Rebuilding Marshall 4X12

[JMP73]

My first post here so please be gentle.....

I decided to renew my old 80's Marshall Quad, I'm going with the 70's check cloth, as far as recovering should I go with straight tolex or tolex + pipping?

I've pulled the G12m-70 out, I'm thinking of either Greenbacks or WGS Reaper 55hz.

The amp/s being run run through this would be Marshall 50w reissue, a 73 JMP 50w or a Metro 50.

Thanks for your answers in advace.

Cheers
Dean

[johniss0001]

Hey there welcome to the club. Hmmmm you need piping anyway to go round the speaker board after you put your check cloth on. What era of 70's cabinet are you going for there was the levant era which is from the 60's to early 70's then you have the elephant tolex era from say 74 to present

[Wattever]

AFAIK the main advantage with using the piping (assuming you mean the strips at the top and bottom of the cab and not the stuff around the speaker baffle) is that you don't have to buy as much Tolex. Without the piping, you have to have one continuous length to wrap all the way around the cab, plus enough for the back. The piping lets you use shorter strips.

If you're doing two cabs, it doesn't make as much difference.

[chrisom]

Which brings up the question- What if you have a JCM-era cab but want the vintage-style grooves and gold piping? Is it advisable to try and cut the grooves yourself for it into your cab before installing levant to replace the elephant skin? How deep and wide should the grooves be and where should they be located? What tools are involved in this? Thanks- co

[johniss0001]

it was a 3mm blade used in uk size and the route didn't go all the way through the blade also appears to go 3mm deep

[Wattever]

Thanks to Tazin, there should be a complete set of drawings for 1960 cabs for download at the link below.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4U2XBHTD" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They show the size and location of the grooves.

The grooves have to be there before the tolex goes on because the tolex has to be long enough to go down into the sides of the channels.

On an already built cab, you'd probably have to use a router with an appropriate sized bit, and a guide of some sort. I think most builders carefully freehand around the curved areas, but it should be possible with a router too if you put a bit of time into making a guide that wraps around the front and back edges of the cabinet. I suppose it COULD be done on a table saw with a blade of the right width, and a fence, but it would be tricky to do on a finished cab.

No sense having a nice looking cab if you can't count to 10 any more.

[johniss0001]

i spoke to jeff lewis at matamp he told me that the stringing was cut in with a table saw

[JMP73]

Thanks for the responses so far, I'm thinking levant era at this stage. Goes well with the 73 head.

You're right Wattever, I'm refering to the piping around the top and bottom of the cab (not the baffle board). The grooves I'll have to have routed.

I'm undecided on corner protectors, very practical, but if memory serves me right they were post 74?

I should probably add the guitars used are pretty much always Strats (all single coils) or PRS CE 24s if that helps with speaker choice.

[bill bokey]

I have a very interesting mix of Fane and bass cone G12M (T1511) in one of my 1960s and I find that suits my (fairly bright) strats perfectly.
But the speakers I really want to give a try are Tayden :
http://www.taydenspeakers.co.uk/
audio samples : http://jpfamps.com/jpf-guitar-amp-produ ... n-speakers

I don't know if you've ever heard of them but an amp builder friend of mine keeps raving about them. That's all he uses in his cabinets. He claims they sound like old Celestions did when they were new.

[johniss0001]

not being funny cause of the way that cab is made i can't recommend corner protectors enough the early cabs had a smaller radius of rounded corners but corner protectors are part of the integrity strength on your jcm800 cabinet i have had to repair cabinets even with corner protectors that still got damaged but if they didn't have corner protectors it would have been a lot worse.

also i recommend metal handles as the plastic ones are absolutely dreadful they snap