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Hi Mr. Cohrs,

My dad gave me your Trinity Deluxe amplifier kit for my 14th birthday.

Although I am a student guitarist, my father always made sure that I had good instruments to play. What I did not have, was an amplifier worthy of the quality of my guitars.

I opened your kit, compared the parts with the parts list, laid out the parts on a large table covered with cardboard, and read the instructions. The instructions are so clear that even a child could build the kit. I guess that I am still a child, so my ability to build a Trinity Amplifier qualifies as a great example of the clarity and quality of your instructions. My dad and I agreed that I would work on it a couple of hours every Saturday night, and after practicing cutting, stripping, and soldering twisted wires together, I began to build the kit.

As I completed every step, I checked that the step was complete, checked my own work for correctness, and that the correct part was in the right location and facing the right way. The photos, diagrams, descriptions and instructions were flawless and easy to follow, even for me.

My dad was a big help whenever I needed something to be held while I soldered it, and he twisted the grounding screws tight for me.

On the black board, I found that if I coated the empty small metal rings with fresh solder from both sides of the board before I put the parts and wires in, that they held the parts and wires more tightly, and soldered much faster and better than without the fresh solder. When I finished, I turned on the amplifier and ohhhhhhhh, WHAT INCREDIBLE SOUND!

I brought my completed Trinity Amplifier to my guitar instructor and let him play his guitar through it. He was totally knocked out and insisted on comparing it one after the next with the sound of every other amplifier in the store. Nothing else, other than a brand new $3,000 Fend*r amplifier (just like it) came close, and mine had noticeably less background noise, and was much, much cleaner and more transparent in complex sustained chords than the original. He asked if he could buy it from me, and I told him that he could buy one just like it from you.

Thank You Mr. Cohrs for giving a young musician like me the chance to make such an incomparable quality amplifier. It means so much to me to have made it myself and that the music that it produces is a product of my own hands.

And I am most thankful to have shared that wonderful life experience with my dad, who is very proud of me.

A Trinity Amplifier kit is a perfect gift for a musician of any age, and if I can build it and thrill to enjoy it, ANYONE can build and enjoy it.

Respectfully and Most Thankfully,
Olivia

Thanks Olivia. And for those who want to see some of Olivia's handiwork, here's some pictures she sent me...

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Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Bravo!

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Go Buckeyes!

Wow, that is a fantastic looking build! The wiring is immaculate. Sounds like you and your Dad had a lot of fun, quality time along the way.

The best part is that now you've got a top-notch amp on your hands and a lifetime of fun to be had playing with it. The tweed deluxe really is a timeless and unique entity unto itself, great choice!

Congrats again on a beautiful build and a very heart-warming story!

No wonder it's quiet! That's first rate wiring. I thought I got mine fairly neat but this makes me want to redo parts of it. And I've been building electronic projects for over 40 years. (I started when I was 14, too.)

I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun with this amp. Even if you get other amps down the road, you'll want to keep your
Tweed. Not only because it sounds great but because of the fond memories you'll have of you and your dad building it.

Cheers!

For sure!

I read the instructions twice before I began to assemble the amplifier. They are very clearly written and illustrated with color drawings and photographs that make the assembly easy for anyone who doesn't know anything about electronics... like me.

My dad said to think of the the assembly like weaving layers of thread to make a fine fabric. The sequence matters so I followed the instructions exactly and checked them off with a pencil. And in a very short time, my amplifier was finished.

It was great to spend the time with my dad. We talked about so many things. I knew my father must have loved me so very much to even think of such an amazing gift!

The gift of his thoughtfulness.

The gift of his sharing.

The gift of his time.

And the gift of his love.

Most incredible of all, the gift of this unbelievable amplifier kit that made all of these experiences with him possible.

I have played it now for about forty or forty five hours, and I would swear that my 1959 Gibson Les Paul Junior with P-90 pickups is even better sounding today then when I first finished the amplifier. It is like the amplifier and the speaker are breaking in together so there is even greater detail and transparency in the sound than when I first played the amplifier.

Thank You Again, Mr. Cohrs.

I hope that every kid... and every adult can get an amplifier kit as a gift and build it with their dad like I did.

It is a precious and priceless gift indeed!

Olivia

Congratulations Olivia, well done and thanks for sharing such a great story and the pics of your amp build. Such a great experience for both you and your Dad, you will enjoy that amp for a lifetime now, you have some of yourself and your Dad in that amp, no mass produced store bought amp has that kind of value, let alone build and sound quality.

You are certainly mature beyond your 14 years and a real credit to yourself and your parents.


Snowy

Great looking build

I like the Sprague filter caps, CF grid stoppers on the output tubes and your lead dress. Nice attention to detail.

Interesting grounding scheme too

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http://pdfelectronics.com

Hi Kurt,

Yes, my dad made me change the capacitors that weren't Sprague on the black board to Sprague (the large blue ones AND the smaller black ones are now all Sprague). Mr. Cohrs told my dad that the orange parts were already made by Sprague. The others were not, so out they went.

My dad said, "If Leo Fender had been Asian, we would have used the other parts..."

