Fender Excelsior Valve Rattle

jonnyburgo

A noise has been bugging me for the last few weeks, distortion on certain notes when playing. Ive traced it to the power valves (6v6GTs)

They are vibrating on certain notes, What I have done is roll up a leather guitar stap and have wedged it between them, this stops the vibration completely but could be dangerous as the get damn hot! It smells of hot leather:)

Thinking of making a rubber wedge out of heat resistent silicon.

OR I could just get my hand in my pocket and buy a pair of valves:) Anybody got any 6v6Gts????

I love the excelsior, a few amps have come and gone (Tiny Terror, HT5, Hot Rod Deluxe) but this has remained throughout. not like me at all.

ToneControl

lots of amps do this, especially smaller lighter ones

Buy some silicone or Viton O rings, measure the valves and put them round the valves, 3 is best, one at each mounting point and one in the middle

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/141111118964?hlpht=true&ops=true&viphx=1&lpid=95&device=c&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=95&ff19=0

 

 

 

 

jonnyburgo

Just found some here for about 20p per ring  http://www.polymax.co.uk/o-rings/rubber-silicone-o-rings/o-rings-bs001-bs050-silicone

ToneControl

that's the company I bought loads of Viton ones from. Get the thickest cross-section ones, 1 or 2mm less than the diameter of the valve, you want it to stay in place. Usually little thin ones for preamp tubes, especially EF86 ones, and great big thick ones for output valves and rectifiers

jonnyburgo

Cheers!

ToneControl

one of mine still vibrated a bit, and needed the extra rubber thing you can see in this photo

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/zz15/toneuk/RAT%20BH5/RATBH507.jpg

 

jonnyburgo

I wonder if putting a fat bead of silicon round would work or is it the tightness that damps the sound?

ToneControl

it's the weight and tension I think, but bear in mind these rings are made as high-temperature O-rings for engines, I am not sure if bathroom sealant is OK past 250 centigrade

ICBM

What they're doing is adding mass and hopefully changing the resonant frequency of the valve so it doesn't vibrate at music frequencies. It's not the tension - the glass is almost incompressible, and if you did find something that would put enough tension on to compress it you'd probably crack it. You want them to be a snug enough fit so they don't slide or vibrate off, and not so tight you do think there's a risk of breaking the glass, but anything in between will work the same. 1-2mm less than the diameter of the valve sounds about right.

Jamming a wedge of something between them should be even more effective since it will stop the valves vibrating at all. I must get around to doing something like this… I have a set of four expensive vintage Mullard EL34s in my Mesa amp which *all* rattle.

koneguitarist

Must be honest, never seen this done ? Is there any danger issues ICBM ?

ICBM

koneguitarist said:

Must be honest, never seen this done ? Is there any danger issues ICBM ?

Only cracking the glass. That is, assuming the rings/padding won't melt or burn.

I suppose that if you really overdo it and don't allow enough cooling space, you could overheat the valves and shorten their life expectancy. I wouldn't have thought two or three thin rings would do that.

koneguitarist

Don't have the issue with my Excelsior, but often did with my old Peaveys. Come to think of it, my old Peavey Bravo used EL84's on their side but were held in place with heavy rubber sponge on the access plate.

ICBM

C30s? They're notorious for it due to the chassis being flimsy and vibrating, which then shakes the valves.

Some Excelsiors seem to do it and some don't - I think it's also to do with the fit of the chassis as much as the valves themselves, as you know they're quite crudely made, some fit better than others! If you get a non-rattler it's fine. If you get a bad one you might have to take extreme measures…

The Mesa is definitely just the valves. Slightly annoying considering how much they're worth and how good they sound!

Shark_Eyes

Thanks for solving this problem, it is a minor annoyance of my Excelsior, and now I know how to fix it!

Wisdoms all round.

bazxkr

Great post......... I'm learning so much on here

Cheers

Baz

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

Some Excelsiors seem to do it and some don't - I think it's also to do with the fit of the chassis as much as the valves themselves, as you know they're quite crudely made, some fit better than others! If you get a non-rattler it's fine. If you get a bad one you might have to take extreme measures…

Yeah that seems to be it- I did a fair bit of research into these back when I had mine, and some people seemed to get lucky out of the box, some people managed to fix the rattle with minor fixes (swapping valves) but some people were unlucky and had to resort to major surgery (which seemed to work in some cases) or else just got sick of it and sent the thing back (ok that last one might just be me ) ).

Phil_aka_Pip

The same thing is happening to my Selmer T'n'B 50, which ATM I'm using for bass. I guess I could just put it on the floor next to the bass bin ...

ToneControl

the first -issue Marshall 5w ones were a nightmare for rattling, and even these fixes did not work, the chassis rattled too!