Modding Old Organ Bits Into A Guitar Amps


[Forrest] sent in his Hammonator Organ that he resurrected into a guitar amp. He re-used several of the original parts, and designed the amplifier around them. Tubes were chosen to fit the sockets, and the original transformer was adapted to run on the 120V usually found today.

12 thoughts on “Modding Old Organ Bits Into A Guitar Amps

  1. Nice. I have a Hammond AO35 reverb amp that I’m using for a similar project. As for being low powered, that’s exactly the point. Nice power tube saturation at a volume that doesn’t get the cops called on you.

  2. @7: It’s clear you’re no audiophile; the rust deposits add a subtle but important inflection to the odd subharmonic cross-modulation which provides a clearer reproduction of the amplified audio source. It’s unfortunate that this hack uses Bakelite knobs, though, because the Bakelite causes a distal vibration when placed so close to the metal chassis. This completely offsets the rust’s inflective properties and degrades the entire listening experience.

    It’s still an interesting hack, though, if only from an academic perspective. :-)

  3. A few answers to the comments:
    If you want to deafen yourself, the amp can easily be rebiased
    to work with 6L6 tubes (approx. 35W). 18 watt amps start to
    distort (desirable) at a non-deafening volume.
    The transformer’s not rusty, that’s the paper. The chassis
    *is* rusty, but much better than when I started the project.
    I’ve scraped lots of rust off with a wire brush. The rust
    gives it character, imho.

  4. Funny, I did something similar with the power supply/amplifier section in an old Tube console set (Radio, Phono, amp) The circuit was in good shape so I built a control & input box for it. Now I can listen to CDs (in mono…) with warm 6V6 push-pull output.

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