My tolex project

I decided to recover my cab and amp for a few reasons. My cab is just beat up from years of abuse with torn tolex, and gouges everywhere. Also I have never liked the feel or look of the vinyl used on the old mesa vertical 2x12. I also have had this weird desire to have my cab and head match for years, even if my head does hang off of the cab a little each end. I choose to order Wine Taurus tolex. This is my first attempt at covering an amp so be kind.

So here is the old cab, a vertical Mesa 2x12 half closed/half open back with a black shadow celestion on top, and an EV-12L on bottom. I should have taken a side shot so you could see the gouges all over one side.



Then I removed the old vinyl. I definitely recommend the use of a heat gun and take your time. It removed most of the glue with the vinyl saving me a lot of work. You can see at the corners of the box and the front face where it left glue, but almost all the big flat pieces were nice and glue free due to the use of heat.




Then I used a bunch of wood putty to fill all the gouges dents, and old screw holes. After it dried i sanded the excess off, and smoothly sanded the whole cab.




I had too much glue mess going on while applying the tolex, plus got called away from the project in the middle of applying the vinyl for a few hours, and subsequently I forgot to take any pictures of that part. There are lots of great tutorials online for that part though.

I plan on making a new grill instead of the old metal 80's one next week, and since I know I want mesa gold grill cloth (I think this is actually black and tan jute), I decided to make brown leather corners for the boxes to really complete the look I'm going for. I happened to have a bunch of leather scraps laying around that were perfect for this, so I pried one of the leather corners of my Tremoverb, copied it, and made myself enough corners for the cab and head. I then hammered them in with some nice brass nails.

Here is the completed cab. I had to reassemble it since I have a gig next week. After that I will do the same to the old Tremoverb box, and build the new grille.
These first three images really capture the color as it looks to me in person.

Looks good. I have a head that matches that cab perfect and it's a killer look.

Thank you. I'm quite excited to have finally done this.

NIIICE! I just recently had a guy tolex my homebrew 2 x 12. Nothing like a new 'coat of paint' to keep the gear looking pretty.

I'm sure one of these days, I'll have to get my Recto re-tolexed!

what kind of amp is that, brosef?

ChrisRocksUSA said:

what kind of amp is that, brosef?

Click to expand...

Looks like a TOV to me.

Great job on the Tolex!

Dom

Yup. Tremoverb. Just Stripped the tolex off the head tonight. I'm gonna try and sand and cover it tomorrow, that way all I'll have left is the grill.

So since I had time and the weather sucks here today I finished the tolex on the Tremoverb head. The glue they used on the head was much harder to peel off, but the left over glue sanded much easier than the glue used on the cab. I also made a custom handle out of the same exact leather I used for the corners, and got some brass footman loops and screws to match the nails. In a couple weeks I'll change out the grilles.

Here it is

Nice!

Yea! I got a 4x12 cab covered in Wine Taurus. Wish I could get my Mark V head covered in the same. Did Mesa sell you the tolex covering and corners? Didn't think they sold that stuff.

I got the wine taurus from here: http://www.tubesandmore.com/
and I made the corners. I had some brown leather I liked, I just copied the shape of the old tremoverb corners after i peeled them off. I soaked them in water for an hour than hammered one corner in place, then stretched and fit the others two edges. Two days later after the leather has dried, there is almost no gaps and they have conformed to the shape of the corners. I might wet them down once more to really take care of the couple with a minor gap still.

Awesome job, that looks killer! :mrgreen:

Wine Taurus tolex with a gold grille is one of my favorite looks, but I've got to say the black is looking really cool!