Rawcabs!

[tbonuss]

My own experience as a painter, and more directly related to this matter, with the artificial aging using a water and lye solution demonstrated that using any water saturating product badly swells and raises the grain of the wood. As this relates to dyes, you can't simply sand down the raised grain without damage to the effect. So successive coats are needed to raise the finish level to where it can be sanded down smooth without damaging the dye. A real PITA. Everything will raise wood grain a little, but water is the worst. Stick with alcohol whenever you can.

That's some of my experiences on the matter.

Well that explains it. I did multiple dying / sanding processes as the grain raised. PITA indeed. IIRC I could have used alcohol, but my 6 year old (at the time) was doing it so I thought water made more sense. Looking back, I certainly should have mixed it with alcohol.

[Chuck H]

I still want to try KoolAid It should work. The citric acid would probably only serve to help set the color. And it would make for fun conversation.

[Enzo]

Citrus acidity might work, but don't use ugli fruit, because, well ......

[g1]

[Bill Moore]

Well I covered it up, not sure what they did back in the day to make the tight corner where the chassis fits. I glued a small piece of tolex where I knew there would be a gap!

[The Dude]

That looks great, Bill! I dig the old school tolex colors you chose. Is that an old JBL I see in there? I bet that amp is a bit weighty.

[Bill Moore]

Yeah it's a little heavy, but I thought the D120F would be appropriate, (I've got a couple of 60's Jensens I also concidered).
I still need to swap resistors to get the cathode bias dead on, (it's a little high now). I have a switchable fixed bias that's just a little cold, but I'm gonna play it like that for a while.
(I decided on the colors after buying the brown powder coat chassis!)

[The Dude]

FYI: If it's too hot in the upper mids, changing that aluminum dust cap to a paper one will tame that speaker down a bit. Though, if you're concerned about the vintage value of the speaker, best to not mess with it.

[Bill Moore]

The speaker sounds OK, I bought it as dead for a good price, it had a DCR of (I think) 20+ ohms. The cone was free, so I got a D cell, and moved the speaker both directions several times, then checked, it had 14 ohms DCR. I connected it to my stereo for a few hours, and checked again, 11.5 ohms. A good, (knowlegable) friend told me that the JBL's marked 8-16 often read about 12 ohms. I stuck it in a cab, and played it for a while, sounds good! (Yes it's a little bright, but there's a 'tone' control on the amp!

[Chuck H]

I love two tone, monochromatic or complimentary color schemes on amps I especially like how you kept the background behind the grill cloth light to accent both the speaker and the color scheme. Absolutely capitol, tre' custom and great looking!

I might keep the bias in the "fixed" mode a little cool just for the headroom and a more dynamic tone and then contrast that with a hot cathode bias (you can go pretty hot with cathode bias BTW). That way you get more gratification from the switch.

[Enzo]

Good looking cab, Bill. I also like that brown and cream two-tone. My personal fave is oxblood grille cloth, but that is not to say yours isn't also attractive.

[g1]

I hope for your sake that it sounds as good as it looks!

[Tom Phillips]

...not sure what they did back in the day to make the tight corner where the chassis fits. I glued a small piece of tolex where I knew there would be a gap!

Well...back in the day, Fender used the same method that you did. Attached is a photo of the inside corner detail on an original 1954 Tweed Deluxe amp.
Good work!
Tom

[Chuck H]

I meant to mention that! It's common in "wallpaper hanging" to use a small piece of the product under potentially exposed seams. As long as the added film thickness doesn't show it works a treat. Another solution is to actually PAINT the Tolex color onto the cabinet where any seams might be. That works without adding any significant layered thickness but the seam gaps have to be very small.

[Enzo]

Sometimes we did something similar covering pool tables with new felt in the corner areas.