The missing piece(s)

Turns out these amp kits are a little more shoddy than I would have originally guessed. I'll admit I'm a bit more of a novice than I should be when starting a project like this, but the 'kit' certainly isn't helping.

A: It didn't come with step-by-step instructions. Lame but I'm sure I'll feel more accomplished with doing something worth while if I can make the thing work.

B: There are at least three MAJOR holes that have to be drilled in both the chassis and the cabinet. I'm really worried about the cabinet holes because the tweed looks so nice. I'm afraid I'm gonna screw it up by drilling. The two holes are absolutely necessary, so I'm baffled as to why these holes don't come pre-drilled. If I had to build the cabinet from scratch I'd understand, but it's like buying a case for a desktop computer with no drive bays cut into it.

C: The hardware that came in the kit is all over the place. By that I mean the bolts for mounting the tube sockets are too big to fit in the socket bolt holes, there are a lot of loose nuts that didn't come with matching bolts, there are several odd sized and non-paired bolts, the RCA jack is for a blackface amp and not a tweed amp, and the RCA male plug is 'vintage' and I can't figure out how to solder anything to it.

***Update***
I was wrong about the tube socket bolts. They are a tight fit, but they do fit. The pre-amp tube shield bracket took a bit of prying and molding to screw in. All of the tube sockets are now installed.
***End Update***


There are some other smaller issues as well that I won't innumerate here. I did buy a few things from Mojo and Tube Depot to help out the cause. I got a nice blue jewel for the power light. I bought some speaker wire (to replace the speaker wire I quite stupidly screwed up). I bought the correct tweed RCA female jack and a workable RCA male jack. It's not 'vintage' but at end of the day if the RCA jack isn't vintage I don't really give a shit. I bought some safety glasses so that if a cap explodes it won't take my eyes with it. I also got a pre-amp tube shield. It came with a shield receiving socket base but no shield. Lame.

Today I'm gonna start soldering things to the fiber board. I might be getting a bit ahead of myself, but I'm chomping at the bit to get this thing put together.

***Another Update***
Everything is soldered (including one thing I didn't want to solder that I'll have to un-solder and then re-solder.) Also Yuengling Black & Tan is excellent.