Rickenbacker M12 Guitar Amplifier

Status
Not open for further replies.
Here's one...

Interesting, but dubious.

The distinguishing feature of a "1930s" guitar amp will be the Field Coil speaker and its DC connections. Tungsten Steel was not good (or too costly) for stage levels, Alnico was not available to the market until 1945-. There must be exceptions, but I'd really expect his find to show FC.

However MUCH more info from OP would be good. Especially since it appears Rickenbacher recycled model numbers, revised plans, and maybe re-drew some old plans in 1997. What tubes are in it now? (Is there a blessed tube-chart?) How many wires off the speaker? Jack and knob count?

Finally: while it is work, "all" 1930s guitar amps are so simple and so conventional (for their time) that you really can work-out the schematic by inspection. Knowing similar amps of same or other brand helps know what was conventional. Knowing what the tubes are is a big clue. Of course you have to see-through decades of repairs and hacks (and possibly mouse-nests or worse).
 
Last edited:
amprickpatent.jpg
 
Not only the schematic, which is the trivial part, you will need a 30´s style Field Coil speaker ... and THAT will be very hard to find (I don´t want to use the word "impossible").

And way back then, output transformers were usually not bought on their own, but together with the speaker, in fact they were riveted to the frame.
Funny thing is that *decades* later, even today, some speaker frames still have the requisite holes punched in them to carry the (now unneeded) Output Transformers.

If you use a modern speaker instead, even an Alnico one, you will be too far from authentic sound, same if you use a conventional separate OT.

Gibson BR6:
gib1e.jpg


1940´s Kamico amplifier:
2014-05-19_19-07-41_745-jpg.236124


Vaughn:
fieldcoil.jpg


Rola:
sImg_4836.jpg


Jensen:
sImg_4835.jpg
 
Status
Not open for further replies.