Marshall 4x12 slant cab recover 101

[Scumback Speakers]

Post #35 explains it.

"You might have to make some really small cuts back at the edge of the cab, as the tolex will resist laying flat on the rounded corner. Just make really thin, small cuts and push the tolex together until it meets just like the rest of the "seam" does on the front."

 

[DavePilk74]

do you mean small cuts at 90 degrees to the seam? eg if the seam is vertical, I should make really small horizontal cuts?

or do you mean small thin cuts along the edges of the seam as if to shave a bit off along the sides?

sorry for the annoying questions but I need to get this right. the help is appreciated very much.

 

[JZWest]

No, you need to cut the tolex back on the line you've already got going a bit further. Do one side first (likely the top), get it straight (45 degree angle) to the corner, but you have to cut it back till it lays flat. If you look closely at this pic, I've cut it back farther than you have in your pics.

Then you can tape it down, lay the other piece of the tolex on top and cut to match the piece on top and you get a pretty seamless joint.

You'll need to be careful of course, and have a sharp blade.

You can also cut back to where it lays flat, fold both pieces of tolex over and make one cut through both pieces at once.

You have to make sure you don't cut any farther than the inside lip for both pieces as they'll make another angle from there to lay flat on the inside of the front lip.

geez that's a beautiful corner! where do you get the gold piping?

 

[Scumback Speakers]

do you mean small cuts at 90 degrees to the seam? eg if the seam is vertical, I should make really small horizontal cuts?

or do you mean small thin cuts along the edges of the seam as if to shave a bit off along the sides?

sorry for the annoying questions but I need to get this right. the help is appreciated very much.

Ok, I thought this was obvious but maybe not.

You have to join the two pieces of tolex together. First you have to make your 45 degree angle cut from the where the cab rounds off to the corner of the front edge of the cab (where the tolex goes around the lip).

When you pull that tolex down you'll have an overlap of tolex layers (top & bottom). Cut only one layer to 45 degrees (decide whether it's the top or bottom, I usually go with the top) and get it straight. You'll wind up making a few VERY THIN cuts along the 45 degree angle since the tolex is being pulled over a corner, it will need to be shaved to the angle. That's why you'll make really thin (1/64") cuts so you don't cut off too much.

Once you get one layer done, super glue it down so it stays in one place.

Then pull up the bottom layer of tolex to overlap it.

You can eyeball the cuts to the bottom layer, or you can lay down some masking tape on the tolex itself, then cut it to match.

With enough patience you can get the corners to match up.

No one said this was easy, in fact sometimes you'll just want to

 

[Scumback Speakers]

geez that's a beautiful corner! where do you get the gold piping?

www.tubesandmore.com

 

[DavePilk74]

Ok, I thought this was obvious but maybe not.

You have to join the two pieces of tolex together. First you have to make your 45 degree angle cut from the where the cab rounds off to the corner of the front edge of the cab (where the tolex goes around the lip).

When you pull that tolex down you'll have an overlap of tolex layers (top & bottom). Cut only one layer to 45 degrees (decide whether it's the top or bottom, I usually go with the top) and get it straight. You'll wind up making a few VERY THIN cuts along the 45 degree angle since the tolex is being pulled over a corner, it will need to be shaved to the angle. That's why you'll make really thin (1/64") cuts so you don't cut off too much.

Once you get one layer done, super glue it down so it stays in one place.

Then pull up the bottom layer of tolex to overlap it.

You can eyeball the cuts to the bottom layer, or you can lay down some masking tape on the tolex itself, then cut it to match.

With enough patience you can get the corners to match up.

No one said this was easy, in fact sometimes you'll just want to

OK thanks for explaining in more detail, that is a bit different to what Ive been doing.

I told you I needed an idiots guide!

Definitely not easy, but I guess it gets easier after you've mastered it and got a few recovering jobs under your belt. I bet the guys at Marshall slap that tolex on in seconds.

 

[Dave_C]

Really interesting, Jim! Thanks for taking the time to share this. This is so far beyond my handyman knowledge and capabilities, I am left speechless!

 

[Scumback Speakers]

OK thanks for explaining in more detail, that is a bit different to what Ive been doing.

