The Amp Garage

First time doing grill cloth for me. What do you guys think? It's not perfect but I am happy wit it.

It looks pretty dang good to me!

I'd pay money for that!

Shhhh! It isn't necessary to announce when you lose your virginity particularly if the experience is near perfect.

No more hiring out for that part of the gig. Looks good!

Pretty damn good for a first time buddy...I worked at an auto upholstery shop after high school, and those materials were much easier to work with than most guitar cabinet grill cloths, which usually have patterns that jump out at you if you don't get it just right... it certainly takes doing a couple before you get the feel of where and how hard to stretch or tighten up the material, and the get stapling sequence down so it's straight and even and stays there...it's a good idea to use the same material for the first couple if you want them perfect, each type of material is a bit different to work with...

I found a couple of good tutorials on YT. One of them had a good tip to use a hair dryer to heat up (stretch) the grill cloth before you secure it. While it's warm it expands a bit so if you secure it when it is expanded....when it cools it shrinks tight to the baffle.

Definitely a great trick when using the "vinyl" sort of stuff! I also like to use a hair dryer to relax any piping that is super stiff and uncooperative....I think "cane" grill material is the toughest to get right...some one once suggested to me to mist it very evenly with water and let it dry so it tightens up that way...I never had the guts to try it...I just go slow with that stuff!

Looks good Greg.

That has to be the most aggravating part of building a speaker cab, next to tolex and of course building the cab in the first place.

The old trick was to first get the pattern straight then mist some water on it.

Then use a low temp setting on the hair dryer to shrink it tight.