Balance restored!

[sonicblue62]

Some of you may recall this thread I posted two years ago about my son's wanton destruction of my Ampeg rig:
Anger management and rig repair

I finally got around to fixing it, and am pretty happy with the results! The Fender-ish grill cloth on the V4 and matching Low Down Sound 1x15 cab turned out to be a winner. I fixed the speaker using the tissue-paper-watered-down-elmer's-glue method that someone suggested in the thread above. That was the easy part of the repair, so I was able to test it several times over the last year before finally getting to the grill cloth this last week. The speaker repair is holding just fine and the cab sounds great.

My son is older and wiser. I think the two years that I took to get it all fixed gave him some pause to consider the consequences of his actions. He is much less destructive now, and is actually taking an interest in playing the bass.

 

[Marko 1]

Looks fantastic!

 

[byacey]

Perhaps the only thing you might have done different is to have your son directly involved in making the repairs. That's what my dad did with me, and I with my own kids.

It teaches them consequences, some life skills, and moral obligations.

 

[DWBass]

Curious.....why/how did your 8 year old son have a knife in his possession?

 

[Raf Seibert]

When I was 8, I had a pocket knife, nearly every boy did in those halcyon days of yore. What would have happened had I done anything like that is a different story. We, all of us, knew there would be consequences for bad behavior.

 

[byacey]

Some kids just have a propensity towards things like that.
A good friend of mine told me how he bored holes in the couch in their basement with a brace and bit when he was around 5 years old. It wasn't good when his dad got home from work...

 

[beans-on-toast]

 

[Spidey2112]

View attachment 4877315

Bwawaahaha!

 

[Grinderman]

My son is older and wiser. I think the two years that I took to get it all fixed gave him some pause to consider the consequences of his actions. He is much less destructive now, and is actually taking an interest in playing the bass.

Don't let em find this lest he get ideas.

 

[steveinohio]

Outstanding! The story will by far outweigh any monetary or emotional heartache you may have incurred. That's how I would feel if it happened to me.


I also hope it doesn't!

 

[MVE]

Can you post pics of the speaker repair? How did it come out?

Curious.....why/how did your 8 year old son have a knife in his possession?

I was already building balsa model planes when I was 6-7… admittedly, they didn't fly very well. But 8 is plenty old enough to understand how to use knives and scissors.
The OP's situation supports this in light of the fact, I assume, he didn't hurt himself with the knife. lol.

 

[Avezzano]

Well... things happen. My older son is 40, currently; when he was two or three, one afternoon we went to a friend's hi-fi shop. While we adults and wise guys were chatting, I realized at a certain point that I was NOT hearing any sound anymore from the little dynomite... we went to the stereo demonstration room, where the speakers were at his level and we discovered that my son pushed inside ALL the visible dome dust protectors!!! I asked my friend (that was standing frozen, jawdropped) a needle and some scotch tape: little by little I was able to resurrect all the domes... how can you NOT love your kids...

 

[arbiterusa]

Curious.....why/how did your 8 year old son have a knife in his possession?

Really? I had a pocketknife from about age six or so. Stlll carry one all the time 50 years later. It's great for opening the shipping boxes of the basses I shouldn't have ordered in the first place.

The thing I did some damage with - not to anything valuable, fortunately - was my first soldering iron. This is also, by sheer coincidence, when I found out just how bad a burn can hurt.

 

[sonicblue62]

Can you post pics of the speaker repair? How did it come out?

Here's one. I think I used a kids' watercolor paintbrush to apply the glue, followed by a layer of tissue paper, then more glue, etc. Not super pretty, but it's covered by the grill, and sounds as good as new.