This is actually the first time I soldered eyelet boards. Kind of funny if you are used to multi layer pcbs and narrow pitched ICs. This is like crochet work. But no mystery about that. It´s easy to do and very forgiving. In fact I enjoyed the use of the old fashioned pushback wire. No cutting off isolation, just pull the fabric back a little, solder the wire, finished.
I guess this was the easy part of the amp. We´ll see how this all stuffs into the chassis.
I just discovered that the nice shiny chrome face of the chassis has a scratch. Eeek! 
I´m sure the thing was 100% perfect when I got it. Maybe I wasn´t careful enough while drilling the holes. The surface is obviously very sensitive. So better cover the the part of the chassis while handling!
First thing I do with any new build is to spread all the parts on my table ordered by their type. I want to make sure, that I have all I need. With this kit all was very easy. Usually such projects start with a hunt for parts, but not here. Everything already there and properly labelled. Well, almost everything…
I found out, that the supplied fuse wasn´t the right size. Not a big deal, one email to TAD later I was promised to get the right one soon.
What I could not make out is how the eyelet boards were intended to be fastened to the chassis. The number and size of the supplied screws suggest, that the eyelet board should be directly held by two screws and their respective nuts. Only with another blank isolation board between it and the chassis. I decided to use my own M4 screws for that and use some more nuts as spacers inbetween the boards.
A little more documentation on how the mechnical parts were intended to be used would have been nice. At least a drawing for the placement of the two holes was included.
But beware! You need to drill four more holes! The filter caps needs two and there is a solder terminal that also wants two holes. And this goes into a thick sheet of chrome steel. I´m fortunate to have a good box column drill. But I have an itch that not every DIYer has one. So this could be an issue to some.
I personally had more concerns with the two holes that need to go into the enclosure. It´s easy to drill in the soft wood, but also very easy to misplace these holes and it would be a mess! I managed to get them right, but you need extra care. I have no idea why TAD doesn´t put them in in the first place.
Welcome to my blog about building a classic tube guitar amp!
After literally years of weighing the pros and cons I decided to get myself one of the TAD tweed kits. I tried the various amps a few years ago at the TAD shop in Worms and liked the Bassman and the HP Twin best. Back then I hoped to find a small amp that I like. But I guess, my taste is just the opposite.
(I´m usually playing a small rack (Triaxis, G-Force, Fryette 2-90-2) with 2 old Mesa halfback cabs loaded with EVM12L).
So last Tuesday I ordered a HP Tweed Twin (5F8A) as complete kit with enclosure and speakers. The first pleasant surprise was, that the 3 packages were delivered really fast to my doorstep by UPS. One package held the enclosure, another the speakers and the third the chassis, transformers, tubes and various other parts.
Everything was packaged very carefully and labeled separately. A very clean kit and most gorgeous parts. Excellent!
Documentation is a set of 8 pages. First one is a disclaimer and warning. The others are a wiring scheme for the main eyelet board, the schematic, wiring of the filter capacitor board, complete amp wiring plan, a technical drawing were to drill two holes into the chassis, contact assignements for the transformers and an overview of used screw sizes. That´s it. If you can´t figure how this all comes together from this, this kit is not you.
TAD Tweed Twin Build 