5th winner of Mark Durham Memorial Giveaway

Post by **Graydon** » Wed 12/20/06 10:24 am

Guys,

We have raised over $7600 so far for Sheri, Marissa and Jessica Durham.

Please refer to the first winner thread here for information about how we are picking the numbers...

http://www.18watt.com/modules.php?name= ... ic&t=14085

The fifth winner of the giveaway wins a JTM45 kit from the Yahoo JTM45 group that Mark started. Mark loved the JTM45 amplifier as much as the 18W.

Congratulations to

Matthew Corey

for winning the JTM45 kit!

Our next drawing will be in a few days. Please dig up some holiday cheer and click that paypal link above and donate your dollars to the cause. Every $10 donated gives you a better chance of winning a prize. Sheri and the girls are very appreciative of what we are doing and they certainly need it.

Once again, congratulations to Matthew Corey for winning the JTM45 kit!

morcey2 · Post by **morcey2** » Wed 12/20/06 10:37 am

I don't know what to say. I donated and didn't even really think about the drawing. Everyone here is great. I wish I could have given more for Mark's family.

I am honestly speechless.

As everyone else has said, If you can, donate more. After all, it's Christmas.

Thanks,
Matt

morcey2 · Post by **morcey2** » Wed 12/20/06 1:03 pm

I just told my wife about this and to quote, "Like you need something else to build!". She was being sarcastic, of course.

For the more important question. Who do I pay for the shipping? I know that there was some talk about the shipping being taken out of the fund, just to keep things easier to manage, but I would rather pay it myself and not touch mark's family's money.

Again, donate if you can.

Matt

BBQLS1 · Post by **BBQLS1** » Wed 12/20/06 1:07 pm

Congrats. I'm working on a JTM45 too!

particle · Post by **particle** » Wed 12/20/06 1:14 pm

Congratulations!!!

Post by **Gabi** » Wed 12/20/06 2:23 pm

Hey Matt!!!

Congrats!

Gabi.

tarzanalog · Post by **tarzanalog** » Wed 12/20/06 2:50 pm

morcey2 wrote:... but I would rather pay it myself and not touch mark's family's money.

Class act!

Enjoy your amp.

dotfret · Post by **dotfret** » Wed 12/20/06 5:19 pm

It's nice to congratulate a winner! So, well done!

Tarzanalog - you have to be like Tarzan to lug that Marshall 8 x10 around, even if it does have wheels. That is a nice tailpiece, but if I put mine down like that it would encourage burglars - be careful! Remember that the web is a public place.

Dynaflow_Donnie · Post by **Dynaflow_Donnie** » Wed 12/20/06 8:56 pm

Congrats Matt! Thats awesome!

Regards,

Dyna

Ps: Said before, but everyone please be careful in your holiday journeys, if you even touch a drink, give it some thought before you get in the car, please.

geekmacdaddy · Post by **geekmacdaddy** » Thu 12/21/06 1:11 am

Congrats, morcey2 !

morcey2 · Post by **morcey2** » Wed 12/27/06 12:23 pm

Some post-christmas thoughts. This is probably more just pointless rambling than anything else.

I didn't know Mark as well as lots of the people here, but I was aware of him and his contributions well before his passing. The Vajra is something that I have been planning on building for quite some time, but after my skills improve.

Being involved in a community like this is very cool. We live in a small town and 18watt.com is very much like that. You have the occasional schmuck and a few village idiots (this is me raising my hand), but when something needs to be taken care of, everyone pulls together and just gets it taken care of.

Being the beneficiary if a raffle like this is very humbling. I contributed money and tried to publicize it in places like ax84.com and some stompbox forums, but many of you have donated so much more than I have, some great amps, pickups, parts, tubes, etc. The list goes on and on. I feel somewhat guilty and think that there are others that deserve something like this much more than myself. And I'm sure that there are going to be plenty of volunteers that will generously offer to absolve my guilt by taking the kit off my hands! I said that I feel somewhat guilty, not overly guilty.

Part of the reason Mark's family's situation hits so close to home is that in march, we lost a very close family friend to a pretty nasty wreck. He was driving truck on a fairly narrow road when a truck coming the other direction drifted into his lane when the other driver fell asleep. He left behind a wife and 3 kids between 12 and 3. He had very good life insurance, so the family is well taken care of, but it's one of those things. Everyone I have talked to that has lost someone that close has said that the hardest part is always the first Christmas without them, especially when there are kids involved.

Anyhow, I'll quit rambling now. I would just like to thank everyone here for being a great group of people. Sheri, Marissa, and Jessica are in our prayers.

Matt.

Post by **Plexi** » Wed 12/27/06 1:49 pm

Class act!

