Rexine as Tolex alternative?

[flood]

Hey all

Where I live (Bombay, India), Tolex is IMPOSSIBLE to get. truck bed liner is morbidly expensive, if at all available. i have a pair of ply 1x12"s (AX84 design) that have been lying around, waiting to be finished up since 5-6 months...

so i went to the upholstery market and looked for alternatives that would do the job well, look somewhat attractive and not be too pricey either... i found a supplier of 0.8-0.9mm rexine with different types of backing (some had a thin mesh backing, some a thicker mesh backing, and some had a thicker woolly backing).

would this stand up to the job? i'm mostly a weekend warrior, never gig, rarely jam, and wouldn't be taking my cabs to jams anyway. the most action they'll see is in my bedroom (that's what she said! ha!) and the most travel would be around my apartment.

the heads that i'm building may possibly move around a bit though, but i think it's safe to say that they will not be seeing any serious gigging anytime soon.

a few stores away, there's a shop for genuine leather hides. you have to buy the whole hide and it can get really expensive too. so just out of curiosity... has anyone used real leather? i can imagine it being a total pain to work with... how is the durability?

anyway - to rexine or not to rexine? thanks!

[Rich M]

I always though tolex and levant were just tradenames, I would say if it is thin enough to fold the corners cleanly, it would be fine. Can't be any worse than Tolex. Beware of buying stuff that is too thick. The corners will almost certainly look sloppy and the elastic strength of it tend to pull it up in corners, like on some Boogies. I can't believe you can't find tolex or levant.

[flood]

I always though tolex and levant were just tradenames, I would say if it is thin enough to fold the corners cleanly, it would be fine. Can't be any worse than Tolex. Beware of buying stuff that is too thick. The corners will almost certainly look sloppy and the elastic strength of it tend to pull it up in corners, like on some Boogies.

thanks a lot! was almost going to buy thicker material, thinking it would be better.

I can't believe you can't find tolex or levant.

india is extremely price-driven. i don't know how tolex or levant would be able to compete against locally made products (which were really not as shabby as i was expecting, was quite surprised actually) that cost about 4$ per running metre (54" width!). add to that the exorbitant 35% import duties and other taxes/excise and you have a markup of almost 50% even before it reaches the importer's warehouse...

EDIT: it seems tolex was primarily used for car roofs. you'd be very hard pressed to find convertibles in india, especialy in bombay. air pollution levels here are ridiculous. the other sue is speaker cabinets... let's just say that there is no local production of quality amplifiers whatsoever, except for couple of strays doing a good job in the hi-fi world. would you know who owns the tolex/levant brands? maybe they have distributors here.

[Sonny ReVerb]

Tolex is just one brand name for vinyl with a fabric backing. It was used for covering the metal roof of cars, not convertibles. Some cars had the whole roof covered or just a part (Landau roof). Cue the wayback machine...

[img:229:195]http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/1456/topssample.jpg[/img]

[img:432:330]http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/6090/landau.jpg[/img]

[img:450:338]http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/5518 ... rdland.png[/img]

[jelle]

Why don't you paint the cabs? Especially for use within your home.....

I even have seen paint on rental PA speakers. And that worked very well.

[flood]

Why don't you paint the cabs? Especially for use within your home.....

I even have seen paint on rental PA speakers. And that worked very well.

hmmm.... yeah that is an alternative. maybe some sort of black structure paint...

but i love the look of (p)leather

i don't want to completely ignore the aesthetics either. easiest way would be to leave them as they are, slap on the corners and feet and we'd be ready to go. would look kind of crap though. so i wanted faux leather with a cane speaker grill - the latter i cann source quite easily.

[M Fowler]

I would assume India has a lot of fabric right? So take a black type of tough dark fabric and shellac it like the Fender Tweed amps do. It doesn't have to be the tweed to get the same affect.

Have always painted my PA cabs and now I am going to start using the bedliner stuff which I realize is not available to you so Paint or Fabric?

[flood]

I would assume India has a lot of fabric right? So take a black type of tough dark fabric and shellac it like the Fender Tweed amps do. It doesn't have to be the tweed to get the same affect.

Have always painted my PA cabs and now I am going to start using the bedliner stuff which I realize is not available to you so Paint or Fabric?

cripes! didn't think of that, although i curiously enough was creative enough to think about covering the whole thing in oil canvas and getting an artist to paint on it. canvas for the grill cloth too. the affordability aspect remains questionable, though...

well, i now have a handful of alternatives as compared to a few days ago - exactly wwhy i love this forum so much. thanks a lot, guys, and do check out my opened-today EL95 thread in the TW forum too. will write back here when i finally settle on a material... which i sure hope will be sometime soon, since i could use those cabs at home.

[Bob-I]

Years ago I built a cab for a friend. He'd just finished re-covering the roof of his car with vinyl and had some scrap. I covered his cab with the left over and it worked perfectly. We gigged for years with that cab and it held up well.

[Baxtercat]

Instead of shellac with fabric I use Mod Podge. It almost becomes like vinyl or Tolex. It's an emulsion sold at craft stores; looks a bit like white glue. I thin it w/ water to help penetrate the dry cloth. Here's an example:

[Jana]

Rexine... you don't have to put on your red light,
REXine... you don't have to sell your body to the night.

[Wayne]

Hahaha @ Jana's post. Could be a big hit!

A friend of mine scored a large roll of bright orange upholstery cloth and has used it to cover a few cabs/other projects. Not sure what he does about corners as the stuff is quite thick, but to finish he brushes on 1 or 2 coats of clear polyurathane (hardwood floor finish). They're tough as hell, and with the amount of cloth remaining on that roll, there will be orange colored homebrew projects in the area for the forseeable future.

W

[Markusv]

Instead of shellac with fabric I use Mod Podge. It almost becomes like vinyl or Tolex. It's an emulsion sold at craft stores; looks a bit like white glue. I thin it w/ water to help penetrate the dry cloth. Here's an example:

OOOOHH!

That is beautiful!
Is it just regular upholstery?

And you say the Mod Podge is really impact/ scuff resistant?
I'm in Canada so I will look at Michael's

Markus V

[Baxtercat]

Markus, it's not even upholstery....it's simply fabric [leftover from the wife's sewing project].
And the ModPodge emulsion dries up fine making the whole thing sort of like vinyl or tolex. If it scuffs too much after a few years I'll just do it again with a new motif or design!

Here's a Tele body I did the same way:

[Markusv]

Wonder what my wife would say if I dressed her and the Liverpool as twins...

That guitar is wicked! of course not for those who prefer a nitro body for pure tone.... - with my playing tone is my least problem

Markus V