My weird, vintage, rare amp

[counselor]

This is exciting to see what's happened with this thread since I bought my Massie in 2008 (last time I looked!). Lot's of interesting information, but it seems there is still a lot of mystery. Actually, I think that makes the amp even cooler.
I have a Massie Squire head (Model 1263) with the Massie Badge, not the St. George. A lot of the white writing has worn off the front, so the posted pictures were a big help.
I have a couple of questions:
1. What is the output impedence in this thing? (the guy I bought it from said he always ran into an 8 ohm speaker with no apparent problem, but that didn't exactly give me a warm fuzzy)
2. There is a single RCA jack behind the transformer closest to the power tubes. Is this for a tremolo footswitch? (safe to assume it's not a digital coaxial out, LOL)
3. Is the tube layout 3 12ax7's, 2 6v6's and a 6ca4/ez81? (Some of the tubes are the same yellow print sylvania's as in the pictures, the tube numbers were gone).

There's a pot intalled in the back where the reverb hole cover used to be. The previous owner said it was a negative feedback loop, but who knows.

Thanks in advance!

[guitarcapo]

I'm a bit of a hack so when i don't know an amp's output impedance, I just try different speakers with different impedances until I find one with the best sound and volume. I've never blown an amp OT doing this.

[michaelspence]

Sorry to revive an old thread.

I would just like to introduce myself. I am the grandson of Paul George. The Paul George who started St. George with his father Anthony. I am here looking for as much information as possible about the company.

I have one St. George combo and I'm hopefully about to buy a head. I've built guitars and amps for years and only recently learned about St. George, which I find fascinating.

I don't know too much about the history, but my uncles in the States were there. I am in contact with them so with everyone's knowledge maybe this Massie/St. George thing can be sorted out.

Michael

[SatelliteAmps]

Welcome. It would be great if you could shine some info on the subject.

[Keyser Soze]

[Chris Scott]

Originally Posted by Keyser Soze

Me too.

The thick plotens...saw lots of them while working at GC, Betnun's and Aeolian Music back in the 70's, yet never bothered to actually try 'em - seems like maybe it was my loss...

[garagerocker]

Originally Posted by counselor

This is exciting to see what's happened with
1. What is the output impedence in this thing? (the guy I bought it from said he always ran into an 8 ohm speaker with no apparent problem, but that didn't exactly give me a warm fuzzy)

I was wondering the same thing! Just got one of these things on impulse and don't want to fry anything or burn out the old tubes. As for the earlier argument about the possible Fender connection, who cares! If it sounds good, it sounds good! Not like these are going for megabucks!

[Nasty]

Hey all, and Adam in particular.
Hadn't revisited this thread in over a year and am pleased to find it still current.
I ended up with 3 Lancers over the last many years. They have cohabited with forty-some-odd others in my recording studio and real estate is getting pretty precious there. Over the last few months, I've brought them all up to spec and strong operating condition. Two of them now have new homes locally. In the process, I decided to suss out a real schematic. The one that's out there on the web I posted many years ago. It sucks! I had never dived into drawing schematics before, but hey, I spent almost 50 years as an architect, I can draw. I think this is accurate. I double-checked it with each amp I opened. The result is labelled preliminary (Adam this is where you come in) because I may have overlooked something. I don't think so, but I may have. I also checked voltages at many points after the overhauls and they are shown on the schematic. They were very close on two amps, but the third had a replaced power tranny with significantly higher voltage to the 6CA4 rectifier and, thus, anomalous. Adam, I appreciate your abilities and would hope you would review it. My CAD program won't let me output the drawing as any nonproprietary file other than pdf, and none of the image hosting sites will accept those. It' been printed and scanned as a jpeg. I don't know how scalable it will be and this is the first time I've posted graphic output to a forum. Let's give it a try. If you need a better copy, pm me with an email address and I'll send along the pdf. Thanks all, Larry Life

[Nasty]

