(I need to make a few more legitimate posts, I'd love to post links to pics of this rig here, but until then, there's info at the bottom of this whole thing on where to find pics I've posted elsewhere.)
Hi, everyone. Glad to be here. First and foremost, thanks for all the years of information and guidance on this very board. It's been invaluable the past couple of weeks.
I'm proud to join the ranks of Kustom players with a setup that has a lot of personal value to me, having just acquired my first Kustom - a 1969 K200B-1 and what I believe to be an early 2x15 cab.
I'd played a few Kustoms over the years, including a six month stint on a borrowed combo, either an SC410 or a Hustler, in a punk band after college. I grew up in the Midwest, so these and '70s Peaveys were just... around. And they always sounded pretty good. The memories are foggy, it was a dark basement. But I love pedal platform amps, play in a garage-punk band with surf/psych leanings, and have long loved Space Age mid-century design. The tuck and roll era Kustoms have just always appealed to me.
This particular head belonged to a friend of mine I really look up to as a musician. It meant a lot, and we'd talked about me buying it for a while. He recently gave it to me non-working and so I set to work trying to restore it. After some serious cleaning and inspection, as well as my first time replacing a power cord with the proper 3-prong grounded cord, I got it back on its feet and working nicely. (If you're reading, thanks DeadKoby for your amazing video series. I'd love to see more of your insight on the Kustom stuff!) There's a missing capacitor in the power section, one resistor away from the preamp wires, but I'll probably post a separate thread about that in the repairs section. Someone covered up what's either gold or silver sparkle with black paint, probably sometime in the '80s, based on repair forensics. The few bits peeking through are inconsistent, but based on that, I'd guess silver sparkle.
Anyway, my wife knew I was really hankering for a matching cab (any color, just matching tuck and roll). You fine folks here know better than most what a nightmare shipping is on these, and I can't afford that. Frankly, I couldn't afford a cab, but there was one within driving distance, I made an offer, they accepted, and I went to pick it up. It was so fresh and clean and un-scuffed I wondered if it was an early-'00s reissue, but further inspection confirmed it was vintage. Apparently the owner of the shop had been a Kustom collector, and at one point had them lined up in the front window of the store on display. But they weren't selling, so they got clearanced out. I got the last one.
Again, thanks to the resources here, I think I stumbled across something neat. I believe it to be a '65-'66 early Frankie head with 11 ribs, blank jack plate, no front logo, and most interestingly to me, no ports of any kind. Not even behind the grillcloth. Which, based on those other factors and my days of reading here, means this is probably one of the noted "broken saw" cabs, right? The baffle seems perfectly original, and everything else on this has been (mostly) pretty carefully maintained. Has anyone been able to pin down when that "broken saw era" would have been? Other than that, it's missing screws along the center of the back panel, has a few minor scuffs along the back bottom edge, and one bruise along the front edge, just under the grillcloth. But no tears, runs, or exposed stuffing. Real clean.
Now, the tricky thing is that it's loaded with Feb 1970 CTS speakers [big square magnets] and the handles don't match. But the handles have been expertly replaced with what I believe are 1970-correct "black plastic/metal strap" type. My theory (based on the above evidence) is that the 1966-ish owner of this cab sent it back to have blown speakers replaced in 1970, probably replacing the handles at the same time. Everything else on this is so clean, it probably wasn't a cab that's gotten a full restoration or anything. Since I can't imagine an owner exercising their warranty would have wanted to downgrade from any other more expensive speaker offerings that they'd intially paid for, it seems safe to assume this could originally have been offered as part of either the C895 or C595 packages, the only sets listed in the 1966 catalog that have CTS in a 2x15 format, correct? By all means, please correct me if I'm mistaken!
Anyway, I've been obsessed the past few weeks, delighted by discovering the history of Kustom, finally wrapping my head around their catalog offerings and eras, ogling all the beautiful examples out there, but most importatly, absolutely loving this amplifier.
I've written about it pretty extensively elsewhere, with pics, describing the teardown and refurb, so if a bunch of gut shots. If you're into that sort of thing, you can check the longer version out on OffsetGuitars.com. (I'm too new here to post links, so I'll trust you to find the thread in the "Amps" section over there, it's the only Kustom one from August of 2021, and I have the same username.  )
I'm taking this amp to the grave. I may even get a 3x15 to get buried in. Cascade, preferably. So thank you all for letting me share my enthusiasm for this rugged beast. It deserves to roar.
Glad to be on-board, thanks again for all the resources you've left for archaeologists like me, I'm proud to be joining such a cool kommunity.
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