Source for Fender silver piping?

[Axtman]

Does anybody know where to get that silver piping material that Fender used on some amps in the late 60's and 70's? I have seen that some of the piping is aluminum and some is plastic. Thanks.

[Prairie Dawg]

Does anybody know where to get that silver piping material that Fender used on some amps in the late 60's and 70's? I have seen that some of the piping is aluminum and some is plastic. Thanks.

Is that the round string type piping? Because I had the same problem with a National Sportsman amp that I recovered. Where, oh where to get white round piping?

I ended up at a local craft and hobby store and purchased a roll of Tejas Leather Lace, which is round leather string of about the right size. I found you can paint it with Krylon. Then it's a matter of rolling the stuff into the groove with a suitable tool.

[booj]

everybody that I knew including me ripped that stuff off and left it off. It served no purpose other than to create annoying rattles. You're better off without it.

[silverface]

What you're talking about, I believe, is the aluminum trim around the grill of the first iteration of SF amps, from mid-'67 to '69 - popularly know as "drip edge". There is no replacement material made (it's come up for years on amp and guitar forums) and the best workaround is to find some light-gage aluminum or galvanized flashing at a building supply house and make your own. Somewhere (I don't have the link handy) there is a site that shows how to make replacement corners, as those are the parts that seem to get lost - but it has good pics of the whole assembly, which is stapled into place.

Drip-edge SF amps have ben steadily increasing in price over the last few years as more players find the earlier ones are BF amps electronically - "tearing it off" is not exactly great advice, since all you will accomplish is to devalue your amp by a few hundred bucks. I've NEVER heard a rattle on one, and I've serviced dozens. And if it did rattle, it doesn't take a Mensa candidate to figure out that fixing the rattle might make a bit more sense than tearing irreplaceable parts off a vintage amp.

It's like saying your tweed snags the hem of your leisure suit when you wear it, so you're gonna strip the tweed off....

[booj]

sorry to create a negative vibe there mr. silverface. I had a bassman cabinet with two 15" JBL D140F's in it, new in 1968. The cab had the silver trim It for lack of a better term, created a noise I shall not heretofore call "rattling", but more along the lines of It made a noise so I took it off and didn't miss it.

[Baxtercat]

Boy, things change. We didn't care about the trim in '69, now I'm sorry I peeled it off that old Super Reverb back then.


AxtMan; how much do you need? Laying around in my 'amp shed' I still have the front panel of a '69 Showman head with the four small trim strips attached and the old grillcloth. I'm probably keeping it to Ebay off the thing some day.