Hot Rod Deluxe from Tired Black to Fresh (if slightly camp) Seafoam Green

stephen.wood125

Hi all,

As some of you will have seen, I re-covered my old Marshall Valvetstate in red to have some practice playing with vinyl.

I waded in and re-covered my Hot Rod Deluxe including replacing the grille cloth with the one with turquoise flecks.

I used the pieces I peeled off as templates, I also took the ratty chipboard cabinet (shown here with the new grille cloth installed) sanded and filled it to within an inch of it's life using car body filler.


https://i.imgur.com/08yyMmG.jpg?1

I used Everbuild Smart Tack Contact Adhesive from Toolstation- absolutely fantastic, no smell, super easy to use. Complete polar opposite to the standard stuff which has you seeing purple unicorns after 10 minutes.

Amp came out pretty well, used the standard techniques for corners of cutting down the centre and overlaying then cutting through both layers.

https://i.imgur.com/k3YuOTW.jpg?1

https://i.imgur.com/sQ5tH1z.jpg?1

Whole thing took me about an hour and a half with minimal mess.

Thanks for reading.

Jimbro66

A very nice job

Jimbro66

And a sarcastic wow from some plonker.....

Funkfingers

Fender charges a shitload extra when they apply Tolex in fancy colours. I reckon that a certain Fender offset guitar hoarder on this forum would snaffle that HRDx up in an instant.

jonnyburgo

looks brilliant, well done! where did you get the tolex?

stephen.wood125

Thanks all! I got the Tolex and the grille cloth from Allparts. The Grille cloth was on back order and took a few weeks but the tolex for the amp was two days.

stephen.wood125

Jimbro66 said:

And a sarcastic wow from some plonker.....

Think that plonker was me! i was taking wow=thanks. Sorry! 

CarpeDiem

Good result. I'm sure it would have taken me a lot longer!

ICBM

Very nice job. It's harder than it looks to get it neat and tight like that, so if this is only your second attempt you clearly have the right skills and technique.

It's a bit disappointing to see how poor quality the cabinet is underneath, but at least you can't see it now and the vinyl should hold it together nicely .

stephen.wood125

Thanks very much! yeah I left the top until last because the rear near the control panel was quite daunting! Another thing I was impressed with that Everbuild spray adhesive, it tacks up nice and quickly but is (allegedly) usable for up to 2 hours! I just took my time and used a brand new scalpel blade for the cuts. Also regarding the adhesive, it's quite a strong blue colour, so when it came time to overlay the top and bottom I masked to a line and also covered the sides in thin polythene masking sheet just to avoid potential overspray.

Completely agree about the cabinet- part of me really wanted to go and order some birch ply and have a go making that too!

Thanks for the kind words. 

Stephen.

munckee

Good job and most things look better in surf green!

sawyer

Looks as can be!

Funkfingers

munckee said:

most things look better in surf green!

I can think of a couple pieces of human anatomy that do not! 

stephen.wood125 said:
part of me really wanted to go and order some birch ply and have a go making that too!

How about a more exotic wood, left visible? MESA/Boogie used to offer walnut et cetera. Fender, themselves, have used pine under a semi-transparent butterscotch finish.

Jimbro66

stephen.wood125 said:

Jimbro66 said:

And a sarcastic wow from some plonker.....

Think that plonker was me! i was taking wow=thanks. Sorry! 

Ah, no problem

There was another recent thread on how tricky it is to get grille cloth to align well vertically and horizontally. You’ve done an exemplary job of that. Also nice work on the tolex covering which takes skill when there are no corner protectors to hide behind. Overall a great job and a cool look.

Keefy

Minty fresh!

JerkMoans

That looks surftastic! Cracking job!

stephen.wood125

Wow, thanks all for the comments! 

@Funkfingers That's a really intriguing idea! You've got me thinking now  *googles Zebrano suppliers*

@Jimbro66 Thank you! I agonised over the thought of it, the actual grille cloth that was on it looked a bit skewed - I think that was probably more stretching from the previous owner but I could see it every time I looked at the amp.

Chromed corner protectors would have been my 'get out of jail almost free' card I tend to run over things a load of times in my head and then have a little play with offcuts or something to try and get the feel for the material.

Totally blown away by the positive reaction, thanks a lot, everyone!

CasperCaster

@stephen.wood125 that looks superb. I've got a project myself and bought a can of the Everbuild Smart Tack, but it's a nightmare to use- it come out of the can like silly string! Did I get the right stuff?

stephen.wood125

Thanks! Yes that's the one, I found moving the can quite quickly to leave a decent coat of that webbing pattern. I did end up with some on the wall in my garage until I got the hang of it! I ended up taping polythene on the floor and just spraying over that caught the worst of the mess. Silly string is definitely a good analogy!

Kalimna

I can't take credit for the finished product, but I did supply the rippled ash (of which I still have plenty ) which became the cabinet for my Thornton amp. Gives you an idea of a stained wood finish. I know this isn't to everyones' taste, but I think it looks stunning (and is more than matched sonically too).

https://i.imgur.com/uo4bJbD.jpg?1

Adam

stephen.wood125

That's stunning! I really like it!!