Marshall 4x12 refurbishment.
Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2020 1:30 pm
This is a 1985 Marshall 1960a. It's from the JCM800 series.
It looked like this:
ruined tolex, water damaged sides, a crumbly back panel, a cab full of dings and scrapes and a big gouge in the top by the skid pan covered in layers of duct tape going back decades judging from how brittle it was.
Let's strip it back:
The tolex just came off in brittle strips. It would flake off in your hands and had lost all pliancy so it was like hard plastic. It all went in the garbage sadly, which felt very irresponsible but there's not much I can do with flaky crap tolex. I sanded it smooth and crap-free with 5 80 grit discs.
That's a broken off drillbit in the cab. Quality British construction.
Maybe Ron is the guy who left the drillbit there?
nice ply though.
That's the date from the speaker codes.
Here's where it gets interesting. I'm not using tolex. I actually hate the stuff and hate dealing with it and don't really see any upsides to using it that aren't rooted in tradition or doing it because it's what everyone else does. I'm using this https://www.livesound.co.nz/collections ... r-cabinets which I bought from Livesound. I've used that for PA cabs and stage gear. Tolex seems to be a holdover for guitar cabs for some reason while the rest of the audio trade moved on.
Anyway. I used the trial kit which is enough for 3 coats of a 4x12 cab this size. The texture comes from the roller and you can soften it or make it more aggressive if you dilute the stuff, or leave it neat. It goes on dark grey/blue but dries black so don't worry if you think you bought the wrong stuff. It cleans up with water while wet and is hard AF when dry. There's no fumes and it's generally very easy to work with and is touch dry within the hour.
First coat:
Second coat:
You can see it's not quite dry in the first pic. The unevenness on the side panel disappeared once it had dried. It's self-adhering and can be touched up with a brush down the line if need be.
I made a new back from 18mm ply, also Duratex coated, and installed a new metal jack plate to replace the plastic funnel thingy that was stock.
The original plan was to replace the grille cloth but I think this looks 100% badass as is so I left it. The hardware is all original, I just touched it up where I could and fixed the dodgy wheel.
Nice level 3 project.
It looked like this:
ruined tolex, water damaged sides, a crumbly back panel, a cab full of dings and scrapes and a big gouge in the top by the skid pan covered in layers of duct tape going back decades judging from how brittle it was.
Let's strip it back:
The tolex just came off in brittle strips. It would flake off in your hands and had lost all pliancy so it was like hard plastic. It all went in the garbage sadly, which felt very irresponsible but there's not much I can do with flaky crap tolex. I sanded it smooth and crap-free with 5 80 grit discs.
That's a broken off drillbit in the cab. Quality British construction.
Maybe Ron is the guy who left the drillbit there?
nice ply though.
That's the date from the speaker codes.
Here's where it gets interesting. I'm not using tolex. I actually hate the stuff and hate dealing with it and don't really see any upsides to using it that aren't rooted in tradition or doing it because it's what everyone else does. I'm using this https://www.livesound.co.nz/collections ... r-cabinets which I bought from Livesound. I've used that for PA cabs and stage gear. Tolex seems to be a holdover for guitar cabs for some reason while the rest of the audio trade moved on.
Anyway. I used the trial kit which is enough for 3 coats of a 4x12 cab this size. The texture comes from the roller and you can soften it or make it more aggressive if you dilute the stuff, or leave it neat. It goes on dark grey/blue but dries black so don't worry if you think you bought the wrong stuff. It cleans up with water while wet and is hard AF when dry. There's no fumes and it's generally very easy to work with and is touch dry within the hour.
First coat:
Second coat:
You can see it's not quite dry in the first pic. The unevenness on the side panel disappeared once it had dried. It's self-adhering and can be touched up with a brush down the line if need be.
I made a new back from 18mm ply, also Duratex coated, and installed a new metal jack plate to replace the plastic funnel thingy that was stock.
The original plan was to replace the grille cloth but I think this looks 100% badass as is so I left it. The hardware is all original, I just touched it up where I could and fixed the dodgy wheel.
Nice level 3 project.
i do have a lot of 15"cabs though...