Anthony1967 said:
Read some bad reviews concerning voodoo mods on Harmony Central. One guy had a picture of his amps circuit board where Trace apparently covered the circuits with black epoxy to hide is work--thus making the amp unserviceable. He also signed the amp in various places with black magic marker! Here, check out this picture:
http://www.frankencat.com/voodoo/
I was considering them but I don't want to butcher my head -- what was your experience?
I noticed you posted this a couple different times and in the interests of clarifying;
1.) We have emails from Frank that are dated 6 months prior to him sending us his Soldano where he is asking us for tech-help regarding his Marshall Plexi that he himself had built. He also asked us about Dual Rectifiers and other high gain amps in that time period.
2.) Frank is a tech, admittedly (which is stated in his emails) he had already modded his Soldano before he sent it to us.
3.) We told him on several occasions (both on the phone as well as in emails) that we did not like to do work for other techs, as it is a conflict of interest. He repeatedly emailed and called us until I finally agreed to do the work.
4.) We told Frank on the phone as well as in several emails that we were going to epoxy our work and that was the only way we would agree to do the work for him. He agreed. We have *all* the email correspondence saved that clearly proves this.
5.) The amp arrived damaged (box was damaged, tubes were blown out of the amp, etc.)
6.) A UPS damage claim was filed. Frank received a damage claim.
7.) Frank went on every message board on the net and stated that we epoxied his amp without his knowledge (which is lie), he failed to mention that he was tech and more importantly that the amp was damaged.
8.) After several customers emailed and called us alerting us to the postings I personally phoned Frank on the phone. I spoke with Frank and gave him the opportunity to be honest and state *all* the facts as his story was horribly one sided. He flat out told me that he would not admit to the fact that he was made fully aware that we were going to epoxy his amp. As a result I was left with no other choice but to post the email replies, which clearly stated he had prior knowledge (several times). Once I posted the emails Frank stopped posting on HC few several months. That thread should be in the archives here on HC.
9.) When ever asked about this incident Frank repeatedly fails to mention all that facts as well as the fact that he *was awarded and damage claim by UPS.*We did everything humanly possible to help him, including offering to 2-day ship and amp for him to use until UPS settled the damage claim.
We have *all* the emails to prove everything that has been stated here. Whenever this comes up we have always offered to provide the emails and to talk with anyone who has concerns (shop line is 607-256-0465).
DIY'ers: We will no longer do work for anyone who is a tech/DIY'er/Homebrewer, etc. We have always been more than happy to lend tech advice, provide schematics, etc. We get a great deal of calls from DIY'ers and we are always happy to help in any way we can (we have never charged anyone for this).
Just so it's clear: We do
not epoxy amps and have not done so for several years. We only used epoxy on amps that we loaded our Hex or Witchdoctor circuits into. We never used expoxy on Mesas, Peaveys, etc. If you have visited our website then you would see the following at the top right hand side of nearly every mod page on our website – “All modifications are 100% fully serviceable - No Epoxy used.”
Hope it helps
Trace
