Crazy question, but I've been restoring antique radios for years, and I'm pretty familiar with tube gear. I've fixed my own amps (Fender Vibro Champ, Hot Rod Deluxe, and an old Premier 88 from the 1950s). I'm an electrical engineer and ham radio operator, and love getting my hands on electronic gear and repairing it (when the power is off, of course ). Recently, a couple of folks asked me to fix up their tube amps or tube radios, and got me scratching my head on whether I could make any kind of side business fixing amps.

The last amp was a well-loved one that a friend wanted to get working again. It was a 1963 Gibson Falcon, if you're interested. It had a scratchy noise that turned out to be a bad volume pot. He'd also hacked off the foot switch for the tremolo and reverb and twisted all the wires together (not good, since they were at different potentials). I ended up carefully disassembling the volume pot and repairing it since my usual parts suppliers didn't have a suitable replacement. I found the schematic, traced the wires and got them joined more neatly with wire nuts so his tremolo is enabled and the reverb disabled, which is what he wanted. Beyond that, I replaced the line cord plug that was falling apart, put in a new panel lamp since the old one was burned out, slowly brought it up on a variac to make sure the electrolytics were good, cleaned up the dust and spider webs, eyeballed the chassis to look for obvious problems like damaged parts, and checked out the tubes on the tube tester. Oh, and spent some time playing it to make sure it was working properly (gotta test it, right? ). My cost was about $2.50 in parts and about 2 hours in labor. He offered me $100 and was thrilled to have it working again, but I really didn't have a feel for what was reasonable and we settled on $50.

Anyway, I have no idea what techs who work on amps routinely charge. Any thoughts? Does it seem reasonable to make a few bucks on the side repairing amps?

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My gear:

Hot Rod Deluxe
1975 Vibro Champ
G-DEC 3 Thirty
Kramer XL III
Standard Stratocaster
Oscar Schmidt acoustic

There is always a shortage of good amp techs. If you are careful and meticulous then you will be in demand although it may take a while to get "known". Once you are known in your community and if you don't ever waver on the quality of your work you can charge whatever the going rate is in your area and maybe even a little more. Be sure not to make promises you can't keep.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

Hi sparkydave,

Sounds as if you know your way around electronics and tubes. You should be able to charge a minimum of $60/hr, and even more.

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---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

+1

Competent amp techs in my neck of the woods charge $45 to $60 per hour for bench fees.

I do a lot of cosmetic restorations......$50/hour is my usual rate.

HTH

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it. Maybe I'll see if I can put the bug in the ears of some of my musician friends that if they know folks who need amp repairs to keep me in mind.

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My gear:

Hot Rod Deluxe
1975 Vibro Champ
G-DEC 3 Thirty
Kramer XL III
Standard Stratocaster
Oscar Schmidt acoustic

Get some business cards printed, pass them out. Vista Print for one place, has a pretty good selection, you can choose design and layout on-line, and you can get a couple of hundred or so for free.

_________________
---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.