Just picked up a PolyTone Mini Brute

NBW

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Joined
Mar 25, 2019
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The cleans are very, very, nice. Maybe a tad tilted toward the bass but the tone stack is very useful. I got it super cheap and it need some TLC: The overdrive pot is broke and it needs new knobs. The cab has some chips straight through the tolex. But I love a project.

I’ll fix the pot and put some more attractive knobs on it. I want to see if the reverb circuit is on the board, in which case I’ll populate it and add a tank. Eventually I’ll build a new cab an cover it with some more interesting tolex, maybe do something about the exceedingly ugly mesh on the front.
 
So I went to work on the Polytone. These amp have always been workhorse amps, ver utilitarian. Prized for their clean tone and headroom. Yes there are better options, Henricksens for example, which are pretty expensive. I thought Polytones deserve some love and should look a little more boutique.

When I bought the mini brute it was a little rough, it had definitely been used.

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So I built a new box, and tried to replicate the dimensions exactly. I added a fused IEC removable cable. Also more modern and attractive knobs.

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It’s not my best tolex job. But it came out pretty well.
 
As a side note, the reverb circuit is on the circuit board, it just needs to be populated. That would require finding some parts and/or equivalents. I’d also need to mount a pot on the panel, which might be too much alteration.
 
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