Donna has been on a mission lately. She’s intent on making our park model house here in Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort our home. By that I mean she’s continuing to transform the look and feel of the place. She started last week by cleaning out the shed and patio areas and getting rid of a lot of unwanted and unneeded stuff.

Then she ordered patio furniture for the side deck along our entrance and carport. She picked up potted plants to decorate the patio. We moved the big gas grill from the back of the carport to the side deck to make it easier to access. The patio furniture she bought required “some assembly.” She intended to do this herself, but ran into issues from the get-go. I pitched in and saw why she was having trouble. First of all, the instructions were very poor – Chinese translations that were nonsense. Then there were the tools provided – a thin spanner stamped out of sheet steel and an allen wrench.

The first thing I did was break out proper tools. Donna quickly saw the reason why I like having the proper, quality tool for the job. We got it done in less than an hour.

Meanwhile, I’ve been obsessed with building my Dumble-style guitar amplifier. Dumble amplifiers have an interesting history, but first let me tell you about a guy named Ken Fischer.

Ken Fischer learned electronics while he was in the navy. Later, he started a business repairing televisions and radios. He became an engineer with Ampeg – a company that built amplifiers for musical instruments and public address systems. He left Ampeg in 1967 when the company was sold to Magnavox – he wasn’t interested in the corporate culture.

He made a good living repairing and modifying Marshall amplifiers in his basement. Around 1982, he built his own amplifier design that he housed in a polished wood cabinet and called it Trainwreck. He didn’t put serial numbers on his amps – he stamped the chassis of each one he built with a woman’s name. His first one was named Ginger and the last he built was Kaylene. He made approximately 300 amps and they were each voiced for the individual that ordered it – no two were exactly the same.

He built amps for Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits), Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) Eddie Van Halen, Brad Paisley, Glen Kuykendall, Matt O’Ree and many other famous performers. He had a long history of health issues – something called chronic fatique immune dysfunction – and he passed away in 2006. His amps are highly sought after and fetch prices in excess of $30,000 today. They are also copied (cloned) by a number of manufacturers such as Dr Z, Komet and others. The Ken Fischer design is notable for its touch sensitivity – you basically set up the amp controls how you like and then forget it. Just by varying your pick attack and the volume knob of the guitar, you can get anything from crystal clear, clean guitar sounds to Eddie Van Halen distortion. This circuit is popular among home-built amplifier hobbyists. I built one in 2012.

Then there’s Howard Alexander Dumble. He’s about as eccentric as they come, but no doubt he’s also a genius. When he was in high school, he built transistor radios that he sold to classmates. Before he was 21 years old, in the early 1960s, he was contracted by Mosrite to build amplifiers for the popular instrumental band, The Ventures. Mosrite wanted to create an amplifier building company with him, but he wasn’t a corporate type and declined the offer.

He was making a good living repairing and modifying Fender amplifiers in the 1960s. Somewhere along the way – I think it was in the 1970s – he began making his own amp designs. He wasn’t interested in mass production, he made each amp to order much like Ken Fischer’s Trainwrecks. But, he was unusual in that he required an application from prospective buyers and he auditioned the buyer to decide if he could make an amp for that player – he needed to know how proficient the player was and what the style of playing was. He probably turned down as many applications as he accepted – at least that’s the folklore.

He also required each customer to sign a contract that included secrecy clauses – they weren’t allowed to let anyone open up the amp for service or to see his circuits. After getting burned and having some of his design copied, he started gooping his amps. He covers the circuit board in epoxy or RTV silicone after he builds it so no one could see what he actually used to make it.

He was known as Howard in the early days, but later insisted on being called Alexander or Alex. On the guitar forums, he’s called Mr. Dumble or his initials, HAD are used. He made a few different variations but his most popular was called OverDrive Special (ODS). A few of these were reverse engineered – most notably numbers 104, 124 and 183. They are another amplifier that’s popular among the home-built crowd, but they are very challenging to build. Both the Trainwreck and Dumble amps require much attention to detail and lead dress (routing of the wiring) is crucial or you’ll end up with a humming, squealing mess.

Many top performers used Dumble amps – Eric Clapton, Larry Carlton, John Mayer, Robben Ford, Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Joe Bonamassa, Eric Johnson, Keith Urban and many, many more. His amps are the priciest on the planet. In the 1980s, he was selling them for $4,000-$6,000. But on the used market, people paid more than $20,000 for one. He raised his price accordingly. Right now, a used Dumble previously owned by Joe Bonamassa is listed for sale at $139,999!

I’m currently building a kit patterned after ODS #124. This kit came from Trinity Amps in Toronto, Canada. Stephen Cohrs, owner of Trinity amps, initially called it his OverDrive Special (ODS) kit. But, Andy Fuchs of Fuchs Audio had trademarked this name and made Trinity cease and desist using it. I find that interesting. Andy Fuchs copied Howard Alexander Dumble’s design, used the name Dumble had used for decades, but never trademarked, and now Andy Fuchs owns and controls the name. Sheesh. Stephen Cohrs had to change the name of his amp to Overdrive Special Design (OSD).

The Trinity OSD is one of the most affordable Dumble designs on the market – you can buy it built by Trinity for about $2,300. Most of the other manufacturers like Fuchs offer them for $3,000-$4,000. Building it yourself will run about $1,100.

This build has been my latest obsession – I intially told myself to limit my time to about two hours per day on this kit to stay fresh and sharp. That didn’t work. I spend hours each day laying it out, checking and rechecking against the schematic and layout guides and then soldering and rechecking everything again. I’ve caught a few errors, but it’s mostly gone well. One of the hardest parts was positioning and soldering 11 jumper wires under the eyelet board. The layout shows the jumper wires in a ghost view from the top side of the board. There are dozens of eyelet holes in the board so when you flip it over to position the wires, it’s a reverse image of the layout view. I wired it, checked it and rewired it a few times before I was satisfied and hot glued the wires in position. Here’s a pictorial review of the work so far.

Some of wiring needs to be twisted or braided. Wires, particulary those carrying alternating current (AC) need to cross each other at 90 degree angles to prevent induction. The output transformer has five wires on one side and four on the other that needed to be braided. I found braiding five was easier than four, but they both came out fine.

That, in a nutshell represents five days of work.

No post is complete without a food picture. Donna is the head chef around here, but I do my share with the Traeger Smoker/Grill and I also make an incomparable Japanese fried rice. My other specialty is the breakfast omelette. My technique is a little unusual in that I flip the egg like a flapjack. I pour the whipped eggs and milk into a non-stick skillet with melted butter. Once the egg starts to solidify, I give the skillet a flick of the wrist and voila! The egg flips and I remove it from the heat and add the filling. Perfection if I say so myself.

Donna made a couple of simple, delicious comfort favorites this week. First up, Baja blackened fish tacos.

Last night she made white chicken chili – a favorite and just right for Sunday Night Football with bottle of Four Peaks Kiltlifter ale.

This morning, we’re having our house power washed. They power wash the siding, remove the sunscreens for cleaning and wash the windows, then finish up by washing the decks and carport.

The last couple of days have been on the warm side with highs of 91-92 degrees. The swamp cooler is keeping things comfortable though. Looking ahead, we should see highs around 80 degrees with a couple of warmer days maybe on Thursday and Friday.

Donna will be flying to Florida on Thursday to visit her sister Linda in Sarasota. They will drive to Miami on the weekend for her niece’s wedding celebration – she was actually married last year but the planned wedding couldn’t be carried out due to COVID lockdowns. I’ll be a bachelor from Thursday to Wednesday.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!