How to do THIS? (stained maple cabs)

[Joe Bee]

I used to think that black tolex was all that guitar amps needed cosmetically, but recently I fell in love beyond hope with a couple of custom shop boogies:

This Mark IV is my favorite, but the red Rect-o-verb is also not bad:

Now the thing is that I will never be able to justify spending $3-4k on an amp, heck, my CAR is only worth half of that! Thus it is only logical I try to brew my own, I am not very skilled at woodworking at all so I had a couple of practice runs with cheap wood, see attachments.
I was surprised I actually managed to make dovetail joints without using any power tools, and I guess I could actually try my skills on something else than scrap wood.
I also think the stain came out OK, doing a dark color first, sanding it off and then staining with a brighter color gives the wood a lot of depth.

Now I need to acquire some flamed maple, but I have no idea where to get it, what grade to get, and how much I have to spend. I need a piece about 5 feet long, 10 inch wide, and 3/4" thick. This is beyond the dimensions of what guitar tops need, so it is not available from common sources like eBay. Living in Finland also does not help. Any suggestion what kind of sources I could try?

[Satamax]

Well, check the MIMF, all you need to know about varnish and dyes is there in the library of archived discutions.

[black_labb]

im just going to say that it will be expesive, i would personally go for a veneer, and then do something fancy for the corners. ive also heard that pine sounds the best. id consider it for a head, but not a combo. besides being cheaper, a head gets knocked around alot less than a combo.

[stokes]

constantines.com has a lot of exotic varieties.

[Synaptic Amps]

I second black labb's comment about using hardwoods for speaker cabs but it looks from your dovetailed project that you are leaning in the direction of a head amp where a nice figured hardwood would be appropriate. I'd definitely encourage you to stick with the dovetail joint for both it's strength and looks which rules out the possibility of veneer. Personally, I haven't found the cost of using exotic figured woods to be prohibitive for a head. Even at $10/bf for birdseye or flamed maple it's less than $50 of wood for a typical head, a fairly insignificant expense when you consider the time you're investing into actually building the cabinet and amp.

I'm surprised you anticipate having difficulty locating quality woods locally. From what I've read European cabinetmakers look down upon the use of plywoods much more so than in the US where the use of cheap plywoods and MDF is commonplace in cabinetry. I wouldn't think you'd have any trouble finding a local cabinet shop that you could call up and ask for a good lead on hardwoods. Maybe it's a little different here in Maine where we have an active lumber industry but I've had great luck getting good stuff at reasonable prices. All I have to do is swing into town and pick-out my pieces and they'll thickness plane it, square up a fresh 'true' edge and deliver it for free the same day.

At any rate I discourage you to mail order anything until you look into local sources. They might not have "flamed maple" or "curly maple" but there's tons of other beautiful wood out there. Maybe they won't have a single 10" wide board that's everything you wanted but you might find some smaller pieces of cool wood that you could glue up into a 10". How about two nice strips of 3" cherry with a 4" wide piece of bubinga in the middle. Shopping for a good piece of wood's like buying an instrument - you want to touch it, feel it, smell it before you buy it. You want to inspect it to see that it's flat and free of cracks, deep gouges and checks. Moreover you want to be able to pick out a board with a figure you like. Buy online and you never know what you're going to get not to mention the fact that you don't know how it's going to be handled on route to Finland.

Regarding grade - even if you were building an acoustic cabinet (a speaker cab) there's no demand for instrument grade lumber. For obvious reasons it's essential that an 1/8th inch thick acoustic guitar top not have knots in it and the straighter and tighter the grain lines the better. Not so for a speaker cab constructed of 3/4" stock. A knot here and there in a dovetailed pine speaker cab can add character and beauty without detracting a bit from the tone so long as you take care to keep them away from the edges and corners.

From the looks of things it seems you've got the right idea with your stain application. Applying an even coat of stain to pine or spruce (whatever you've got there) is much harder than it would be for a nice piece of maple or other hardwood. It helps to put down a coat of sealer or shellac first to keep the wood from soaking it up so much where it can get kinda blotchy (especially the end grain). You can get a beautiful grain enhancement by doing like you say applying one coat, sanding it off and staining again. I gaurantee you Mesa's not taking the time to do this. In fact, they're probably not staining the wood at all. More likely they build lacquer or sealer to achieve a level surface, spray a thin coat of tinted lacquer, then finish with several topcoats of lacquer.

[Satamax]

There's another thing than maple you could use, which is cheaper usualy, curly ash.

[sheppadizzle]

How do you stain the flamed maple to highlight the flaming as in the mesa pics? How would you finish it? spray can lacquer? Shellac? What kind of buffing tools are needed?

[Satamax]

highlight, oil and/or french polish, work on raised grain/wetted wood then aply the stain, anilin ones are good usualy. sand lightly. And aply lacquer, catalysed rattle can stuff is fine by me. Hardest to do is blue or purple, since all shelac and oil tend to be yellowish, and make the blue turn green. A nice example here at the botom of the page http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Fiel...s/megas01.html

[mlp]

Get some "TransFast" liquid dye and mix it in water to a level that you like. (**ALWAYS** test on scrap wood first!!! ALWAYS!!!)

Saturate the wood surface (not all the wood, just the surface) with this mixture, then wipe off the excess. Let this dry COMPLETELY, then sand it with 220 grit until a significant amount of the color is gone - it will be left in the curly grain. Wipe/blow the dust off.

Re-stain with the same dye you used before. Allow this to dry COMPLETELY.

Now spray several coats of clear lacquer - 5-10 coats, depending on the thinness of your lacquer. (more coats for thinner lacquer, up to 10-15 if you're using spray cans)
At this point, if you are using a spray gun for the lacquer, you can add some of the original stain to your lacquer and spray a color coat in the middle of this lacquer stage. If you decide to do that, level sand after 5 coats before you spray the color coat. After you spray the color coat, do not touch that with sandpaper. Clear coat this with at least 5 coats before you do anything else to it, up to 8-10 coats if you're using a spray can. (there is so much thinner in the spray can lacquer that there is not much build of the finish with that stuff.)

Let this dry for 2-3 days, then level sand (sand with 220 grit until there are no shiny spots left.

At this point, if you are using a spray gun for the lacquer, you can add some of the original stain to your lacquer and spray a color coat.

Now, recoat with 2-5 coats clear lacquer again, and let this dry for at least a week.

Sand with progressively finer grits up to 1000 grit (or higher), then polish and buff.

[Joe Bee]

Despite the warnings not to mail-order wood, I shopped around a bit and got some offers which seem decent to me. I got one quote for four planks of 480mm by 280mm by 13mm which should be sufficient for a Mark IV size combo. The Price for the wood would be 80€, and this is what it looks like:



Another supplier offered this quality, same dimensions and same price, just figured differently

but I am tending towards the first one. Now what do you guys think? Decent wood, decent price? Or can I do better?