Simon, you're nothing if not generous and thorough. Thanks for all the time and thought you've given this. I should clarify a few things though:

The "kit" amp is a printed circuit board and a handful of components that plug into it. That's it.The chassis comes separate, if at all. The pots and inputs etc for the "front" and the "back" are perforated and separate out from the main PCB but remain connected by wires. In theory you could set this up in any format you wanted to. I included the pic of the head version to give you an idea of what some folks have done with the kit.

I imagine when I remove the amp section from the Kustom combo, the back panel will be coming with it and possibly not getting put back on. I'm not sure at this point. The dimensions of the chassis and possible back panel are still entirely hypothetical.

Quote Originally Posted by Simon Barden View Post
I'd also suggest that this isn't a 'kit' amp in the true sense of the word. You get complete PCBs, so you've only really got to fit some leads together, wire in the transformers, screw the PCBs to the chassis fit the valves, fit the knobs and you're there. You won't learn anything worthwhile about valve amps along the way. Not like getting a kit where you have to wire components to tag or turret boards, do all the wiring yourself and then (carefully) test it yourself. But maybe that's just what you want?
That's EXACTLY what I want!!

I wanted the combination of tone/wattage/features this kit offers and can't seem to find it anywhere else. I like the idea of smuggling an amp like that in a small, neat, unassuming combo. Most importantly I want to own and play through this thing, and get there on the cheap. This means some assembly is unfortunately required. If I had to learn electronics from scratch and build a cab from scratch I don't think I'd bother.