Started to put the Tolex on

Prior to sending my order off to BNP Laser Engraving. http://www.bnplasers.com I had printed out the faceplate on some transparency film to make sure that all of my holes would match up. I had to remove all of the components and pull them inside the chassis, to make sure these measurements were right on. I was also able to finish rewiring Amp #2 this weekend. I must say that I was starting to get worried. After re-wiring it it had a nasty hum (60 cycle). I tried adding some shielded wires and even rerouted some wiring. I was stumped. I then realized that you can't have my el-cheapo guitar right next to the amp while you are messing with it. My guitar's pickups were picking up the magnetic fields from the power transformer. Duh! A hard lesson to learn. As a result I'm really happy with the wiring on the inside. Moving away from the amp about 2 feet, it's about dead silent, no hum!


This week I've been reading all about how to apply Tolex to the cabinets. I even had some scrap vinyl laying around that I was practicing with. This helped and If I had started doing it, it wouldn't have turned out very good. Tonight I started with adding Tolex to the Vent slot in the top of the Amp Head Cabinet. My strategy is to lay down a thin strip around the slot as a base layer so that when I have to cut the top covering around the holes, no wood will be exposed around the slot.
Here's the Red Tolex, that I got from Mojo Music Supply. The rotary cutter makes it easy.

After reading about contact cement, I went with DAP low VOC. I've used the regular DAP stuff and I must say that stuff takes years off your life. It's very potent. This stuff (green can) is water based which also makes cleanup a lot easier. The downside is that it takes longer to dry. I found it took about 1.5 hours to dry. Next time I'm going to do two thinner coats to speed the drying process up a bit.

Here a top view of the vent slot in the top of the head cabinet.

Here's an inside pic of the Tolex that I'm adding to the slot as a base layer. Yesterday I spray painted the inside flat back.

Here's a top view of that strip, added to the slot.

And a shot from inside. This low VOC contact cement is a little easier to work with. It allows you to move the Tolex around a little instead of grabbing it and not letting go, like the regular contact cement would do.

I'm letting this dry overnight.