Here's a pic of the zkit I built (sorry about the lighting but its under the desk at the moment)

Matt

Thanks for the feedback. You made me think that I should really try out a few different tubes!

I'm cheapskate so I just used material that I had lying around. The side is made out of bamboo flooring cast offs. Its that click together stuff so has a nice lip at the top to position the top plate. I used some spare 19mm MDF for the top plate and painted it white. I would have preferred metal, but am not sure how I would have cut the holes. The MDF probably needed to be 19mm to hold that massive transformer, but in retrospect I should have put some sort of vent in the top to let the heat out. The hottest part seems to be where the large black resistor is and the heat doesn't affect the sound, but I don't think it would be a good idea to have the tubes inside a box as well.

Re: mods the only change I did was to connect some solid core wire between the RCA ground and the capacitor to reduce the hum as per the 'hum problem' post. I definite much if you have a hum. The hum virtually vanished one mine, whereas before it would ruin most quiet parts.

Good luck with the chassis. Be sure to post some pictures.

Cheers,

Matt

I thought it was a metal top too.  I did wonder if the wood base was bamboo.  Cever reuse of material.  I bought a Hammond steel chassis but now have to figure out how I will cut/punch the openings I want to make.  Working with wood and MDF would be more managable given the tools I have to work with.

BTW, I put the CCE mod caps in last evening and while I had the soldering iron out and warm I also worked on addressing the hum more or less per the thread in hum issues.  The is gone!  And the hum was one of the main reasons I decided to go with a steel chassis.

I ended up using a subset of Steve's and DanK's suggestions plus a few other things like re-soldering some connections and directly soldering to the plated through hole that grounds the shield trace.  I didn't do them one at a time so I don't know if any one of them was most effective but the hum just plain vanished afterwards, so I'm very pleased so little remediation could fix it so completely.  All whille still mounted on a piece of wood.

I have been doing quite a bit of back-to-back comparison with my TORII.  Naturally the TORII is superior sonically but the humble three tube amp continues to deliver more than would seem possible.

One area I would like to alter prior to putting the amp in a chassis where it will be a little more difficult to work on is reducing the midrange shout.  For some reason the TORII has it about right for my room and speakers but the ZKIT 1 is a little too bright and thin in the midrange.  For example tenor sax a a bit more sharp and forward with similar effect on other voices in that range.  I need to find out what areas of tweaking can address that whether it be different coupling cap, enabing tube rectification, or something else. I need to get my SPL meter out and compare the profile of each amp.

At least now that the hum is gone comparisons with my TORII as a reference are useful.

Chris