The little Valve Junior is pretty
amazing in its simplicity. To get
costs down, Epiphone needed to
do their homework on the design
side, with the resulting compo-
nent layout indicating that they
did just that, with a surprisingly
tidy, efficient looking interior that
exuded Feng Shui...
attempted, due to the seemingly easy
nature of the mod, and because of some
pressing time constraints. The following
chronicles our adventure installing the
mod; for a general idea of our technical
expertise, picture a monkey in a cage
with a stick, and a banana just out of
reach outside of the cage.
First off, we tracked down a Valve Junior
at our local guitar shop, deciding to go
with the head version and picking up the
Valve Junior 1X12 extension cabinet, too,
both readily available for $130 each. The
Voicing/Gain mod costs $25, putting the
total cost of this rig at $285.
The tools suggested by BitMo for the
upgrade are: screwdriver, soldering iron,
rosin core solder, wire stripper, needle-nose pliers, drill and drill bits, dark colored tape and acrylic spray sealer for the
included decals, in short, nothing out of
the ordinary. The instructions include the
same old safety warnings we’ve all heard
before, but they bear repeating; rock
some goggles or safety glasses when
soldering or drilling. Sure, your grandpa
never did, and he’s fine, but what about
his friend, the old dude with one eye
and nine fingers? Yeah, that guy. Don’t
be him.
The instructions also let you know that
as soon as you bust out the soldering
iron that the warranty is void, something
to keep in mind if you’re the really
cautious type. It also includes a few tips to
get the most from both the amp and the
mod, offering up suggestions on possible tube swaps, such as sub-ing the
stock 12AX7 with a NOS 5751, and where
to start with the amp settings once
the mod is complete. Bruce was also
thoughtful enough to include a link to a
pdf that covers the basics of soldering if
you’re new to this.
To start the actual mod, we needed to
remove the chassis from the cabinet,
which was straight forward enough, and
in its stock form, the little Valve Junior
is pretty amazing in its simplicity. To get
costs down, Epiphone needed to do their
homework on the design side, with the
resulting component layout indicating
that they did just that, with a surprisingly
tidy, efficient looking interior that exuded
Feng Shui all over the place.
Bruce provides very well written, thorough instructions for the mod, with one
minor oversight, albeit a huge one in our
case; he included a very simple diagram
on page three. We were pretty much
done reading at this point, instead relying on the Mr. Miyagi method of “Picture
perfect tree. Now, make like picture,”
although a few of the instructions did
ultimately stick. The first one was leaving the switch in the middle-off position while soldering, going so far as to
suggest clamping it in place. Next was
advice on how long to trim the legs on
the caps to make everything fit properly,
saving potential heartache when read in
a timely fashion ( i.e., before the soldering starts).
In grossly over-simplified terms, the mod
consists of a three-position switch, with a
couple of caps soldered across one side
