it not to work.

I have put in EL84's before with other amps like the Peavey Classic 100, that thing had eight EL84s.
I was trying to install Groove tubes and they had the same problem. I'm not rocking them in, I'm putting them in straight. So I took the JJs out and the Sovteks back in - works great. This doesn't happen to Sovteks.

I noticed the Sovteks have more heavy duty glass around the base pins and JJs and Groove tubes do not.

Now I have to order another JJ EL84.

- Nic from Detroit... posting on JB's Forum since 6-2-2006
Ask me about my handwound Great Lakes Guitar Pickups
Since 2010, Bonamassa fans have taken advantage of my JB friend discount = my cost + shipping.