By damn, it worked! I've got the abilities of an 8-year-old geek.
A few notes: The upper channel is the bass, the lower is the guitar (I will change the schematic to reflect that). The by-pass cap from the volume pot follower to the tone pot is a value I'm not sure of. Massie labels it on his schematic as 470MFD. The actual ceramic disk cap is labelled 470K. I don't think 470uf is possible in that size disk, so I assumed it to be 470Kpf which would be .047uf. I may be wrong. I'm showing a 25uf 50v cap paralleled with the 250Ω cathode resistor on the power tubes. The Fender 5E3 circuit had it, Massie omitted it. I think it's important. This is a cathode-biased amp and under heavy loads the cathode voltage will sag without it and shift the bias. It is assumed that a grounded power cord would be installed by you or your tech. The usual death threats apply.
Now a little story about the anomalous Lancer with the replaced power tranny. I asked the guy who bought it to bring it back around so I could measure voltages, which I had not done. 422v to the power tube plates. 427v, 330v, and 317v at the filter caps. My bias checker showed 44ma at each of the power tubes for 98% of rated maximum output. Using the cathode bias calculator at the weber site, which derates by 5% the output for the grid ma that the bias probes typically include: 43ma and 17watts output for each tube. Cathode biased or self-biased (as it's called) amps can handle 90% of max tube output (per mfr's tube specs) as opposed to 70% for more traditional grid biased circuits. The Fender 5E3 tweed Deluxe is cathode biased as the Lancer is. The brown face Deluxe and every one after is grid biased with a negative voltage on the grids. This is why the tweed circuit was a monster and the most copied Fender ever. The tweed Deluxes could hold their own with 6L6 amps on stage. He's a finger-style blues player and has gigged with the Lancer exclusively for the last six months. No hiccups. The amp has singing highs, tight bass and astounding sustain. At all his shows, it never fails that a few pickers will drift up to the stage at intermission and say "what the hell is that amp?". We stripped the godawful St. George logo off it before he took it. Now I'm not suggesting you mod your Lancer. You'd have to be very careful about the PT you chose. I'm only saying that it appears the circuit could handle it. I wouldn't use anything other than current run EH's, Tung-Sols, or JJ 6V6S's. They can all handle the higher voltage. Also be aware that the 6CA4 rectifiers have a annoying habit of failing by shorting from heater to plates. That can easily take out the power transformer. His amp put 369v on the rectifier plates, 19v more than their rated max. To get the full effect of the tone you'll get, you need a speaker rated at 2-3 times the output wattage. I put an Emminance out of a Super Twin Reverb, rated at about 100 watts, in his. A JBL D120 would work well.
The Massie closed-back, ported cabinet serves the speakers far better than the open-back Fenders. The only break-up you'll get is when the core on the output transformer saturates, and it will. The OP tranny was probably rated for about 25 watts. The other two Lancers are putting out 13 watts per tube. Heyboer (Fender) and Shumacher (which I believe these to be) transformers were very forgiving in this era. Again, I'm not suggesting you do this, I only chanced upon it by virtue of what someone else had done. It pushes the circuit to it's limits. But oh the tone.

[Chris Scott]

Amazing - I'd sure love to hear it!

Welcome, Nasty.

[Bob Pollock]

One on the 'bay now.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321005708935...84.m1438.l2649

[SatelliteAmps]

The schematic looks great. The only thing that looks odd is the .1uf as the first bypass caps. I will have to double check in mine to see if that's what they are. I may be mistaken. Thanks for taking the trouble.

[Nasty]

Adam, The .1's are from the original Massie schematic and were definitely in all three amps I rebuilt. They were all Astron paper-in-oil which have an almost identical construction as the Sprague Vitamin Q's. The .022 signal caps were all Aerovox PIOs and I think the .22 signal caps were Aerovox PIOs in the first two amps (from late '62). In the third amp (from late '63) Sprague black moldeds.
It's interesting to look at the Deluxe schematics from 5C3 thru 5E3 and watch the design progression two stages before the power tubes. Quite a bit of tinkering. But you're right, the Fender 25-25 cap/cathode resistor pain seems like a much more stable way to bias the first 12ax7 than Massies .1/4.7k pair. The weirdest bit is Massie's take on the inverter.
FYI I used PIOs for the .1, .022 and .22. First one got NOS Vitamin Qs, second got the new Mojotone Vitamin Ts (the high voltage one). The one I'm keeping ('63 w/blonde tolex) has russian military PIOs which are real beasts. Not sure which I like best yet. Though the high voltage, heavily gigged one sounds wonderful but the higher output skews the results.
Here's mine with a all the new caps installed:

The JJ 32/32uf-500v fits perfectly for the first two filter sections with the old can on the upper left removed. The 20uf Sprague is mounted w/tab strips on existing bolts. On the upper left is the 25-50 Sprague coupling with the 250Ω cathode resistor. If you get the JJ turned just right, all the existing cap leads work, with the exception of the blue lead for the second 32uf section which has to be spliced.

[Nasty]

Originally Posted by Bob Pollock

One on the 'bay now.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321005708935...84.m1438.l2649

Bob, I had seen that. It's a strange stepchild. It appears to be a Squire with a single tone section for both channels.
But that lunatic inductive leap in the description....that since Adam says there is no proof that Massie Electronics is Ray (and I agree) therefore the amp must have been made in the Fender factory! It's no wonder everyone's confused.
Cool looking amp though. The blonde cabs are pretty scarce.

[SatelliteAmps]

Originally Posted by Nasty

Bob, I had seen that. It's a strange stepchild. It appears to be a Squire with a single tone section for both channels.
But that lunatic inductive leap in the description....that since Adam says there is no proof that Massie Electronics is Ray (and I agree) therefore the amp must have been made in the Fender factory! It's no wonder everyone's confused.
Cool looking amp though. The blonde cabs are pretty scarce.

Looks more like it came from the Rickenbacker factory to me. It is quite the odd stepchild.