Danelectro Leader Tribute

Danelectro was a very popular American maker of electric guitars and amps in the 1950s and 60s. They also produced guitars and amps for Sears and Montgomery Ward branded as Silvertone and Airline, respectively. My first amp was an Airline 8512 made by Danelectro (see article) and my first guitar was a Danelectro U1.

When I started building my own amps, I spent a lot of time on the internet looking for cool designs. The cool shaped speaker cutout really caught my eye.

I started with a pine box for light weights and added wood strips to anchor the back panels. I used a 5 watt solid state amp powered by 8 AA batteries. I covered it in a tooled leather Tolex to give it a bit of country western look and to match a similar pickguard I put on a Telecaster build.