I second that.. Congratulations!

Richie

morcey2 · Post by **morcey2** » Tue 04/17/07 11:52 am

Quick update. Most of the parts should be here within the next week or so. How do I get a hold of a Mark Durham memorial plate like are on the other amps? Also, Graydon, since you supplied the chassis, what kind of cab would it fit? Small box marshal maybe? Brian said that it is an early offset chassis. Is there anyone that makes an offset cab?

I hope to have it built before the end of may and post some pictures and sounds.

Matt

morcey2 · Post by **morcey2** » Mon 12/24/07 5:40 pm

I finally got this thing finished. Here's a copy of what I posted on the JTM45 Group board:

For those of you who don't remember me, I was the recipient of the
JTM45 kit donated by yourselves for the fundraiser raffle at
18watt.com for Mark Durham's family. I have a couple of days of for
Christmas, so I decided to finally put this thing together. Here's
who sent what:

Graydon Stuckey(gdsamps.com): Chassis, faceplate/backplate, internal
fuseholder.

Brian Wallace(marstran.com, wallaceamps.com): PT, OT, Choke

Ray Domzalski( http://smallbox.freeservers.com/index.html ): Loaded
(and I mean LOADED) turret board, treble cap, presence cap.

David Bailey: Jacks, Pots, PS Cap

Brendan Mayer: Preamp tubes, Rectifier.

It went together much faster than I expected. I finished it saturday
night, left it sitting overnight before firing it up. That way I get
a fresh look at it in the morning to see if I did anything stupid
(like not soldering one of the 12AX7 plate leads to anything.) I
fired it up this morning going through Paul Ruby's startup procedure,
biased it, and it sounds awesome.

Here are some pictures that I've taken. I don't have any gut shots of
the finished product because I've got some cleanup to do.

http://mcorey.dsl.xmission.com/JTM45

The power tubes are Valve Arts KT66 biased at about 37ma. I added
1.5k grid stoppers on the power tubes and a 200k bleeder resistor.
I've wired it for 8 Ohm speakers at the moment because all of my cabs
right now are 8 Ohm. It's running through a sealed 2x12 w/ well
broken in greenbacks. Many people have said to run it through some
good alnico speakers, because that's how it's meant to be but I only
have 1 alnico right now and I think it's rated at about 15 watts.

I was going to get some clips recorded, but I'm having some issues
with my computer sound card. I'll try to get some while I'm off for
the next couple of days.

Again, thanks to everyone who donated parts to this and who donated
money to Mark's family. I'm very humbled to have benefited from this.

Thanks and Merry Christmas,

Matt

Here's the finished pictures:

Front

Back

Thanks,

Matt

dartanion · Post by **dartanion** » Tue 12/25/07 12:18 am

Looks great! Nice work.

tarzanalog · Post by **tarzanalog** » Tue 12/25/07 4:35 pm

Clips?... yes, please.

Greenback · Post by **Greenback** » Tue 12/25/07 5:14 pm

A great pice of work.
whould be proud to have one myself.

Post by **rjgtr** » Wed 12/26/07 5:30 pm

Good work. Glad you got it all together. I'm very partial to KT-66s when they are driven. I run KT-66s biased a little hotter because I heard they sound a little better that way, and I have to agree. You might try it.

morcey2 · Post by **morcey2** » Fri 01/04/08 2:00 pm

Just a quick note. The amp made it's public debut last night at the blues jam. It ended up being the house amp for most of the jam.

It was too loud to really crank it (pretty small theater), but after everyone else left we dimed it (ok, maybe $0.08-ed it) for about an hour and a half. I didn't play for more than 2 or 3 minutes, but the other guys were there swapping it between guitars and cabinets. We had my cabs (2x12 greenback closed back, 2x12 g12h30/V30 open), a matchless with what I think is an OEM version of a g12h30, and a 1960 w/ G12-65(I think). My Plexi6v6 was in the mix too and it was a blast! Glad I brought earplugs.

I was hoping that the recording equipment would be there, but it wasn't so I didn't get any clips. I hope to get some recorded to post this weekend.

Again, Thanks everyone

Matt

morcey2 · Post by **morcey2** » Tue 05/27/08 12:03 pm

Finally some clips!!! These are from the amp show a couple of weeks ago. I didn't do any of the playing which I, and everyone who listens, should be thankful for.

The speaker cab is a sealed 2x12 w/ Greenback reissues. An SM57 mic is about half way between the dust cap and edge. Also, 2 condenser mics were near the back of the theater to pick up some of the natural reverb, and the 3 signals were time-matched and mixed.

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5th winner of Mark Durham Memorial Giveaway

5th winner of Mark Durham Memorial Giveaway