Introduction: Madamp G3 Blues Kit

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Yeah so I like building stuff, and my Blackstar HT-1R does not have a lot of headroom on the clean side and I found the Madamp G3 Blues kit that was not too expensive. It's a 3W tube amp and it seemed like a fun project.

Step 1: Soldering

The kit took a while to ship but once it came it had everything included.

The components are soldered to a board with preinstalled lugs, you need to bend the lugs a bit.

Step 2: Pots

Then the pots, you mount them on the outside as you solder them to make it easier to reach. Then they are moved to the inside.

Step 3: More Soldering

Then the transformer and the tube sockets are mounted on the underside of the chassis and the wires come through and connected to the board.

The kit comes with very clear instructions.

Step 4: Testing

Then it was time to test it. Although I am an electrician, connecting this to the wall outlet was a bit scary.

I took my time and went through the check list and got all the correct measurements before I plugged my guitar into the amp. It works and sound good, perfect volume for at home practice. It can be played at low volume but can be cranked a little bit over the neighbor friendly level if you want, but not by much. But that is as loud as it gets, you wont be able to use it at any gigs.

Step 5: Enclosure

Keeping the amp on a plastic box was not a lasting solution so I used SketchUp to make an enclosure drawing. I had some MDF left from my guitar case project and built it. I made a panel for the front and back but I was not happy with it. But it had to do for the moment.

Step 6: With Some Paint

Step 7: New Front Panel

I used a paper to make a template for a new panel and used a jigsaw and a router to shape it.

Step 8: Tolex

I ordered some red Tolex, a handle, rubber feet and corners. Sadly the corners did not have the correct radius, or the other way around ;), so I could not use them.

Step 9: Draping

I watched a good video on how to apply the tolex and did my best to adapt it to my design.

Sadly I did not think my design through in ways of draping it, so there where some parts on the front that where to difficult for me to do well. I had to add som small stripes of tolex to cover the holes. At first I was very disappointed but in the end I think it's alright. And the the red and black looks really good in my opinion.

I rerouted the edges to 1/2 radius and switched my Ebay corners with the ones on my Harley Benton 1x12s.