This is a Gene Leis 910T that I purchased on eBay about a year ago. The price was right for a vintage tube amp, and I figured it couldn't be as bad as it appeared in the ad. I was wrong! It arrived from California, and was a total piece of crap. The cabinet was made of particle board, and it showed all of the use and abuse it had taken since new in the mid sixties. Someone had treated it to a terrible rattle can stripe job, that had less fore thought, than me pressing the buy it now button one late night after one too many PBR's. So I collected myself and came to terms with the fact it was approaching 50 years old, and it only mattered how it sounded. I took a guitar out to the garage, to give it a test run. As I carried my guitar out to the garage, I anxiously anticipated the sweet vintage tones from an amp of this age. As I turned it on, and plugged in my guitar, I was treated to 110 volts of electricity through the instrument jack. I nearly dropped my guitar, and this piece of junk had zapped me of all the joy and excitement I had while unpacking it. I was pissed. I pushed it under my work bench and went inside. After several weeks of walking past it, I figured I needed to get it looked at, and try to salvage my investment. I made a call to Chuck Mathes (www.mathesamplification) and he agreed to check it out. I dropped it off with a brief recount of my experience, and told him to call me when he knew what the damage was. I left and put it as far out of my mind as possible. 3-4 weeks went by, and I got a message from Chuck saying the amp was repaired. He added a grounded AC cord, cleaned the pots, recapped it, and adjusted the tone stack a little to improve the overall tone of the amp. I picked up the amp, and headed home with renewed excitement to test it out. This time around I wasn't shocked as I plugged into it. It made noise, and I was almost satisfied. It just looked so bad I couldn't stand it. Back under the bench it went. About 3 months ago, I was clearing out some unused stuff to eBay, and I figured I would put this amp up and hope someone would grab it in a moment of weakness, like I did. Unfortunately no takers on 2 rounds of eBay, so was feeling stuck with this thing. I figured if I was stuck with it, I had no choice but to clean it up, and try to make it useful. I talked to a wood worker friend of mine, and he agreed to build a replica cabinet for me, made out of 3/4" cabinet grade plywood. We changed the design of the back of the cabinet a little to make access to the tubes and speakers easier, and he took the cabinet to get the rest of the dimensions. While he worked on that, I worked on cleaning the blue paint off the face plate of the amp, the only piece I planned to reuse. After an evening of scrubbing, and a quart of Acetone, I had removed 99% of the blue paint. Luckily, most of the original lettering was still in good shape, and I was starting to get excited about it again. The amp had the worst power on indicator lamp, and I couldn't stand it. I gave the amp back to Mathes after drilling the chassis out for a Fender style jewel light, and he wired it in. The cabinet was done now and just needed to be wrapped in tolex and new grill cloth. I liked the idea of a different color than black, so I wrapped it in blue tolex with a black and gray grill cloth. I noticed when I tore the amp apart to replace the cabinet, that the speaker was either shot, or a clapped out piece of junk. I had a 10" speaker, so I installed it during assembly of the amp. It sounds as good as it looks now. One feature this amp has that's really cool, is the dual instrument inputs. One input allows full volume of the amp, and the other input drops the over all volume allowing the tube overdriven sounds to come through at a lower volume. Thanks to Chuck and Gary for their help getting this thing useable again. It's ready for another 50 years of use.
This is a Gene Leis 910T that I purchased on eBay about a year ago. The price was right for a vintage tube amp, and I figured it couldn't be as bad as it appeared in the ad. I was wrong! It arrived from California, and was a total piece of crap. The cabinet was made of particle board, and it showed all of the use and abuse it had taken since new in the mid sixties. Someone had treated it to a terrible rattle can stripe job, that had less fore thought, than me pressing the buy it now button one late night after one too many PBR's. So I collected myself and came to terms with the fact it was approaching 50 years old, and it only mattered how it sounded. I took a guitar out to the garage, to give it a test run. As I carried my guitar out to the garage, I anxiously anticipated the sweet vintage tones from an amp of this age. As I turned it on, and plugged in my guitar, I was treated to 110 volts of electricity through the instrument jack. I nearly dropped my guitar, and this piece of junk had zapped me of all the joy and excitement I had while unpacking it. I was pissed. I pushed it under my work bench and went inside. After several weeks of walking past it, I figured I needed to get it looked at, and try to salvage my investment. I made a call to Chuck Mathes (www.mathesamplification) and he agreed to check it out. I dropped it off with a brief recount of my experience, and told him to call me when he knew what the damage was. I left and put it as far out of my mind as possible. 3-4 weeks went by, and I got a message from Chuck saying the amp was repaired. He added a grounded AC cord, cleaned the pots, recapped it, and adjusted the tone stack a little to improve the overall tone of the amp. I picked up the amp, and headed home with renewed excitement to test it out. This time around I wasn't shocked as I plugged into it. It made noise, and I was almost satisfied. It just looked so bad I couldn't stand it. Back under the bench it went. About 3 months ago, I was clearing out some unused stuff to eBay, and I figured I would put this amp up and hope someone would grab it in a moment of weakness, like I did. Unfortunately no takers on 2 rounds of eBay, so was feeling stuck with this thing. I figured if I was stuck with it, I had no choice but to clean it up, and try to make it useful. I talked to a wood worker friend of mine, and he agreed to build a replica cabinet for me, made out of 3/4" cabinet grade plywood. We changed the design of the back of the cabinet a little to make access to the tubes and speakers easier, and he took the cabinet to get the rest of the dimensions. While he worked on that, I worked on cleaning the blue paint off the face plate of the amp, the only piece I planned to reuse. After an evening of scrubbing, and a quart of Acetone, I had removed 99% of the blue paint. Luckily, most of the original lettering was still in good shape, and I was starting to get excited about it again. The amp had the worst power on indicator lamp, and I couldn't stand it. I gave the amp back to Mathes after drilling the chassis out for a Fender style jewel light, and he wired it in. The cabinet was done now and just needed to be wrapped in tolex and new grill cloth. I liked the idea of a different color than black, so I wrapped it in blue tolex with a black and gray grill cloth. I noticed when I tore the amp apart to replace the cabinet, that the speaker was either shot, or a clapped out piece of junk. I had a 10" speaker, so I installed it during assembly of the amp. It sounds as good as it looks now. One feature this amp has that's really cool, is the dual instrument inputs. One input allows full volume of the amp, and the other input drops the over all volume allowing the tube overdriven sounds to come through at a lower volume. Thanks to Chuck and Gary for their help getting this thing useable again. It's ready for another 50 years of use.
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