The Amp Garage

I found some wonderful [for Texas] curly maple for a 1987 that a friend built me. Walnut was used as the piping for a nice contrast. It has been a long saga as the holidays and my wood working buddy has fallen back into the hobby car - C5 ZO6 - and needed to sell of most of his equipment. Luckily I was able to purchase his dust collector and 16" drum sander without which this project would be dead in the water. The other interference was the start of my show season, 4 days in Dallas and a week in Lost Wages.

It was not without fluster clucks - used a cheap dado and one of the blades had warped and cut .030" wider [and thus narrower as well] fingers - much naughty verbiage was spewed. A decorative contrasting maple piece now split the sides and top as artful damage control. A carbide dado was acquired [my oh my, hot slippery sawing sex] which cut the best joints I've ever done.

From a lesson learned with purple heart, an amazingly sand paper resistant wood, I rounded the corners with 60 grit paper. Looks and feels like a gravel parking lot on a disk. Finish is my usual linseed / mineral spirits. The Marshall logo was primed and sprayed with the only brown I had.

Russ

Holy Shit!!!!!

Beautiful!!!!!

Wow! Gorgeous! I feel like such an amateur when I see the beautiful woodworking some of you guys do!

I feel like such an amateur when I see the beautiful woodworking some of you guys do!

Hi Boots, You gotta start somewhere - to quote my buddy who taught himself to built acoustic guitars from scratch said when asked how he was able to build such beautiful work - "Because I'm willing to f**k sh*t up on the way to getting there'. My first cabs were ugly and out of square but have xome a long way in 19 cabs to date.

I am happy to answer any questions and share the small wealth of knowledge I have accumulated or outright stole!

Russ

Russ, that is really nice!

I'd be tempted to make a wood front panel in a reddish tone like your little darker wood (looks like cherry) stripes.

I know what you mean about finding nice wood - wouldn't it be woodworker's heaven to live in Vermont, or Oregon?

The side contast is Maple? Man, it looks like Bubinga! Useful to have good gear. I try to get by with semi good gear. But I don't build many cabs. And don't have easy access to good wood.

Forgive the sidetrack, but a guy I know has 5F1 clone built from recovered wood that came from Chumley's in Greenwich Village. Famous speakeasy. Huge history. (Maybe the origin of the phrase "to 86 something.")

It wasn't built all that well (I fixed it). Something cool about crazy wood, though.

Awesome job Russ,really nice !!!!!mikey

Firestorm wrote:The side contast is Maple? Man, it looks like Bubinga!

Yep, I drop topped a tele with most it. Too even of grain for bubinga. It amazes me how many different hues of the same species there are. I did a head for a Mesa Mini out of a cherry so hard it laughed at my saber saw as I tried to cut a cooling vent. The same blade ripped through everything else. I had to take the cab to work and use a milling machine to cut it.

Thank you all for the kind replies!

Well I'm off to make a matching 1936.

Russ

What a beautiful box!

Love the different woods used.

This sort of thing ought to be banned for appealing to the prurient interests of amp builders.

Absolutely gorgeous.
Damn!

Truly a work of art. Beautiful.
The wood tones and chassis color seem to complement each other.
Well done!

Denny

Phil_S wrote:This sort of thing ought to be banned for appealing to the prurient interests of amp builders.

Yep, its a vicious cycle of GAS. Just when I think I've done enough cab building one of those rotten bastard amp builders [worse - speaker builders] temps me with new gear. The most pernicious offender of all is my wood store. My truck knows how to get there all by itself and and beautiful wood gravitational pull does the rest!

Cheaper than women!

Russ

Beautiful job. Nice design and the tightest, cleanest finger joints ever. It would look great even using junk wood. Thanks for sharing.

Holy crap, you knocked that one out of the park!!!