Cornford Hellcat 35W 2x12 Valve Combo Rare Hand Wired Serial Number 51 EL84 Boutique British

Extremely rare Cornford Hellcat Combo, serial number 51.

There are very few of these, probably not even 100 and they don't come up for sale very often. They made so few of them, that they're not even featured on the Cornford Website. Cornford ceased production in 2013 and it's very unlikely that any more will be made.

It shares the features of the Hellcat head - 4 EL84 power valves, 5 ECC83 (12AX7) preamp valves, 2 channels - Modern and Vintage with separate gain and volume controls and a shared EQ. It has an effects loop and built-in reverb. The Hellcat is Cornford's high gain amp, designed to cover metal as well as Cornford's more traditional territory of blues and rock. As is typical with Cornford it's actually capable of a wide range of styles - from clean to full-on saturation. Both channels are extremely responsive to playing dynamics and the guitar's volume control. The Vintage channel ranges from clean to AC/DC and would probably keep a large number of guitarists happy in itself and it has a beautiful clean sound. The Modern channel goes to full saturation if you want it to but there is a fair overlap between the channels so you could happily use the Vintage channel clean and use Modern for a classic rock drive. Or drive the Vintage channel and roll back on the guitar volume to clean it up and use the Modern channel for solos.

The amp is completely hand-built. Even the footswitch is hand-made. It's meticulously hand-wired with the caps and resistors on turret boards and everything else mounted directly to the chassis. The cabinet is made of solid pine. The effects loop and reverb are both valve powered.

It's in excellent condition with just some superficial marks as pictured.

The postage cost quoted is to mainland UK only excluding remote areas. For postage to remote areas of the UK or overseas, please contact me for an estimate.

The specs below are from the Cornford website for the Hellcat head. Other than the pine cabinet, the features are identical although I remember reading somewhere that the combo voicing is subtly tweaked to optimise it with its own cab. The speakers are Celestion Vintage 30s.

THE HELLCAT HEAD
ALL VALVE, 35 WATT, 2 CHANNEL HEAD WITH REVERB
Spec: 35 watt all valve head. Cathode bias, 2 channel with shared EQ, footswitchable
reverb and channels. Solid-state rectification.
Valves: 4 x EL84’s. 5 x 12AX7’s
Cabinet: 19mm ply lock-jointed. We still use pine for anything with a speaker in it as it helps
the sound no-end but the heads will use ply, as they are not acoustic.
Hardware: All corners, screws, cup washers, handle fixings etc. are nickel-plated. Bespoke CNC
punched, powder coated grills. 16 gauge (1.5mm) powder coated chassis with 16
gauge base / screening plate secured to chassis with 4 machine screws. Leather
handle.
Transformers: Custom designed in-house and hand wound.
Construction: Point to point hand wired throughout and hand assembled
Methods No PCBs of any sort. Nothing board mounted. Everything is bolted directly to the
chassis.
Controls: Chicken head knobs. Metal toggle mains switches. 2 x inputs Hi and Lo. Front panel
from left to right: - gain modern channel 1, gain vintage channel 2, Bass, Middle,
Treble, Master channel 1, Master channel 2, Reverb, Standby and Mains. Rear Panel
from left to right:- Mains Inlet, Mains fuse, HT fuse, Speaker impedance selector
4ohm, 8ohm, 16ohm, Speaker sockets x 2, Footswitch socket, Effects loop send and
return.

The Hellcat Control Operation
Gain – Modern channel 1 : Higher gain channel. Controls the gain /
overdrive on channel 1.
Gain – Vintage channel 2 : Lower gain channel. Controls the gain /
Overdrive on channel 2.
Bass : Adjusts the low frequency response of the
Pre-amp.
Middle : Adjusts frequencies around 500 Hz.
Treble : Adjusts the high frequency response of the
Pre-amp.
Master channel 1 : Sets the output level of the modern channel 1.
Master channel 2 : Sets the output level of the vintage channel 2.
Reverb : Sets the reverb level for both channels
Speaker output and : The speaker outputs are connected in parallel.
Impedance selector Impedances from 4-16 ohms can be
accommodated and it is important to note that a
resistive load or loud speaker must always be
connected before switching the amp on to play.
Effects Loop : This is a series effects loop suitable for foot
pedals and rack processors.
Footswitch socket : Enables remote switching of reverb and
channels.