Amps Blues Junior Modifications

jackderby52

Prehistoric blues knob (not newbie)
Bill has been dealing with a particularly virulent form of brain cancer going on a couple of years. It has impacted his business although his son Andrew and a few other folks have been attempting to keep things going. I had sent in my BJR chassis for a set of mods based on my description of the sound I was looking for, given the guitars I play, referencing the common complaints about the BJR amps.

Andrew emailed me the mod options offered by BillM and recommended several combination packages depending on how much I wanted to spend. I accepted all of his recommendations, total cost about $270 as I recall.

It took nine months for the work to be completed but it was worth the wait. There is virtually no similarity between the sound of my amp pre- and post- BillM mods. For my purposes I no longer bother to hook up my pedal board. I get all the tone, including bottom & dirt, I need or want just by setting the amp and using the guitars' volume & tone controls. It's a totally different animal.

I check the BillM website regularly hoping for good news about Bill but as you have pointed out there is not much information there. Understandable. Hopefully they will get things rolling again. I can say that dealing with Andrew was a pleasure and attest to the quality and value of the work. He even sent me a spare set of tubes he had around the shop so I could experiment with different sound combinations.

Best of luck with whatever mods you go with. The BJR is worth it, imho.

Sadly, I just heard Bill passed away... RIP...
 

MarkDyson

Blues Hound Wannabe
Wow! I have got to go back and study this thread in more detail when I get time (about to head out to a Chamber meeting and skimming this thread during my pre-board-meeting brews at the pub upstairs from the Chamber office).

I have a 2017 Blues Jr III and love it, but also because I’m a tinkerer I’ve done some modding. My local shop is an authorized Fender repair center and the owner is a longtime gigging buddy of two of my brothers-in-law so I have a lot of latitude with respect to warranty issues. :Beer:

Thus far I’ve replaced the crappy input jack with a Switchcraft kit from Billm, and replaced the speaker with an Eminence Legend GB128. I’ve also added a dummy load box from Rat Valve Amps (in the UK) so I can disconnect the speaker and run heaphones (so as not to distress my early-to-bed lady love) without burning anything out.

I’m reasonably tech savvy, a good hand with a soldering iron, and stupid-fearless so I expect I’ll do more mods in the future.
 

MarkDyson

Blues Hound Wannabe
An addendum: very sad about Bill’s passing. The shop seems to be partially back online and I plan to make a point of doing business with them as appropriate to thank then for keeping his legacy alive.
 

The Reverend

Blues Newbie
Have a Blues Jr. Tweed. I liked it when I first got it and them started reading about all the Bill M modifications. The only thing I did was, put a stand by switch in. I've learned along time ago, once you start doing this and doing that. You are never happy. Just like the guy who's always tweaking his pedals.
 

gpower

Blues Junior
The best mods I've seen for most of the modern era tube amps, are replacing the stock tubes with better quality ones, picked for your own tone preferences and, in most, replace the stock speaker.
 

PapaBear

Guit Fiddlier
I never did a Bill M mod, but did a Wampler mod for a buddy, he said the amp sounded like it was under a blanket before, and the mod "took the blanket off"
 

coquitlamrick

Blues Newbie
I didn't have time to look through all 10 pages, but has anyone tried putting in a foot switch to go between the clean and overdrive channels?? I normally leave the button in the gain position but it would be nice to be able to switch back to the clean for comping.
Rick
 
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