Fenton-Weill amplifiers

[BaronVonKale]

Anyone have any information on these? I recently got myself a Black Star combo (http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps ... bstar.html) that needs some work. Starts humming when warmed up, so I reckon new tubes and caps are in place. All point-to-point, 2xEL84 power amp, 1xEL84 driving the reverb (I think?), a tube rectifier and 3xECC83 preamp. Had some nice Blackburn Mullards in the preamp, hope they're still working!

From what I gather, these are British amps from the early 60's, built by the same guy who worked for Selmer as a designer. Haven't been able to find any past eBay auctions or other owners though, so any information and possibly a schematic would be great!

[RayL]

Henry Weill was the man behind the Fenton-Weill name. He produced guitars as well as amplifiers and was in partnership with Jim Burns for a time in the late 1950s.

The amplifier that you have was typical for the time. 2xEL84 (probably in auto-bias mode, like the Vox AC15) will produce a maximum of 15 watts. The trouble was (as The Shadows found out), 15 watts may be fine for a small youth club, but it's not enough on a theatre stage with an audience of screaming girls.

I doubt that the reverb spring would be driven by an EL84. If the valve is larger than an ECC83, it may be a triode-pentode (ECF-something). The triode part is the driver for the spring and the pentode amplifies the reverb signal.

[BaronVonKale]

Thanks for the reply! Yes, you're absolutely right. I finally had the time to disassemble the amp and take it to the workbench, and one of the ECC83's seem to be reverb driver and the EL84 amplifies the reverb tank output. The markings on the rectifier tube are pretty worn, so I'm not sure if it's an EZ80 or EZ81 (any visual physical difference?), but I assume it's safe to replace it with an EZ81. From what it seems, some of caps have gone bad resulting in a tube failure. I've ordered a new set of tubes and caps and see if it comes to life, as the transformers seem to be a-ok.

I know this will be considered heresy by some (me included, heh), but I think I'll be converting this into a head. The construction of the cab is such that even a simple tube change requires the disassembly of one of the side panels, the reverb tank, the power transformer and the speaker for convenient access. In addition, the speaker is blown, so it wouldn't be in original shape in any case, and this way at least it's going to be playable for a few decades more. The power transformer was mounted directly into the cab's wooden side panel due to insufficient space on the chassis, so I mounted the PT on top of the spring reverb tank. I don't think that'll introduce any problems, but please do correct me if I'm wrong!

[dusty fretz]

As a possibly pertinent point concerning the amps produced by Fenton-Weill during the late '50s/early '60s, Bob Rogers (guitarist in The Ted Taylor Four) told me that these tended to suffer from discernible background noise, which resulted in them being known in the business as "Henry's Hummers"!

[cockroach]

All those old small valve amps are 'collector's items' these day..

Which makes me laugh...


At a group practice in 1968, I once asked our rhythm guitarist if I could try his small 10 watt valve amp (it was an Australian made Moody amp IIRC)....he said go ahead...so I plugged in my Burns Vibra Artist(e?!) and..it was fantastic- I sounded like Jeff Beck ...for about 3 minutes...then it died!

Always amused me today that back then, nobody knew bugger all about anything!

[boss1234]

Fondly remember "Henry Weill" I was 13/14yrs old at the time until then three guitars and a vocal mic went through one of those Shaftbury amps with the gold wire speaker grill. My Father took us up to Purley way in croydon where the Factory was we sat in the car while Father went in to speak to the man himself, ten mins later he was back out and introduced us to HW, Henry told us to go down to the factory and pick out what ever we wanted mm Aladdins cave, we picked out two guitar amps with clip on piggy back amps and a bass amp that could be turned upside down and locked inside the speaker cab umpteen guitar leads bags of plectrums were piled up I remember going back to the office and seeing my father and Henry Weill finishing off a bottle. His amps took us through the next couple of years along with weill's pa speakers, By the age of seventeen we started buying a complete VOX backline of course there was no contest chalk and cheese but Henry's stuff did us well. RIP Henry

[JimN]

Thanks for the reply! Yes, you're absolutely right. I finally had the time to disassemble the amp and take it to the workbench, and one of the ECC83's seem to be reverb driver and the EL84 amplifies the reverb tank output.

If that means that the reverb tail is a discrete signal mixed into the power amp input by a separate pot labelled as "reverb level" or similar, it is very similar to the famous Bird "Golden Eagle" 4/25 amplifier.

The Bird even allowed the tremolo circuit to be switched over to interrupt the reverb tail, which they claimed as a "repetitive echo".

[RayL]

a bass amp that could be turned upside down and locked inside the speaker cab

. . . . and here it is, the Fenton-Weill Portabase 15

FW Portabase 1.JPG (23.13 KiB) Viewed 12499 times

FW Portabase 2.JPG (16.69 KiB) Viewed 12499 times

The '15 watt' output stage used (unusually) two 6BW6 beam tetrodes.

I'm intrigued by the mention of a factory in Croydon's Purley Way. As you can see on the Tech Spec side of the advert, the factory at 237 Acton Lane is the given as the address. Living close to the Purley Way at that time (early 60s), I was unaware that F-W were based there. The nearest amplifier maker to Croydon that I knew of were Stentor in Woodmansterne.
Ray

[JimN]

I've only ever seen one of those "Porta-Bass" amps by Fenton-Weill, but I recall that Selmer did something similar in the form of a 15w Futurama bass amplifier with the pack-away flip-over design for the amp head.

Of course, both of these UK efforts were copied (that's not too strong a word) from the American Ampeg Portaflex amp, which came in 25 watt 1 x 15 (6V6) and 50 watt 1 x 18 (6L6) designs.

Example: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-many ... x-b18.html

[RayL]

American Ampeg Portaflex amp, which came in 25 watt 1 x 15 (6V6) and 50 watt 1 x 18 (6L6) designs.

. . . . and, from Rose Morris's 1963 catalogue, a 12" speaker version (B12X, bottom left)

Ampeg Portaflex.JPG

(32.74 KiB) Downloaded 8141 times

"30 watts output; 12" Jensen heavy duty speaker plus tweeter. Two 4" echo speakers in separate case. Two channels with separate volume and tone controls for each. Pure organ vibrato. Five instrument inputs (including stereo input . . . . . complete with double remote control footswitch for echo and vibrato"

Presumably it was so 'New' that Rose-Morris had no picture, which is a shame because it must have been quite a sight with all those facilities. Real 'organ vibrato'? No wonder it was 215 guineas - what's that in today's money? (A lot)

Google only offers a later American model with twin 12" speakers.