Remember when "rat fur" cabinets were the latest thing?

[JimmyM]

I don't have anything to really back this up, but I think when Jeff Genzler and I were working together, we were the first to come up with the "bed liner" stuff on cabinets. Our product was heavily "rat furred" up until that time. We actually tried to think through actually applying bed liner spray. Jeff later sourced out a covering that approximated that material. It first went on our Uber cabs.

Sounds about right, eh? I had seen a couple folks use it on worn out fridges but nobody was doing it stock. Ok Roger, I'll vouch for you

 

[bobalu]

I still remember the first one I saw, I had a bass player friend who always bought the latest stuff and I go to their practice place to hang out and he had a new Hartke 4 x 10", this was probably 1985?

Anyway he was showing me the cab and I noticed the carpet covering; he said "yeah this stuff is great, it won't get all scarred up like tolex"

As I recall this was the promise of rat fur back then, no big scabs of tolex coming off you didn't need covers because well the things were carpet covered so indestructible right?

Boy did we ever get sucked in by that promise didn't we? LOL

Other than some super cheap stuff (maybe Seismic stuff?) can you even buy a rat fur covered cabinet anymore?

Sadly the promise of durability was a bit of a joke, and it turned out that good old tolex actually wore a lot better.


Analogeezer

I remember clearly that (for me) the major problem was how it acted like a sponge for odour and spilled liquids! Back then, bars were smoke filled! My cabs absolutely reeked of stale cigarette smoke and spilt beer. So much so that my cabs were banished from the house and had to be stored in the garage, where they absorbed more gasoline and oil smells. Boy, I sure don't miss that rat fur stuff.

 

[JazznFunk]

Eden 410xlt and Aguilar GS412

2 of the best cabs of all time, completely covered in fur.

Sounds like the bigger issue here is that you all have cats. Your mistake, not the cabinet's. I find it hard to reconcile complaints of eventual smells coming off speaker cabinets with people who live with litter boxes in their homes.

Cats are not the issue, or a 'mistake'. Litterboxes don't have to stink if you clean them often enough.... as in twice daily.... and change the litter. Cats only pee or crap outside their boxes if there's a problem - health or otherwise. I see a lot of 'complaints' lodged about cats that are actually of the owners' own making.

All of my cabinets are covered in 'rat fur' and only on a handful of occasions did my cats scratch on them.... because I gave them 2 of their own scratching posts in different ends of the house.

 

[hasbeen]

Sounds about right, eh? I had seen a couple folks use it on worn out fridges but nobody was doing it stock. Ok Roger, I'll vouch for you

thanks for having my back my friend.

 

[Ffreddy]

My Berg NV610 has the fur. It's the best material I've ever had on a cab -- tough as nails. No rips or tears after multiple years and hundreds of gigs. I can't say that about any tolex-covered cab that I've ever owned. Perhaps those that don't like it have only experienced poor quality rat fur?

I see many of those early berg cabs around and have yet to see one with distressed fur. I think at this point its safe to call the stuff on berg cabs something else.

Anyone remember the short lived tolex MESA cabs used in the early 00's?
it was like 'bubbly' looking and had a strange puffyness to it-

well I bought a brand new 400+ and powerhouse 6x10 to use with it and hit the road.

about halfway through the tour that tolex was utterly destroyed
and it looked like the barewood ampeg 8x10 it replaced
I returned it and never saw another mesa cab covered with that stuff again!
anyone else remember ther weird 'elephant skin' looking mesa tolex that happened around then?
If I recall it was right when the cabs got the grey metal grills after always having the black cube grills.
That stuff was terrible!

 

[mizedog]

I actually like the stuff, when it's clean. I have old cabs. Eden 4x10, SWR Monitor 12, generic 12" cab. The colors don't match.
However, when I was gigging regularly back in there 90s, I ran a tall Genz Benz stack. After a ten hour day job, driving two hours in LA traffic to a gig, I was tried during the last sets. That carpet made a great pseudo pillow when playing Bad Company. My drummer used to get mad that I could sleep while playing and would throw sticks at me.
I may build my own cabs, and will probably use bed liner.
You watch, what comes around, goes around. I bet carpet well come back someday.

 

[Michedelic]

Rat fur is cool but why stop there? How about camel hair, valuer, corduroy, chinchilla, cow hide, acid washed denim and so on. The possibilities are endless. Wish the amp makers had a little more imagination.

Any of you DIY types, check in with these guys…no connection, just a customer for years, primarily roadcase foam for refurbishing(but they ship)…
Vinyl Archives - Foam Mart

 

[Rob Edmunds]

Rat fur is cool but why stop there? How about camel hair, valuer, corduroy, chinchilla, cow hide, acid washed denim and so on. The possibilities are endless. Wish the amp makers had a little more imagination.

Did sound for the Ventures once back in the 70's and the lead guitarist's amp was covered in snakeskin!

 

[chadds]

Ever see a fridge or even a Showman with no tolex on the side? Just bare wood? Tolex holds up better?
I have decades old rat fur that looks brand new and it's been gigged. That tolex didn't last 3 years.
Yeah clean your gear. Sit your cab on beer soaked carpet and in a cig filled room and expect what? LOL Your lungs look worse than your cab but they are self cleaning. Sort of.
I like the look of classic gear but it wasn't robust.
Plus there were different grades of rat fur.
What becomes commercially available doesn't denote superiority or evolution.
Bed liner is okay until you hit the cab on a corner and transfer some paint.
Play any house concerts? Do the above and don't get asked back. Nice cordura cover on a ratfur cab? Perfect.
Which brings up shock absorption. Protecting your gear in another way.
Nesting corners or chrome? Ever get hurt on a loosely swinging chrome corner on an SVT cab?

