Welcome to Carlton Guitars

Amps - Cabinets
Shown below are some of the cabinets built here for Little Dawg Amp chassis. I can assist in arranging a chassis to be imported for you. and fitted out into one of my hand crafted dovetailed cabinets. The cabinets are built here in my workshop from premium timbers using traditional joinery techniques. Marine ply is used for rear and front baffles, stainless steel screws and bolts are used throughout

The through dovetail method of construction used is the strongest method of building a cabinet. It requires no bracng, glued in fillets, screws or nails to hold it together. I wiegh 115 kilo's :( and have no hesitation setting my fat bum down on of these cabinets for a nights playing.

Mostly I use pine with an oil and wax finish as I believe a layer of glue plus tolex or tweed takes a little resonance out of the cabinet. The pine resonates nicely and is a renewable Australian resource. Being a softwood it needs a little protection and I use Tender Loving Covers another great Aussie product to protect my amps from the rigours of the road.

I use and recomend Little Dawg Amps
In the past few years I have been using late 50's Fender Tweed amp circuits lovingly recreated by highly respected US amp builder Jim Nickelsen. I have fitted quite a few of Jim Nickelsens amps into cabinets and spent a lot of hours using them at rehearsal and playing live. I have had many a player wander up during a show asking about the amp I was using, impressed by the tone of the Dawg.

Jim uses the original Fender circuits with slight modification to bring them into line with modern safety requirements. He provides a range of valve, cap and transformer options. He builds the chassis by hand himself from the gorund up using the methods pioneerd by Leo fender in the 1950's.

DAWG CLIPS - hear the dawgs howlin' at the moon! 00 CABINET BUILD - see a D-lux combo cabinet being built here at Carlton Guitars

Little Dawg D-Lux [5E3] Control panel In a pine cab

Models available
Champster - 5F1 - 8 or 12 watts - head or combo
Princetone - 5F2-A - 12 watts - head or combo
The Mutt - Hybrid Champster power section, D-lux Pre-amp.
D-lux - 5E3 14 or 25 watts - head or combo
The Pug - 18 watts - head or combo
SuperDawg - 5F4 35 watts - head or combo
PackDawg - 5E7 35 watts - head or combo
TopDawg - 5F6-A 45 watts - head or combo
ChocoDawg - 6G3 14 or 25 watts - head or combo
5E5A and 5E8A - also available

That elusive vintage overdriven tone
These amps are based on the old Fender classic circuits from the mid 50's to the early 60's covering most of the narrow panel tweeds and couple of the smaller browns. They have that warm, biting, overdriven tone that you just don't get from modern multistage, overpowered, pcb based commercial valve amps. These simple old circuits just loved to be cranked and that tone you've been through 20 different pedals and effects boards trying to nail is in the natural tone of these special amplifiers. In fact the overdrive pedals made today are trying to recapture the tones created by the tweeds and browns. Somehow the pedals never quite get there.

The smaller amps like the champs are best run fllat out with volume and tone adjusted directly from the guitar.
Pedals?? if you really want smoking meltdown these circuits are ferocious when pushed. They just love to be out on the edge.
If you want to try out some amps email me and you can drop over and have a blast

Would you like your own Dawg
I keep tabs on local Dawgs and often have one or two used Dawgs up for private sale. It's always worth an email to see if there is anything available. If you are thinking of buying a Dawg and would like to give one a try, let me know and i will arrange for you to meet one.

If you want to read what other players have to say about their Dawgs, a search on Guitar Forums like TDPRI will find you plenty by players who use and love their Dawgs. There is a Dawg facebook page here. You will find plenty of Q&A about the amps plus lots of feedback from players. The Little Dawg Amps Website

Following are some examples of cabinets built here at Carlton Guitars

Champster 5F1 head in US Oak, Solid hide handle, steel corners Oil & wax finish

A great little grab n go amp ideal as a studio or house amp. Jim fits a AFB loop switch which gives the amp a little more bite. You can crank it without waking the neighbours or upsetting the family.
To really get the most out of the 5f1 drive it into a multi speaker 10" or 12" cabinet.

It has the AFB switch and Volume thats it. the AFB Swith is an optional extra.







25 watt D-lux combo in pine with BSM ply front and rear baffles, Oil & wax finish Sporting a Mojotone chrome reproduction steel chassis, NOS oxblood / yellow pinstripe grill, solid hide handle, steel corners and stainless steel bolts and screws throughout. Speaker is a Jensen Neo 12" Pine is what Leo used in the 50's originals. It is light, very resonant and gives a great tone The D-lux has a singing compressed sustain and warm thick overdrive. The tube rectifier promotes a "saggy" tone. When you hit a note or chord the sound blooms as the power kicks in to push the signal. Controls are volume bright, volume normal and tone. The two volume controls are interactive and when jumpered with a short patch lead, you can tweak the two volumes to give a wide tonal palette from clean to wildly overdriven. There are two models available, 14 watt and 25 watt models. They play pretty loud for such a small light amp and will easliy keep up with a drummer.






The power plant Shown above is the Lil Dawg 25 watt Chassis. The chassis is based on the Fender 5E3 narrow panel tweed Deluxe, one of the most recorded amps in history. The original circuit has been modified to some extent to conform with modern safety standards and to promote longer valve life. The original circuit doesn't have an earth to the wall [very dangerous]. A standby switch is added to allow the heaters to warm up slowly before applying full power. The fuse has been relocated from the front control panel to the rear. Extension speaker and lineout jacks are also provided. The method of construction used was revolutionary in the 50's. It is known as turrett board construction where the cmponents are laid out on a board and soldered into circuit. The earlier method of building amps used tag strips and point to point soldering. Leo Fender invented and perfected turret board method of construction and it was used by fender up until PCB's were came into common usage. There is plenty of info on the web re these old tweed circuits. The Fender Field Guide will give you the basic specs of pretty much all valve powered fender amps.

5F4 SuperDawg combo in Brazil Pine - oil and wax finish Mojotone chrome reproduction steel chassis, NOS oxblood / yellow pinstripe grill, a "no animal died" handle, steel corners and stainless steel bolts and screws throughout. Speaker is a Jensen Neo 12" Reputedly Leo Fenders all time favourite amp. For a great sounding and light combo I like the 5F4 through a 12" Jensen Neo. It has a big transparent tone. The 5F4 was originally designed for 2x10s. This amp and works really well with a pair of Eminence ragin cajuns. A much more sophisticated preamp than the previous 5F1 and 5E3, it shares a lot of DNA with the famous tweed Bandmaster and Pro of the same era. Essentially they were the same amp but designed to drive different speaker arrays. The Super [5F4] 2x10", the bandmaster [5E7] 3x10", the Pro [5E5-A] 1x15" Definitely a serious party amp, the 35 watt SuperDawg has a huge sound. The cleans are to die for up to around 4 or 5 where the sweet thick tweed overdrive starts kicking in. As with the D-lux the normal and bright channels are interactive and when jumpered give a blend of the thick dark normal channel with the bright and sparkling bright channel






- Solid mahogany dovetailed 1x12 combo - powered by Little Dawg Single ended Class A Champster chassis - Etone 12" 4ohm speaker- Around 6 very healthy watts.


D-lux [5E3] Dovetailed Brazilian pine Cabinet. Lorantz 50 watt greenback clone speaker. NOS Oxblood/yellow grill cloth. Stainless steel screws and bolts throughout. Solid hide leather handle.


Pine 1x12 with Lorantz 12" 50 watter BSM ply rear and front baffles Solid hide tweed style handle, open back baffle, oil and wax finish. Compact open back with a punchy tone.