I also had a local machine shop knock up the chassis out of a sheet of 1.5mm aluminium so it’s not a true Lamington because I didn’t source the chassis from K-Mart – And 150 coats of shellac always looks good on a decent slice of timber – Here’s a photo.: I built the chassis in to a 9mm marine ply box using GutterGuard for the front grille, added red and green pilot lights to show the 5w and 10w options and added a blue LED strip for some bling. Tone control is smooth, and with the gain up high this amp is a screamer that compares very well to some of the big brands at a fraction of the cost. I opted for the 5/15 switch and it’s loud through a 1×12 cab with a Celestion vintage 30 – even at half volume on 5 watts.
I tried using only the schematic as a guide, and three knock-down re-builds later I bought the construction manual from Grant – So I can honestly say this is money well spent.Īlthough the finished amp has a little background hum (because of my sub-optimal tube placement) the result of following the manual’s wiring practices is a great clean sounding amp with loads of headroom and excellent overdrive tones. It makes an interesting read as Colin has learnt a great deal about valve amps along the journey of building Lamington amps.Īs a first build the Lamington 18 watt amp is not something you want to be attempting with no help at all, especially if you have no experience with valve amps construction. I recently received this in depth review from Colin P who has built just about all of my Lamington amp designs!