Tweed Deluxe cab in Europe?

[Steve Conner]

Hi all,

I have a set of tube amp guts looking for a home. Does anyone know where in the UK or Europe I could buy a tweed Deluxe style cabinet?

I particularly love the fancy maple cabinets that Fender made for their limited edition Hot Rod Deluxes:

http://studentweb.eku.edu/justin_hol...es/LEfront.jpg
http://studentweb.eku.edu/justin_hol...ages/LEtop.jpg
http://studentweb.eku.edu/justin_hol...ages/3tone.jpg

but I'd settle for tweed, Tolex or whatever. The exact shape and panel cutout of the cabinet isn't critical, since I can just make the chassis to suit whatever I get.

I know Mojo make Deluxe repro cabinets in the US, but I think the shipping and import duty would kill me, and I'm not sure if they do fancy woods. I'd try making it myself, but my woodworking skills suck pretty bad.

[Satamax]

Steve, if you can provide me with measurments etc, and you don't find anybody closer, we might be able to work out something!

Like this one

Or this style of wood?

Bye.

Max.

[Steve Conner]

Wow, nice work Max! I think what I'll do is try to make the cabinet myself, and if (when?!) I screw it up, it's good to know that I could buy one from you.

A question for you and other woodworking folks: I heard that Fender cabinets are mostly made of solid pine boards, and the pine wood actually makes them sound better. I heard there are different kinds of pine, so which do you think is best?

Also, pine seems to be a pretty soft wood. I know someone who got a new kitchen floor of pine floorboards, and within a couple of months it was full of dents and dings from chair legs and just looked a total mess. Now my amps get lugged around to gigs quite a lot. If I made my cab out of stained and varnished pine would it just end up looking a mess too? Or did they just get ripped off with a poor grade of white pine when they should have got red?

Anyone's thoughts on the matter much appreciated.

[Satamax]

Well, pine gonna get dented no mater what, and it's ugly looking. Any wood gonna get dented at some point, but something liek hard maple, or ash is more durable. If you want as clean a finish as you showed, you gonna learn to fill pores first Exept with hard maple, or resinous trees. (some exotics too, like osage orange) Larch, if you can find good quality one of the hardest resinous woods. (it's a funny deciduous "evergreen") Well, i guess i gonna make my custom 5E3 head's chassis myself

Bye.

Max.

[John_H]

Steve; I like poplar. It's dense, machines nice, and has good tonal qualitys. I don't know how available it is to you, but here in Las Vegas it costs less than pine. G/L

[galibier_numero_un]

Hi Steve,

Also, pine seems to be a pretty soft wood.

Know that soft pine with a floating baffle most definitely contributes to the signature sound of a 5E3.

When I was demoing amps at Mission Amps, this was laid in bold relief to me.

Now, I ended up preferring a tighter cabinet for my Aurora and went with his larger cabinet with its fixed baffle. I believe it's made of plywood but don't quote me on that.

If you are after the authentic 5E3 sound, or at least want to hear it, then you're "stuck" with a soft wood and floating baffle. Of course, if you cover it with Tolex or Tweed, you'll hide a lot. But you already knew that.

Cheers,
Thom

[Albert Kreuzer]

Hi Steve,

TAD has nice tweed cabinets, I just ordered a 5E3 kit for a friend:

http://www.tubeampdoctor.com/product...58&language=en

Finger-jointed pine, tweed with nitro laquer finish, can you ask for more?

Cheers,
Albert

[Steve Conner]

Thanks for the link Albert! The TAD stuff looks very nice. I may well just get that cabinet, and a reverb tank while I'm at it. BTW, your JFET bass preamp is on my "List of things to build if I ever get my finger out" ;-)

Galibier, I guess you are right about the baffle, but the guts I plan to install in the thing are nothing like a 5E3 anyway They are currently in the form of a heavily modded Selmer Treble'N'Bass 50 head, converted to a channel switcher, with one channel stock and the other altered to run an EF86 and 12AU7. I'm aiming to have a really nice clean sound on one channel and a dirty Deluxe like grind on the other, and for both channels to sound reasonable at moderate volumes, not just with the power amp flat out.

I've been working on this for years and have it sounding great (IMO), but it looks a total mess and needs a rebuild. I ran out of room for knobs, and I still want to try adding a spring reverb, since my DSP reverb sounded pretty underwhelming. So I thought I might treat it to what I think is the neatest looking cabinet ever made ;-)

The T'n'B transformers are much bigger than a 5E3, so I'd need to spend some time making sure everything would fit, or maybe get a tweed Twin cabinet instead. Two speakers might be better anyway, so I could use lower powered speakers for more vintage mojo. I have a Fane ceramic magnet 12" that'll handle 50w kicking around, but I'm not sure I want a Tweed Hiwatt...