Meanwhile I remember when "black" tolex was the new thing.

 

[BOOG]

I have/had carpet covered cabs and actually like them. Probably because I don't have cats.

First, there were the Eden cabs and recently, a new set of DNA cabs.

 

[JimmyM]

Ever see a fridge or even a Showman with no tolex on the side? Just bare wood? Tolex holds up better?
I have decades old rat fur that looks brand new and it's been gigged. That tolex didn't last 3 years.
Yeah clean your gear. Sit your cab on beer soaked carpet and in a cig filled room and expect what? LOL Your lungs look worse than your cab but they are self cleaning. Sort of.
I like the look of classic gear but it wasn't robust.
Plus there were different grades of rat fur.
What becomes commercially available doesn't denote superiority or evolution.
Bed liner is okay until you hit the cab on a corner and transfer some paint.
Play any house concerts? Do the above and don't get asked back. Nice cordura cover on a ratfur cab? Perfect.
Which brings up shock absorption. Protecting your gear in another way.
Nesting corners or chrome? Ever get hurt on a loosely swinging chrome corner on an SVT cab?

Meanwhile I remember when "black" tolex was the new thing.

I'm a tolex type through and through, but you're right that it can get scuffed and badly torn if you don't take care of it and use covers when toting it. But I will agree with you about rat fur...read on

I know this will make @hasbeen smile...I've owned a handful of rat-fur covered gear, and it does hold up exceedingly well under less than ideal conditions. One of those pieces is an old Tube Works 410T I bought off Dave LaRue that I believe was made under Jeff G's, Roger's, and Andy's auspices (Tube Works morphed into Genz Benz at some point).

It's covered in gray rat fur, and not only did Dave use the heck out of it the first few years he joined up with Steve Morse, but I toted it for another 10 years in a trailer to gigs, and all that's happened to it is the grill has some scratching and it lost the name plate, and the rat fur has a couple minor tears. Plus they had the good sense to use a grayish color that didn't show the dirt like black.

 

[Ostie]

I remember clearly that (for me) the major problem was how it acted like a sponge for odour and spilled liquids! Back then, bars were smoke filled! My cabs absolutely reeked of stale cigarette smoke and spilt beer. So much so that my cabs were banished from the house and had to be stored in the garage, where they absorbed more gasoline and oil smells. Boy, I sure don't miss that rat fur stuff.

I still have a couple rat fur cabs. I don't use them much anymore. I used to leave them out in the sunshine and then spray them down with Febreze.

I have two cats and they have never shown any interest in my rat fur cabs. Neither would potential buyers, I presume….

 

[MultiScaleMale]

I don't have anything to really back this up, but I think when Jeff Genzler and I were working together, we were the first to come up with the "bed liner" stuff on cabinets. Our product was heavily "rat furred" up until that time. We actually tried to think through actually applying bed liner spray. Jeff later sourced out a covering that approximated that material. It first went on our Uber cabs.

Dr Bass "claims" to be the first in 2003, but there are still a bunch of customers that were claimed to be delivered cabs, still waiting.

 

[Milo Spleen]

Plus they had the good sense to use a grayish color that didn't show the dirt like black.

I have played a number of outdoor gigs and the pine needles stick to this like crazy, so this may not be the gray that you refer to.

 

[JimB52]

Had a few cabs covered in rat fur that held up well in gigging, but I try to take care of my gear and own no cats. Still have the amped portacabs.

 

[DwaynieAD]

so what has replaced rat fur now? the spray on bed liner stuff? what's "current"?

Good luck getting ahold of line x right now tho

 

[frankie5string]

I see many of those early berg cabs around and have yet to see one with distressed fur. I think at this point its safe to call the stuff on berg cabs something else.

Yeah... I know what to call it: "Gigged less..." I've seen Berg cabs that had just as much damage to their rat-fur exterior as did older Hartke XLs. The difference there is that I also know a lot of Berg owners who just don't take their gear out and gig with it. There are a lot of non-gigging "bass lovers" who own Berg rigs - those tend to be the ones that are in immaculate condition.

 

[frankie5string]

Dr Bass "claims" to be the first in 2003, but there are still a bunch of customers that were claimed to be delivered cabs, still waiting.

I can't believe that. I have an EA CXL-112 that's older than 2003 and EA was using bed liner spray coatings on some of their cabs at the time. Not all of them got it, but the 112 did and most of their combos did, too. By 2003, EA was already on to the L version of that cabinet. It's a really prickly coating, too, it will easily take paint off of walls if you accidentally bump into one with it, and it will scrape your leg pretty bad if you're not careful.

 

[hasbeen]

Dr Bass "claims" to be the first in 2003, but there are still a bunch of customers that were claimed to be delivered cabs, still waiting.

Yeah....if he was doing it in 2003, then he beat us by maybe five years. Plus, I just visited his site and I saw he used actual, spray-on bedliner.

 

[MHensleyJr]

I had an ex-bandmate who was a smoker and used to put his cigarettes out on his rat fur covered cabs

Needless to say, they always smelled great and looked amazing...