My First Amp Build - Mojotone 5F1 Tweed Champ

Great shots.

I built a 5F1 Tweed Champ from a Tube Depot kit a few years ago. It was a fun project, learned a lot and have a great amp to show for it.

Well done!

Very nice work!!! 😎

One of these is on my short list to build. I’ve got a Weber Smokin’ Joe kit in the queue and I have a 50w Plexi head kit ordered.

Congratulations...looks good. Mojo's amp kits are generally good quality and you appear to have done a fine job of it.

willie

Nice work.

That looks really good, I bet she sounds great!

Strange irony- I found the FDP while looking for a 5F1 kit. Glad I did.

Very neat workmanship.

I actually bought a Fender Custom Deluxe 5E3 at an incredible price, so the next build will probably be something British/EL34 based.

Tweed chassis, especially the 5F1, are rather cramped and difficult to work in. Just because the circuits are simple and they're physically small units, I think it's a mistake to regard them as being suitable for a beginner / 1st time build. The opposite really, because as size decreases, the awkwardness of getting the wiring tidily in place and nicely soldered increases significantly.
So that said, you've done exactly the right thing and taken your time, with an excellent end result, well done!

And yes, seperating out the mains switch and the vol control is beneficial on all fronts.

FYI the fuse wasn't originally in the neutral line per se; rather the mains cord was ungrounded, 2 pin reversible, with the quasi 'grounding' 'death' cap hardwired to the fused side. For the amps that didn't have a ground switch to select which line gave the lowest noise when connected to the death cap, the user was expected to remove and flip the plug orientation if there was excess noise.
Hence the death cap and fuse would naturall tend to end up on the 'hot' wire, the switch on the neutral.
With modern mains wiring systems with grounded outlets, it is much better to put the both the fuse, then the switch, on the hot side, as you have done. One step even better would be to use a dual pole mains switch so that both sides get isolated when 'off', in order to accommodate outlets whose hot and neutral have been reverse wired (which unfortunately is all too common). 

I hope you don't mind me mentioning, but a couple of things that have 'room for improvement' are the use of a wire nut for the neutral connection, and the insulation damage (soldering iron rash) to the hot wiring to the switch. The latter I'd put some heatshrink sleeving over at least, the former I suggest that you consider the use of a dual pole switch at some time in the future; wire nuts are horrid things, I'm surprised they're still seen as being suitable for use in mains wiring installations in some areas. Whatever, I don't think that an experienced builder would use them in a guitar amp, especially a combo, with all the vibration from being moved and the speaker.

It's regretable that kit suppliers are providing them / suggesting their use.

One thing I'd like to see is the chassis grounding method; unfortunately kit instructions and other non competent guidance all too often suggest the use of and eyelt on a power transformer mounting bolt; that's not compliant with good practice or international safety standards, which require the ground connection to use a dedicated fastener. Consider that the power transformer fasteners are the most mechanically stressed on the chassis, it's not good for one of those to also take on the only safety critical connection in the amp.

Nice work! (I can see the pics now, at work pics from photo sites gets blocked)