[galibier_numero_un]

Hi Steve,

The T'n'B transformers are much bigger than a 5E3, so I'd need to spend some time making sure everything would fit, or maybe get a tweed Twin cabinet instead. Two speakers might be better anyway, so I could use lower powered speakers for more vintage mojo. I have a Fane ceramic magnet 12" that'll handle 50w kicking around, but I'm not sure I want a Tweed Hiwatt...

When I was debating doing a Fender Bassman build, I was looking to use the Bassman chassis in a Tweed cabinet that used 2-12's instead of the 4-10 Bassman.

The Mojo site ( http://www.mojomusicalsupply.com/products.asp?id=44972) was helpful because they showed the dimensions of the top chassis cutout.

I can't remember which one I found as I nixed the project. I think it was the Low Power Twin.

Anyhow, I'm assuming that these dimensions are totally faithful (or real close) to the original Fender dimensions and therefore translate to other cabinet builders like the one you were referred to on your side of the 'Pond.

This might help as you work through this project.

Oh yeah, the flexy cabinet. It had its charm, and I'm sure I would have loved it. On different day I might have opted for it.

I'll bet you could easily experiment with tone after the fact by bolting on stiffeners to the back of the baffle, as well as by installing small strips of wood to the inside of the cabinet to anchor the two unsupported sides ... easily reversable.

For that matter, you could cut a dowel to size and wedge it across the back of the amp to stiffen the two sidewalls.

Maybe a flexy cabinet is the better way to go after all? It's easier to tighten up a loose cabinet than to loosen a tight one

Cheers,
Thom

[RickyD]

Steve-

Here's a link to an e-bay sale I wish I had seen a few months ago when I built my 5E3. I have not seen and touched his product, but what I can see from the photos looks good to me. Pricing seems attractive.

http://cgi.ebay.com/5E3-Deluxe-style...QQcmdZViewItem

Incidently, there's more than one kind of pine. White pine is pretty soft. Yellow pine is hard. I make truck floors with it.

Regards,
Rick

[Albert Kreuzer]

Thanks for the link Albert! The TAD stuff looks very nice. I may well just get that cabinet, and a reverb tank while I'm at it. BTW, your JFET bass preamp is on my "List of things to build if I ever get my finger out" ;-)

Update on the TAD cabinet: The speaker bolts are a bit cheesy, one of them had a messed up tap, so I had to replace it. Besides this, it is a really nice cabinet. Oh, and I'm planning to try a speaker-driven reverb with a high-impedance spring, going between the speaker out and the switching lug of the #1 bright input (so you can disable the reverb when plugging into bright #1). Bright volume will act as reverb control.
My friend only needs small amounts of reverb, so I hope this will work ok.

Oh, and thank you for looking at my preamp! I have to say that I am very happy with it and would not trade it for any other brand (and I have tried some...)

Cheers,
Albert
www.albertkreuzer.com

[Gee]

I bought a 5E3 cab from Jawdawg (on this forum) and he shipped it over to the UK. I cannot say enough good things about the quality of his workmanship and selection of materials.

[Steve Conner]

Well, I ended up buying the cabinet from TAD. The speaker bolts look OK on mine, and it seems to be pretty high quality. I got the standard 9AB3C1B reverb tank too, and I have an output transformer from an old table radio that should drive it.

I'm starting to get a bit worried as to whether all this extra guts will actually fit in the 5E3 cab now. I'm looking at a 50 watt PT and OT, a large choke, a reverb driver tranny, five 9-pin tubes and two octal tubes, and a reverb tank. Plus about 10 pots, two speaker jacks and a footswitch jack. If it works, it should be like a Mesa Boogie Mk1 Deluxe

If the worst comes to the worst, I guess I could always leave the reverb out and put all the iron in a second chassis in the bottom of the cabinet.

FWIW, I got a good deal on a 400 watt Class-D amp module to try with the JFET bass preamp

[Albert Kreuzer]

Well, I ended up buying the cabinet from TAD. The speaker bolts look OK on mine, and it seems to be pretty high quality.

yeah, they LOOKED ok on mine too...
Otherwise, the whole kit was of superb quality. First class parts all the way. Customer is really happy with it. Also the speaker driven reverb works like intended. Put a 10k resistor in series with the spring input to get a usable range. So all I needed was this resistor and the spring to get a Tweed Deluxe Reverb

FWIW, I got a good deal on a 400 watt Class-D amp module to try with the JFET bass preamp

I play mine with a 500W power amp into a Zeck 4x10" with EVs - nobody so far complained that the bass was too soft

Oh yes, and please post pics of your Tweed Boogie!

Cheers,
Albert
www.albertkreuzer.com