Nazareth Guitar Institute Archtop Building Class
In July of 2019 I had to good fortune to take an archtop guitar building class at Nazareth Guitar Institute. This definitely ranked among the top five to ten experiences in my life so far.
Category Archives: Music
Black Moon Guitars – Tele Thinline Builds
A photo journal of my progress on two tele thinline builds.
18 Watt Marshall TMB Build
Knocked this amp out in a weekend. One of my favorite amp builds to date.
Ambient Noodling
Ambient Noodling from rweeks on Vimeo.
Even Worse on Vinyl
Well, 35 years too late is better than never 
That would be a younger me, second from the left. It’s hard to believe the life this thing has taken on all these years later. Only 500 copies pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Get yours while they are still available.
Vocals: R.B. Korbet; guitar: Robert Weeks; bass: Eric Keil; drums: Jack Rabid.
Tracks 1-13 from the ‘lost’ studio album recorded in November 1981 and February 1982 at 171A Studio, New York. Engineered by Jerry Williams, and co-produced by Jerry Williams, Bad Brains, and Even Worse. Recorded for the also ‘lost’ 1982 Bad Brains compilation album of N.Y. and D.C. punk bands. Tracks 14-26 recorded live from the board at Max’s Kansas City, N.Y., August 27, 1981 (playing between The Undead and Heart Attack), no overdubs. 4-track mixdown and final master by Michael Rozon at Speed Semen Clove Factory, N. Hollywood, CA. (P) Even Worse except 5, 8, 15, 18, 20, 21, and 26 as indicated.
Front Cover photo courtesy of Laura Levine.
18 watt Marshall 1974X clone build
My current amplifier build.
This without a doubt has been my hardest, most frustrating build to date. It’s also been a great learning experience thanks to some very helpful people in the “Hand Wired Amp House” group on Facebook. At some point I’ll have worked out the bugs and will post a video clip here.
The FB plugin I used for this gallery is borked from time to time. I’ll need to rebuild this gallery manually. Thanks for understanding.
From 18 Watt Marshall build. Posted by Robert Weeks on 1/05/2016 (11 items)
- One more for tonight.
- Mojotone makes a damn fine cabinet.
- Working on what I hope turns out to be my cleanest, most professional quality build y…
- I was going to work on the amp tonight but it's been a pretty shite day and this…
- So I went to Radio Shack today to pick up some parts. The salesperson seemed pretty k…
- Procrastinating….
- Last one today. All the wiring is done and it passed the dim bulb tester without the …
- Got the normal channel debugged tonight and it sounds like a beast. I've never o…
- Getting so close…
- My nemesis. Curse you Marshall 18 watt tremelo circuit!
- Do over. It's the journey, not the destination. Or as one of my co-workers at Br…
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Sleepwalk
I’ve probably played this song 10,000 times. I’m sure it’s etched into the minds of everyone in this house. I’ve worked out different ways of playing it and I can pretty much play it with my eyes shut *unless* you put me in front of a video camera. So that’s what I spent my time doing tonight while my wife and kids are out at the Hurricanes game. For some reason I freeze up in front of the camera. Anyway….. This take was the best of the bunch tonight. I built the amp, a tweed Fender Deluxe clone and the reverb unit, a clone of a Fender 6G15. The guitar is a Gretsch DuoJet and I run it through a Klon KTR and a tc electronic delay setup as a slapback echo. It’s only a few minutes long and worth watching for the blooper I put in at the end of the video.
Got Gretsch?
My G6120SSU Brian Setzer Nashville & G6128TCG Duo Jet
As I’ve gotten older I find myself moving away from the standard Gibson and Fender guitars to Gretsch guitars. I wish I had discovered these years ago, especially the DuoJet. I’ve never played a guitar that felt so right in my hands before. It’s been one of the nicer things about growing older.
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- G6120SSU Brian Setzer Nashville w/ Vox AC30
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- G9201 “HONEY DIPPER™” METAL RESONATOR
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- G6120SSU Brian Setzer Nashville w/ Vox AC30
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- Electromatic G5126 w/Ampeg Jet II
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- Electromatic G5126 – this was a factory second. I think I got it for $400.
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- G6120SSU Brian Setzer Nashville w/ Swart STR Tremelo
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- G6128TCG Duo Jet, Cadillac Green, Mojotone Tweed Deluxe and Mojotone Reverb
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- G6120SSU Brian Setzer Nashville w/ pedalboard and Mojotone Tweed Deluxe
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- Silver Sparkle Electromatic G5126 and me
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- G6120SSU Brian Setzer Nashville w/ THomastik Blues Sliders
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- G6128TCG Duo Jet, Cadillac Green
Mojotone Fender 6G15 Reverb Clone
“From Wikipedia: “The Fender Reverb Unit (6G15) was a tube, spring reverb-equipped effects unit made by Fender. The Reverb Unit was originally introduced in 1961. It was discontinued in 1966 and was replaced by a solid-state model, the FR1000.[1] The unit features three controls: Dwell, Mix and Tone and is run by two pre-amp tubes and a power tube. Physically the unit looks like a small amplifier head and since the early ’60s the unit has become synonymous with surf music”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Reverb_Unit”
From Mojotone Fender 6G15 Reverb Clone. Posted by Robert Weeks on 9/25/2015 (12 items)
- Rainy weekend project. One of these days I'm going to have a proper workbench.
- Sunday dinner
- Now the fun begins.
- Getting there. Front panel controls, power transformer and output transformer wired. …
- It was bound to happen sooner or later. I made a mistake with the wiring under the bo…
- Back in business except for the broken fuse holder. I learn something new on each of …
- Filament (heater) wires installed (green twisted wires). I used to install these firs…
- And we have reverb!
- My builds: Fender Tweed Deluxe clone, Tweed Champ clone, Blackface stand alone reverb…
- Newest addition to the Woot Twang Clan
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(Mojotone Fender 6G15 Reverb Clone; 11 photos)
Tweed Deluxe Amp Build
From Tweed Deluxe Amp Build. Posted by Robert Weeks on 8/04/2014 (16 items)
- Bought this Variac off ebay.
- Mojotone Tweed Deluxe 5E3 kit parts arrived.
- My son checks for the right resistors while one of our beagles chills out under the t…
- Progress. Trying to get this done before the kids' hockey season really kicks in…
- Fiddly bits….. Ended up re-routing these wires so they would not pick up hum from t…
- Progress
- Filament heater wires in place (green wires). Next the preamp & phase inverter wi…
- Finished with the wiring. That's about as clean a wiring job as I can do for now…
- Was going to drill the holes to mount it to the chassis but stopping to take the kids…
- Clay made this dim bulb tester today while I worked on the amp. Maybe we'll try …
- Getting awfully close. Everything's in place to try to bring it to life tomorrow…
- We have lift off! No fires, explosions or electrocutions (yet). A bit more hum than I…
- Some testing before adding the Claytone name plate.
- Now that the amp is basically done, bring on hockey season.
- Spent the day with these guys. Didn't really want to stop but i have to at least…
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(Tweed Deluxe Amp Build; 16 photos)