On eBay here. According to seller, this is your chance to re-live a little musical history playing Psychotic Reaction by the Count 5.
A little better picture of a Superbird I head:
The preamp is up, the power amp is at the bottom of the cabinet ... as seller points out, they are umbilically-tied making the sections inseparable:
The amp has tremolo (red/upper right and, for troubleshooting purposes, note that it uses a transistor that can go bad), reverb (magenta/center right) and fuzz (green/lower left). Schematic for Superbirds I and II dated 1968. In these amps, Guild abandoned speaker-driven reverb and used the more commonly-seen transformer-driven design.
The relay; shown in BBer somecallmetim's Superbird I and the source of his problem. More modern relays are enclosed in plastic housings ... this one is a crud magnet ... the electrical contacts are exposed to oxidation, tone scum, and the dust and dirt that collects in the cabinet ... this one looks like something off a 1920s machine tool .. :shock: :
In this study of the fuzz, on the left the relay is in the upper green circle, to its right, the footswitch-driven on/off, lower left the 'fuzz' tube, and the blue squiggly is the power feed to operate the relay. The center panel shows the FS in the off position grounding the power and the relay contacts in the normally open (or normally closed depending) position. No signal appears at the grid of the fuzz tube. On the right, the FS is shown in the on position with DC on the relay closing the contacts and sending signal to the fuzz tube. So long as the FS doesn't shunt the power to ground, the fuzz is on.
As matsickma and the seller are pointing out, the Superbird I runs on 8417s which are out of production, rare, and expensive. These amps can be converted to run on 6L6s. Discussion here on the subject. Finally, this amp does not use the 6GF7 screen voltage regulator (like the Quantum bass head) but the (even rarer) Superbird II does.
If anyone's interested, PM for the schematics.
A little better picture of a Superbird I head:
The preamp is up, the power amp is at the bottom of the cabinet ... as seller points out, they are umbilically-tied making the sections inseparable:
The amp has tremolo (red/upper right and, for troubleshooting purposes, note that it uses a transistor that can go bad), reverb (magenta/center right) and fuzz (green/lower left). Schematic for Superbirds I and II dated 1968. In these amps, Guild abandoned speaker-driven reverb and used the more commonly-seen transformer-driven design.
About this amp said:The footswitch you [somecallmetim] described should control Reverb, Tremelo and Fuzz. That middle switch that is not labled is the Fuzz ON/OFF and is not a channel switching switch.... The relay you are hearing is specific to the Superbird preamp. The Thunderbird doesn't have it. I am pretty sure it is used to activate the Fuzz. A Superbird normally uses 8417 power tubes and the Thunderbird, 2nd generation, will use 7591A tubes.
LTG Link Here.
The relay; shown in BBer somecallmetim's Superbird I and the source of his problem. More modern relays are enclosed in plastic housings ... this one is a crud magnet ... the electrical contacts are exposed to oxidation, tone scum, and the dust and dirt that collects in the cabinet ... this one looks like something off a 1920s machine tool .. :shock: :
In this study of the fuzz, on the left the relay is in the upper green circle, to its right, the footswitch-driven on/off, lower left the 'fuzz' tube, and the blue squiggly is the power feed to operate the relay. The center panel shows the FS in the off position grounding the power and the relay contacts in the normally open (or normally closed depending) position. No signal appears at the grid of the fuzz tube. On the right, the FS is shown in the on position with DC on the relay closing the contacts and sending signal to the fuzz tube. So long as the FS doesn't shunt the power to ground, the fuzz is on.
As matsickma and the seller are pointing out, the Superbird I runs on 8417s which are out of production, rare, and expensive. These amps can be converted to run on 6L6s. Discussion here on the subject. Finally, this amp does not use the 6GF7 screen voltage regulator (like the Quantum bass head) but the (even rarer) Superbird II does.
If anyone's interested, PM for the schematics.