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(Stupid) question about rat fur maintenance

#42
Aidenn7 said:
heat gun to remove.. lint roller too get crap off the carpet.. beard trimer may work with a guard on, but that's risky..
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A heat gun is the quickest way I know of to damage rat fur, it melts off the loft unbelievably quickly.
 
#43
Inconnu said:
Hi there! I’m looking at used amps and a turn off if rat fur style tolex that look like a wool shirt that went in the dryer too many times.

Any idea if it’s possible to restore that type of finish?
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I hear this one out loud, haha. My Hartke has both a rat fur cover and a hessian grill cloth. Like a big burlap sack. Haha. A disposable razor and ten minutes of your time is all it takes usually. Still a huge pain in the butt..
 
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#44
agedhorse said:
That would be the heavy backed Ozite, try a BIC disposable shaver and lightly clean it up. Also, a medium stiff horse grooming brush works wonders.

Your cabinet has to be 20+ years (maybe even 30 years) old by now.
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Well like I said it needs a touch up, it's not as horrible looking as your typical used Hartke Transporter you see down at GC LOL.

I bought it used from a guy who bought it used, so I have no idea of how many owners it went through before him.

Thankfully he never used it much, maybe a few gigs before joining our band and about 10 with our band. He had to drop out of our band because his wife kept nagging him (he had two young children) about going to practice once a week LOL.

Kind of a blessing really because he was just not up to the level of the rest of the band, adding him was the keyboard player's idea (and I told him it was a bad idea), which he later realized was a bad idea. He struggled with the complexity of the material, would come to practice and not know the parts, that kinda stuff.

Going back to the cab it was a good thing he didn't gig much with it because he was one of those guys who would absolutely trash anything he owned.

In the time I knew him, he went through about 8 used cars, some of them fairly nice when he got them. Within six months of him getting a car the inside would look like a crime scene and the outside would look like it was used in the filming of a Mad Max movie LOL.

I met him when I was working at a recording studio through a guitar player who would work on songs there with me and the drummer who owned the studio (when it was not booked we would write and record songs there).

He kind of attached himself to me when he found out I had a home studio, came over to record his originals there. He was ok, had some small level of talent but not a professional in terms of work ethic and commitment.

He came by to see me because his parents lived up the road (he had moved about 45 miles away).

Anyway he was one of those "friends who only call or come by when they need something from you"; the last time I saw him was about 5 years ago.

Weird dude, he was like 8 years younger than me but did not own a computer or even a smart phone. Technically not with any modern times which was weird because he was Gen-X.

Anyway because he never kept track of things, he didn't have any way to contact me other than my work phone and my home phone. Well I stopped working and then ditched the land line so I did not hear from him again before I moved. Since he never stayed in touch or put contacts into his phone or updated anything he has no way of getting in touch with me.

I mean I don't hate the guy, or actively dislike him really, if he called me I would have a beer, hang out with him or whatever but he was one of those people who was a "user" so I don't really miss him.

Paid him $100 for the cabinet which he was glad to get.

Analogeezer
 
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#47
Inconnu said:
Hi there! I’m looking at used amps and a turn off if rat fur style tolex that look like a wool shirt that went in the dryer too many times.

Any idea if it’s possible to restore that type of finish?
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No joke...

Butane lighter.jpg


I used a butane lighter to "refresh" a pair of old SWR cabs. I used a lint roller to get most of the pet hair off, & then carefully ran the lighter over all the fur. If you point the lighter at a 90 degree angle & take your time, it cleans up quite well. The only weird part is that the fur isn't very soft when you are done!
 
#52
I reconditioned a SWR Bigfoot (2x12) cab a few years ago. I did the tear it off, sand it down and then sprayed a couple of cans of bed liner on it. It came out great and I don’t remember it being THAT bad to do…of course I’m old and my memory could be selective enough that I only remember the positive outcome. I still have the cab, but it is out of service w/o any drivers in it any more.
 
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#56
agedhorse said:
The cost of real brand name, commercial grade lightly backed Ozite is in many cases more expensive then the common grades of vinyl, and it's a lot harder to install well than it looks.

The same argument was used with vinyls, there are the heavy grades of commercial brand name materials such as Tolex that were developed originally for use in the auto industry for landau tops and upholstery and they were very rugged but costly and difficult to install. Later many in the industry evolved to thinner, cheaper no-name generic vinyls that were easier to install.

Incidentally exactly the same thing exists in the coated cabinet world, there are the real 2 part catalyzed finishes that are incredibly durable but really expensive, difficult and costly to apply, and there are 1 part water based latex type paints with hardeners and epoxy solids incorporated. These are much cheaper, easier to apply and work ok for lighter duty applications but do not hold up well under real touring conditions IME. The 2 part finishes typically run from 2X to 4X the cost of the water based coatings.
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you get what you pay for, ime.
 
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#57
MIMike said:
I reconditioned a SWR Bigfoot (2x12) cab a few years ago. I did the tear it off, sand it down and then sprayed a couple of cans of bed liner on it. It came out great and I don’t remember it being THAT bad to do…of course I’m old and my memory could be selective enough that I only remember the positive outcome. I still have the cab, but it is out of service w/o any drivers in it any more.
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You have given me an idea for my hessian Hartke 4x10. Remove the rat fur, lacquer it up and that cab would look the business with the burlap sack grille cloth.
 

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