I used to BEG my dad to buy me Heathkit or Dynaco stuff for Christmas presents. Once in a while it worked. I heard that heath will start offering kits again, that would be really fun. Speaking of which, a couple years ago I bought a Heathkit AA-151 that needed some upgrades to parts, and cleaning. Since Heath used ultra cheap parts, what I did was completely disassemble the thing down to every last nut and bolt, then (using an assembly manual I bought) rebuilt it using new parts (mostly). It was a blast and I ended up with a nice amp that later when to a buddy in Columbus when I moved.