My 1961-ish 5F1 Tweed Champ

While we’re talking amps, this here is a 5f1 Champ I built. The transformers came from an early 60s Silvertone organ I rescued from a Goodwill for $12.00. Whenever I mention this folks say: “that Silvertone organ must have been pretty cool”. It was not that cool, I assure you. The organ component was a cheesy, Italian air number much like the one you got for Christmas in the 60s that was broken by Easter. But…the unit had a sweet U.S.A. made 1 x 6V6 amplifier tucked away in the bottom.

I was lucky enough to track down a hand drawn schematic for the amplifier circuit online and it was this drawing that helped me learn to read schematics. The circuit was 99% a tweed Champ out of the box so I decided to take it the rest of the way and house it in Champ’s clothing.

The transformers were both from 1961 and are nearly identical to what would have been on the same era Fender. One small difference being that the output transformer in the Silvertone feeds an 8ohm load as opposed to the Fender O.T. feeding a 4ohm load. The speaker was an alnico Oxford which also would have been found on many Fender tweed Champs. Sadly, the speaker was D.O.A. I may get this reconed someday. It is also from 1961.

Using the transformers, the on/off/volume switch and a few other bits I set out to recreate a 1961 Champ. I ordered a chassis, tube sockets resistors, caps and anything else I couldn’t salvage from the organ.

It took me an afternoon to populate the circuit board, install the tube sockets and wire everything up in the chassis. Being my first build, the wring is not the neatest but it is solid and quiet. To house the thing I ordered a reproduction Champ cabinet from eBay. This was the one aspect of this project that I was not super happy with – the person who made this cab (private eBay seller) did a great job quality wise but for some reason they decided to toss the original dimensions out the window. It’s a tad larger and boxier than an actual Tweed Champ. It works, it’s well made but it would have been nice if it was the proper dimensions.

The speaker I ended up going with was a Weber Signature ceramic. I tried a Signature alnico but it didn’t sound as good. The ceramic is louder, fuller and not as squishy.

I finished things off with a reproduction tube chart that I spat out of Photoshop and aged to perfection and a few coats of hand tinted shellac over the tweed.

How does it sound? Great. Very much like a 1961 tweed Champ. It has a slightly more hollow sound due to the larger cabinet but it behaves just like a Champ. With Fender guitars it’s twangy at lower volumes and gets a nice snarl when pushed. With humbuckers or a P-90 it can border on farty but not in a really bad way. It’s wild, wooly and aggressive. Very inspiring. It’s pretty loud too.

I have built about half a dozen tube amps since this Champ. All of them from parts swiped from broken old electronic devices. I have not built from a kit ever. It has really taught me a lot. I dug Learning how to evaluate an output or power transformer and figuring out the best circuit to build around them. My best sounding amp so far is an 18 watt Marshall circuit that I built from a yard sale 1940s Philco radio chassis.

I no longer build amplifiers. I am quite happy to play and maintain my small collection of vintage tube amps. Building amps did teach me how to appreciate and care for tube amps of yore though. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll bang out another amp. Wether I do or not I believe this little Champ will always be my favorite.