But he was from California (so my dad says), so Sprague it is.

The wiring is a completely different story.

I was having a very hard time cutting, stripping, getting the bare wires in the little holes, and bending the wires on the little round tabs on the controls and jacks from inside of the front panel. When my dad held the wires in place so I could solder them, I burned his fingers (not so much fun), or melted the insulation from the wires which you can see on some of the wires that I didn't replace.

I thought, why fight to stuff the controls, jacks, and wires, and try to solder them from inside the metal frame when I can mount the controls upside down on the front of the metal frame and work on, and solder them where I have unlimited space?

I covered the front of the metal frame with masking tape to not scratch it, and mounted the controls and jacks inside out and upside down by tightening the nuts with my fingers. Now I had the parts in the perfect place, in the perfect alignment, with perfect part spacing, and with all of the room I could ever need in which to work. I turned the frame upside down and now with the parts facing out towards me, I could take all of the time in the world to make perfectly neat wire lengths, easy and very neat wire connections, and beautiful solder joints.

Best of all, my dad was able to hold all of the wires with his larger (notice I didn't say fat...) fingers and I didn't burn his fingers anymore with the soldering iron!!!

The last step was to solder a bare wire across the back of the controls to keep them all in perfect alignment so that when I took the nuts off of the inside of the metal frame, the parts would stay aligned and not bend the other wires when I transferred the beautifully wired controls and jacks to the inside of the metal frame and remounted the nuts on the front. I then took the nuts off of the inside of the frame, removed all of the wired controls and jacks as a single assembly, transferred the assembly to the inside of the frame, took off the masking tape, and replaced and tightened the nuts on the outside of the frame with a pliers. I used the blade of a flat screwdriver to tuck the other wires down against the metal frame.

Finally, I took the wire that kept the controls all in alignment during the transfer to the inside of the metal box, and soldered the other end to the metal tab where the other wires are soldered from the controls and jacks. You can see it if you zoom in on the picture on top and look at the top right of the image.

You can see and count all three wires:
1) The green wire that connected the jacks precisely per the instructions
2) The green wire that connected the controls precisely per the instructions
3) The green wire that held all of the controls in perfect alignment when I transferred the controls and jacks as an assembly to the inside of the metal box.

I have to say that the amplifier is amazingly quiet. Dead quiet. But I don't think that my alignment wire is making much difference.

I think the amplifier is exceptional because of Mr. Cohrs design, the incredible quality of the parts that he chose for us, and the original design of the Californian, Leo Fender, who inspired and continues to inspire us all.

Olivia

That's a good way to do the pot wiring. I'm glad it worked for you. I would have been concerned about the lettering but it seems the masking tape didn't hurt it.
Thanks for your detailed description and tip. You did do a great job on the amp

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Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Olivia,

That's a good tip for doing the pot wiring. It gives you lots of room to work. I sometimes wire input jacks that way if space in the chassis is tight.

I didn't have any trouble wiring the pots inside the chassis when I built my Tweed, but I've been doing it a lot longer than you have! If you build more electronic projects, you'll get good at wiring in awkward places. You already have great attention to detail and that's half the battle.

Tweed Deluxe amps are classics. They defined a lot of the sound of rock music. That's why they've been around for about 60 years. Trinity's version is faithful to the originals but without all the hum and noise. We can thank Trinity's excellent layout for that.

But for them to sound their best you have to build them right, too. You hit it out of the park with your build!

Thanks Mitch,

For Sure! My dad and I had so much fun building this guitar amplifier kit!

And yes, I agree with you. At the beginning, I used a bit too much solder because I enjoyed watching the way that it melted. After just a few good solder joints, I realized that if I placed a small amount of fresh solder on the tip of the iron and touched it against the largest metal object to be soldered, and then wiped the solder from the roll across the larger tab, or part lead, or wire, it melted and evenly spread out to make a beautiful shiny solder joint. I got really good at placing the iron tip at the best angle to contact the largest metal object to be soldered. I know that I would do it all from inside the metal frame next time.

I think that everyone can get really good at it in no time.

The kit building was such incredible fun. And it gave me and my dad time to work together on something we both love.

Music.

A worldclass sounding guitar amplifier!

And each other...

Christmas is coming, and I am hoping that my dad will get me another kit as a Christmas gift.

The gift is waaaayyyy beyond the incredible fun of making the kit. It is about the quality of our lives. And the quality of the time we invest in one another. And the quality of my music every time I plug in the amplifier and think that we made this awsome sound together.

I'm hoping that Mr. Cohrs will reach out to my dads, parents, and people everywhere, and let them know what a perfect gift an amplifier kit is.

The instructions, designs and parts are worldclass. The sound is the best that any musician that we know ever heard. And if Mr. Cohrs can continue to put the same love in the box like he did for us, everyone who gets a kit as a gift will never, never forget it.

Olivia

Congratulations on your build Olivia and welcome to the world of Trinity tube tone!

Regards,
Larry

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Guitologist at Large
"How does that feel?"

Wow so tidy! Congrats and well done

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Corey