anyone interested in a custom Mark enclosure?

So i keep seeing these beautiful Mark II and III combos made out of hardwood. Ive been building guitars (luthier for 3 years) and furniture for a while, this should be no problem. It literally costs about 20 dollars in lumber, i have all sorts of amazing looking hardwoods that would be perfect. I have a mark III combo i can copy. If my mission is succesful, would anyone be interested in one? I know dr.hardwood wants like 500 for one, it honestly takes 6 hours of work and almost no cost in materials, so that is fairly ridiculous to me, i wouldnt charge near that much.

Heres some work ive done, gutiar wise, all hand made down to the slotting of fretboard/making pickup rings/covers.

Beautiful work. I'll bite. How much for something for a wide body Mark IV head?

I'd probably need the cabinet for measurements and to copy it, but for now lets say around 200 bucks shipped? if its easier afteri do this first one, then less. if it turns out ot be a pain in the ***, then more. ive made cabinets before, so i dont see this being too much of a hassle. im going to try to make my first one out of mahogany or walnut, a softer wood that should work fairly easy.

I vote for headshell, and I would then put it up on ebay with gorgeous looking pictures.
It looks to me like headshells are the most sought after, along with the wicker cane grill.

God luck.

Just say when , because right now my undressed makr IIc+ despredly needs a new amp shell.

thanks

I'd be very interested in your pricing. I have a Mark IV medium head and a heartbreaker head. I would love them both done.
so, what's the process?

I have to say, that if you are planning on building headshells and combo cabs out of premium hardwood with dovetail joints, wicker grills, reverb tank cutouts and selling them for $200 you are going to make a killing. I was planning on selling a few on here and e-bay to make some xmas $$$, but I couldn't do a headshell out of premium hardwood for less than $300. Good luck to you, I look forward to seeing your work.

wow id be interested in a head shell for my mark III

very nice work !

I have a meeting with my master-woodworker/furnituremaker/cabinet maker mentor on monday, hes going to help provide me with a plan of action. I don't know if i am going to do dovetail joints or not, they aren't structurally the best thing to do, and god knows they aren't the most efficient things to make. There is a 4/4 board of sapele at the lumber yard, its very very figured, but it got mixed in with the standard stuff so its normal price. About 14'' wide, and 14' long, its beautiful, and about 5 dollars a board foot. the whole board will cost me 40-50 dollars, i could get 2-3 cabinets/shells out of it. First thing im going to do is make a 112 speaker cabinet with a mostly open back, then a shell for my mark III. If all goes well and as easy as i think this will be i will start pricing these out. The tools in this guys shop are absolutely incredible (planer and jointer are all $5,000+ with the helicle blades, etc). He is a real master artisan and i thank god he supports and teaches me.

guitarzan1143 said:

So i keep seeing these beautiful Mark II and III combos made out of hardwood. Ive been building guitars (luthier for 3 years) and furniture for a while, this should be no problem. It literally costs about 20 dollars in lumber, i have all sorts of amazing looking hardwoods that would be perfect. I have a mark III combo i can copy. If my mission is succesful, would anyone be interested in one?

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If you don't mind shipping to Europe (Italy), I would.
Just don't ask me to send you my amp (MkIV small combo): that'd cost more than the enclosure itself

I would be interested. How much for a MkIII combo?

Alright, anyone interested send me a PM with what you want and where you live, it turns out with the current setup at the furniture shop i can turn these guys out in only 2-3 days of working a few hours. I am picking up some figured sapele tomorrow to do my test run with!

guitarzan1143 said:

I have a meeting with my master-woodworker/furnituremaker/cabinet maker mentor on monday, hes going to help provide me with a plan of action. I don't know if i am going to do dovetail joints or not, they aren't structurally the best thing to do, and god knows they aren't the most efficient things to make. There is a 4/4 board of sapele at the lumber yard, its very very figured, but it got mixed in with the standard stuff so its normal price. About 14'' wide, and 14' long, its beautiful, and about 5 dollars a board foot. the whole board will cost me 40-50 dollars, i could get 2-3 cabinets/shells out of it. First thing im going to do is make a 112 speaker cabinet with a mostly open back, then a shell for my mark III. If all goes well and as easy as i think this will be i will start pricing these out. The tools in this guys shop are absolutely incredible (planer and jointer are all $5,000+ with the helicle blades, etc). He is a real master artisan and i thank god he supports and teaches me.

Click to expand...

What kind of joint do you intend on making? As far as dovetail joints go, there is NO better joint in woodworking for both aesthetics and strength, at least that I have seen in my 40 years of working with wood, that's why Mesa uses them.

Except for those leaves-inlay, that first guitar is a real beauty!

deftone82 said:

Except for those leaves-inlay, that first guitar is a real beauty!

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You're a class act :roll:

Me interested! Sometime in the near future (wife's pestering) we're gonna get hardwood floors. It would be totally awesome if we could specify the hardwood color that you could build a head-shell in. A head, cab and floor to match. LOL.

I have decided to use dovetails as i have set up a flawless jig. They will not be through-dovetails. The material cost for cherry/walnut is about 35 dollars for wood/wicker. I need to find something to use as shielding like mesa puts in the tops of their combos, also a way to cut the route for the reverb tanks. Also it would be nice to see a grill cover with wicker removed so i can see how they did the wrap job and also so i can see the "baffle" on the head units and combos, if anyone could dig those up it would be greatly appreciated. ebay is usually a good place to look, but there are none on there of head units, right now anyways.

Here's a Thiele cab:
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=37620

Here's a Mark IV head cab I no longer have.
It's the same size as all narrow ("short head") 17" chassis head cabs.




Hope this helps

Hey Guitarzan,
I am anxiously watching your progress and already sent you a PM on the two heads i would want. I love that you are keeping us posted as you design and build. This is a great thread and a great project, which you seem to be really enjoying.

Just a note regarding the Mark IV head- there is a cutout where the plug for the footpedal sticks through the "bottom" of the cabinet. the mark IV heads have two rails in the back and some locking pins on the pedal that latch onto the back of the cabinet. Of course, if you have a Mk IV, you know what I am talking about. If you don't though, your design is going to have to allows for the mounting of the connector "rack" in the headshells you build. And, you will need to route out the bottom to accomodate the connector plug that sticks out of the footpedal.

I am guessing you are going to need folks to send you their existing headshells when you start building, until you have templates made for all the various sizes and configurations. Heck, the MkIV has short, med, and long heads all by itself.

Thanks for doing this and keep up the good work!
Brent

Yeah right now im focusing on the mark III. i want to conquer these one at a time, but if i were to do something i havent before i would need the original headshells, and all hardware out of the original shell will be placed in the new one. if you want to put it back in the original, youd have to put it back, or order the new stuff from mesa. so is that little duct the big secret behind the theile cabs and why they are 3-4 hundred dollars? as well as the speaker obviously. i can copy that porting if someone helps me with the dimensions. its just a box after all.