I told you I needed an idiots guide!

Definitely not easy, but I guess it gets easier after you've mastered it and got a few recovering jobs under your belt. I bet the guys at Marshall slap that tolex on in seconds.

After you do 40 plus restorations it's easier. LOL The first few were meh...ok, but not stellar. The corners are the hardest part, too, stretching cloth tight is also a bitch by hand, cloth puller tools make that easier.

Good luck!

 

[Lemmycat]

After you do 40 plus restorations it's easier. LOL The first few were meh...ok, but not stellar. The corners are the hardest part, too, stretching cloth tight is also a bitch by hand, cloth puller tools make that easier.

Good luck!

After you do 40 plus restorations it's easier. LOL The first few were meh...ok, but not stellar. The corners are the hardest part, too, stretching cloth tight is also a bitch by hand, cloth puller tools make that easier.

Good luck!

Hey Jim, great thread! I wish I had found it two weekends ago when I started my restoration on and old 1982A! I figure out how I should have done some things by making some mistakes along the way. I'm actually surprised how many things I did by intuition that were similar to what you do in your process.

As many have mentioned, the corners were the hardest and got the better of me. After reading this thread I had the same questions DavePilk74 posted of whether the 'small cuts' needed to be parallel or perpendicular to the 45 degree angle. When I did my corner I had actually tried it the way you describe and still got puckers where the tolex bunched up at the top of the curved face. Now in reading this thread I'm thinking a) I didn't cut the tolex back far enough and b) super glue would have been a great idea to hold down that rascally tolex around the the curved face.


I ended up cutting out the puckers since my plan included installing new corner caps which will hide my boo-boos. craptastic!
(see pics below)



A few build notes that might help others:

1) LOOSE FINGER JOINTS - My cab was so beat up the finger joints on the corners were loose and missing some chunks. I watered down some wood glue and painted it into the seams of the finger joints, clamped and let it dry overnight. That helped. The cab is pretty rock solid now. Then I gave it the wood putty treatment all over and sanded smooth.

2) GLUE REMOVAL - I also used "3M tar, wax and adhesive remover" to soften up the glue and scrape with a razor in the interior lips, and a power orbital sander to get the glue of the flat areas. the 3M evaporates and leaves no residue so worked pretty well, but doesn't work well enough to avoid sanding/scraping.

2) FULL WRAP TOLEX - I did the full wrap method with no piping channels. I wasn't sure where to put the seam so I put it on one of the bottom corners to the seam would line up wiith one of the bottom 45 deg cuts. Sharpie on the seam to hide those little show-throughs.

3) CONTACT CEMENT (ALTERNATIVE TO TOLEX GLUE) - I used "Dap brand Non-flammable Contact Cement" (from home depot) for my tolex recover and it seemed to work pretty well and is less expensive. It may be a bit less forgiving with overlapping tolex to make the cuts then pulling off to remove the cut pieces underneath, but it seemed to go OK. I wouldn't want to pull off and relay tolex more than one or two times with it. This is the fist cab so I can't comment on long-term durability yet.

4) DON'T DO THIS -CORNERS- I botched the corner cuts by making a full 45 deg cut that did NOT stop at the inside lip as Jim instructs... I ended up having to put a fixer piece in the corners but they are not noticeable unless your right up on it. (this forum post instructions are great for how to do this correctly and would have been a god-send if I had only found and read it first. ha!) hideous pics below

5) RETRO FIT METAL HANDLES - the handle holes on the JCM 800 1982A were a bit too narrow and short for the metal handles from mojotone.com so i had to cut out the handle holes a bit wider and longer for the metal retro-fit handles. I used low-tack painters tape to protect the tolex and used a jig saw to widen the openings. Worked great!

6) PIPING JOINT FOR BAFFLE PIPING - I used a small toothpick section inside the hole in the piping to help line up the joint where the two ends of the piping meet. This worked pretty well to keep the seam nice an neat after cutting and stapling the piping. pics below

7.) FRAYING NYLON SPEAKER CLOTH - This may be over-kill but I didn't like how the speaker cloth (nylon) was fraying on the edges so I did some careful melting of the edges with my MAP torch to seal the edges after stapling and trimming the excess. If you try it, don't put the torch directly on the cloth, just get it "near" the cloth and that will be enough to melt the edge.

