One Drop, please do, especially if there are detailed pics. A scan of that would be most appreciated.
Hoss, the tech I took it to suggested putting 6550's in it, too. I told him that are 100,000 SVT's on the market with 6550's and a dwindling few with 6146B's. A lot of these early SVT's have been changed over, and not too many haven't. So that was never on the table for discussion. And I would hope that if you ever run across one of these that you do change it out to 6550's, because that will help the price on mine go up! But we do agree on the Iron Butterfly stencil.
I wish I'd have thought to bring my camera to the speaker repair shop. It's
Link Removed, and my pal Doc (the most brilliant guitarist/bassist/violinist/steel guitarist/vocalist you've ever heard in your life) works there. They also did the recones in the early 90's and did a great job so that's who I take all my recones to. He pulled out an SVT cone to show me what it looks like new, and it's a pretty deep shade of blue. My recones had significantly faded to light blue in 17 years, and he told me that the originals probably started out that exact color and faded to the light gray they are now. Then he tried to talk me out of reconing the newer cones because they were still good. He said if I was just going to keep it and play out with it for a while that I should just recone the 4 originals, but if I was selling it, I should do all of them.
I thought about it, then thought if I keep it for a few years before I sell it, then the new cones will have faded and I'll have to get all new cones to sell it yet again, so this way I just pay for 8 recones and not 12 altogether, plus they'll fade at equal color levels so color matching won't be an issue. He thought I was being stupid. I was actually being pretty smart. Well, if I was smart, I'd have paid to get all 8 speakers reconed back in the 90's at the same time and it would have been $35 a speaker instead of the $81 I'm getting hit with now. But I've learned from that mistake, and that's what counts, right? I'll forget the money I spent in a year. But I won't have cherry looking matching cones and that will always eat at me.
So with the new tubes and the head and speakers in the shop, the technical side of the restoration is humming right along. And next on the big wheel o' fun is lots and lots of sanding! I don't have a belt sander but I do have an electric sander, so maybe that'll help take the edge off sanding a little. I've decided to do the re-tolexing myself. I did a pretty decent job on it before without knowing the first thing about it. And it's about the only thing in this restoration process that I'm capable of doing myself (gotta do something yourself, right?).
Here's a shot of all the speaker baskets, plus a shot of one close-up. I have no idea what the numbers mean, but I see a 69, so that has to mean 1969, I'm sure. Check out the bottom of the cab, it's the only paper label left on it. Couldn't find a tube chart or a serial number label on the head, but the cab still has it by some miracle.
And please let me beg once again for detailed pics of original tolex jobs on straight-back cabs and dollies. I've found a couple but they're never detailed enough to see what's doing, or the head's in the way or they don't photograph the bottom. Email them to
[email protected]. Thanks again for all your help, folks! I'm not cutting you in when I sell it, but thanks just the same
, if they don't like what they read why don't they just go to another thread, very easy, that's what I do. Psycho's blunt and has no patience for fools, (I found out the hard way) but he is very often correct.
