The five percent nation of filter caps

Finally got a little more work done on the Rockette. I need to think of a better name.
Anyway.
Got the power amp finished, except for the grid leaks. Maybe I will put that PPIMV in after all. The PI tube is all the way across the chassis so I'll probably need shielded cable anyway.
Also finished wiring in the filter caps. I don't like turrets; tag strips have ruined me forever.
It's crazy how time-consuming this is when you're not painting by the numbers. If I had a board of the preamp components that I could just plop in, I'd be done by now.
Hopefully I can avoid noise problems, because fixing them is going to be a bear. The "distributed star" grounding is going to help, and I should be able to attach the components to the preamp sockets in a "bicycle spoke" pattern also, which is pretty much ideal.
Time will tell, but I'm optimistic.

Incremental progress

Not much time spent today, but I got the grid stoppers in place and the screens connected.
Really wish I had a chassis-mount resistor for biasing the power tubes, but I think I'm just going to plow ahead with the cement blocks I have on hand.
I did spend a little line on the load line for this 3k OT. Probably the only thing I ever thought "when am I ever going to use this" about in college was graphical analysis, rulers and pencils and such. "We've got computers now!"
Har, har.
Little did I know I'd be trying to extrapolate anode curves for a 6V6 at 350V, for fun.
...I gotta learn Spice.

I've got the power (supply) (almost)

So, pretty wild that I've had another productive day. Didn't have a ton of time, but still managed to get the power supply laid out and the power tubes halfway wired.
Oh, and I finally measured the Crate OT: 3k plate-to-plate (to 8, 16 ohms) which probably seems low for a guitar amp, but I'm thinking it'll be pretty close to ideal. I'll have to plot some loadlines, just to be sure.

Bridge to B+

Ugly, sure. But it works. For the first test fire, I forgot the bleeder. Yay, 375V! Um... Where's that cap drainer?!
I did leave the B+ fuse on the back panel. That whole corner of the chassis is completely off limits for any signal wiring. AC radiating everywhere.
Next donor chassis... I've gotta drill it. This is just silly.

Rockette - more wiring

So, I got the PT primary wired up. The safety is wired to its own chassis connection, and the purple is just a static shield for the PT.
No rectifier yet, but we're getting 273V AC, both unloaded and with the tubes in (heater load). Forgot to check what the heater sags to, but unloaded it's at 6.8V AC, which is fine.
Admirable performance from a PT sold as 250V. Added bonus: it's rated for 100VA at 50 Hz. Long story short, it should be able to supply much more current than the amp can draw. Which is great, because how guitar amp PTs have been sized in the past irks me.
To that end, I don't think I'm going to install a sag resistor. At least not initially. I might abandon cathode bias later on too. We'll see how punchy it is, and if it's not enough I'll go from there.
I think I'm going to mount the B+ fuse internally. As much as I like the pretty fuse holder on the back, it's just going to be inconvenient for wiring. Same reason I installed a Carling instead of using the front panel power switch it came with.
Slow and steady...

Heaters

...I hate wiring heaters.
I'm hoping having the heaters run perpendicular to most of the signal wiring + the correct approach to the sockets + an elevated humdinger should add up to no hum, but I guess we'll find out.
I probably should make a genuine elevation node for the heaters instead of just referencing the power tubes' cathodes, what with the DC cathode follower raising Vhk on v2b into dangerous territory.
Kind of moot until I can figure out where to put the bridge rectifier and the reservoir & screen supply caps.
The rest just falls into place though.