Background:  I've been playing more Gibson stuff lately and what better combo is there than Gibson and Marshall?  Probably my favorite Gibson tone is on the album "Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton", commonly referred to as "the Beano Album" because of Eric's reading choice on the cover.  So I read a lot about his gear and the Marshall Reissue called the 1962 Bluesbreaker.

However, after doing some research, I found many things I didn't really look forward to on this amp.  It weighs 70lbs, is full of circuit boards, isn't really period correct, and then there's the whole vibration issue for combo amps.  And I stumbled upon a dude who had built one and posted a bunch of clips online, YouTube and such and the dude had great tone.  So I kept reading and found the manufacturer........  To make a short story long, I bought a kit and built it and I love it so far.

Kit:  '66 Marshall JTM45 from Metropoulos Amplification, www.metroamp.com

Received kit: 12/17/07

Finished build: 12/26/07, spent maybe 18 hours building turning this:

into this:

Tubes: Valve Art 5AR4 Rectifier, Ruby KT66 Output pair, (3) JJ 12AX7's

Speaker Cabinet:  Avatar 212 Custom, open back

Speakers: (1) Celestion Vintage 30, (1) Celestion Greenback - each 8W in parallel for 4W

Mods: 

• New Tubes, 6/8/10.  Stuck with the Valve Art KT-66's and Tesla ESS83's.  Rebiased as well and checked all voltages.