My Bad Corners:

TOOTHPICK TRICK:

AFTER TOOTHPICK:

In Progress:

Once I finish this slant cab I'll be on the hunt for another old cab to try my hand at corners again and maybe do a cap-less look.

-Paul / Lemmycat

 

[DavePilk74]

Im still practising my corners, but I think my main problem is I wasnt stretching the tolex. You cant just push the tolex down and expect it to stick, you will just get folds all over the place.

You need to kind of stretch it at a slight angle so the tolex is flat against the wood on the corner.

At least this is what Im doing now and Im having much better results.

 

[Lemmycat]

Im still practising my corners, but I think my main problem is I wasnt stretching the tolex. You cant just push the tolex down and expect it to stick, you will just get folds all over the place.

You need to kind of stretch it at a slight angle so the tolex is flat against the wood on the corner.

At least this is what Im doing now and Im having much better results.

Ah.. I think I was making the same mistake!! I'll remember that next time.

I finished my cabinet rebuild.
- I used brass screws and fasteners to class it up a bit instead of using the standard brass hammer-in rivets.
- I used the same metal handles as are in Jim's picks.
- and for the marshall logo i cleaned up the original plastic logo and then cut out an expanded shape of the logo from a brass-plated door kickplate to mount behind the plastic logo... so the logo has about a 3/16" brass edge behind the letters

Pictures below. These were taken with my iphone camera. I need to take some better pics with my camera and post.

 

[munizfire]

hey guys, i was wondering if this kind of vinyl would work? I have looked for tolex kind of vinyl, but no luck, and buying online, the shipping is gonna kill me xD

thanks

 

[Lemmycat]

hey guys, i was wondering if this kind of vinyl would work? I have looked for tolex kind of vinyl, but no luck, and buying online, the shipping is gonna kill me xD

Hmm. that looks like a vinyl with the fleece-like backing typically used for table-cloths. I wouldn't think that would work very well. They tend to be less durable and also the adhesive would be sticking to the fleece, so there would be minimal adhesive bond to the vinyl itself, if any. Tolex isn't cheap, for sure, so if you decide to try it, I'd suggested doing a test piece with the adhesive onto some scrap plywood before doing a whole cabinet.

I've sometimes seen vinyl without the fleece backing in fabric stores in the upholstery section, so you might be able to find a happy medium.

Good luck with your project.

 

[JR1]

All,

Great thread but I have one question. Maybe I missed this in the thread and if I did, I apologize.

I want to install new plastic corners on a cab that does not have any, no existing holes. The cab is made of birch plywood. I will be using the standard Marshall gold rivets with the slot in them.

I was planning on pressing the corners in place and getting them in position then marking the hole location and drilling a pilot hole just slightly smaller than the rivet. I do not want to split the wood or destroy the brass rivets when they are hammered in using a plastic head hammer.

Dos this sound like the right way to do it. Should the hole be just smaller than the rivet, same size or half the size?

Any advise would be appreciated. I am very handy but do not want to screw this cab up...I will only have one shot at it.

Thanks,

Ron

 

[Lemmycat]

Ron1,

I hope I'm not too late with this info. For the standard hammer-in split rivet you would not want to pre-drill. The rivet is designed to sink into the wood and spread out a bit as it's hammered. Drilling holes would actually weken the area that the rivet is biting into.

That's said, I prefer using brass screws (#6 3/4") for the corner pieces. Those you can pre-drill and make the hole the same or slightly smaller than the screw shaft minus the threads.

Good luck

 

[Ayrton]

Another one knocked out...

Before

After

Jim's awesome handles!

 

[Scumback Speakers]

Great restoration Chris!

 

[Ayrton]

...and again

My orange superlead needed a matching cab.

Before

After

 

[Scumback Speakers]

...and again

My orange superlead needed a matching cab.

After

Gorgeous work, sir!

 

[frank62]

Ayrton, that is some stunning work!