Watkins Dominator rebuild
I’ve wanted a Dominator since I repaired Tim Branston’s 50s / early 60s one back in 2013. Once you get over the weird shape, and the blue wallpaper effect… well that only happens when you hear it “Grrrrrowllll!”
Back in the autumn of 2018 I found a Watkins Dominator chassis on ebay, and got it for a reasonable price. It came with all the wrong valves in, and a Sound City 12″ speaker. I’d asked for replacement rectangular cabinet not to be sent to cut down on shipping weight.
The chassis had been re-sprayed, and a lot of the components were out of tolerance, so I cleaned the chassis, replaced all the bad components – mainly caps & non-mojo worthy composite resistors, re-valved it, and built it a new cabinet.
Now “building it a new cabinet” isn’t as simple as it first sounds – I’d made my own version of the cabinet in 2014, when I started making my Dominator inspired Branston Mistress. It’s a kit, essentially, now. I’ve made instructions & cut them out with a CNC machine, then assemble them with the help of some fast drying wood glue & a load, and I mean a load of sash cramps & clamps.
The cabinet was allowed to dry & trimmed back & sanded, then primed in white, re-sanded back & then the piping lines are sawn out using a table saw. The blue and white colours are sprayed over in the same porous acrylic spray paint you find in graffiti shops. Natural and dyed muslin cloth are glued over the porous spray paint to get the colours, and then coated with a polyurethane varnish coat.
I then had to laboriously copy the faceplate by scanning an original one, then laser engraving and cutting it out of 0.5mm laser laminate.
Then it was a case of fitting some 70s Elac 10N94 speaker drivers, refitting the chassis, and all of the cabinet furniture.
And testing. Lots of testing.
Needless to say, it looked and sounded beautiful.
