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SWR 2x10 Retolex Project COMPLETE

Spinal Tapper

Spinal Tapper

Nov 15, 2007
6,797
348
Chicago
soundcloud.com
#1
It started like this (stock photo)
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Got it to this point - no turning back now...stripping that rat fur was a PITA
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And all finished up - before I finished screwing the handles on
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#2
Big improvement! Nice job. You could take a heat gun to those spots in the tolex and grill where it looks like it was folded and straighten them out. Do it lightly, though. One second is long enough to burn a hole with a heat gun. You could also do it with a hair dryer if you get one that kicks out some heat. Might even be preferable if you're unsure about a heat gun.
 
#4
Staples? Oh yeah, staples. Boy, I have no eye for detail.

Ya, rubber cement is probably what most people use to attach tolex. Put a light coat of it on the back of the tolex, a light coat of it on the cab, and wait 5 minutes till it's tacky then put them together. Or live with the staples. It still looks pretty good, even with them.
 
#5
I just use regular bison kit transparent contact adhesive and a little bottle with 1 second glue with a pipet (?) for correcting all edges that were loose afterwards.

Nice job though, I hate the whole steelgrill/ratfur/paintjob look that most manufacturers seem to prefer these days.
 
#6
Pretty sure that contact cement is the preferred adhesive although it's hard to do a pro job since you can't reposition the material once it is attached.

How do the pros hide the seams?

I could see doing the top, sides, and bottom with 1 piece with a wrapped edge for the front and an overlap at the bottom, but what about the back?
Have no tolex cabs here to look at.
 
#8
I covered an old box with grey carpet and contact cement. What you have to do on the back is make sure that you have enough material overlapping the sides to be able to fold the material over and cover the full back like you want it to look. Kind of like you are wrapping a present. Than you cut the folds in the overlapping so everything will lay down flat but still overlap.Than you cut on an angle from each corner thru the overlapping material, pull out what is cut off and glue down. Roll everything flat with a wallpaper roller. The corner brackets will cover any mistake in the corners. On mine, the jack plug was in the middle of the back, so I angled everything to meet there. It gave me extra reinforcement when the plate was screwed back in. On the bottom, you just splice the material in the middle and glue it down. All that being said, spinal tapper did a good job.
 
#9
Jim C said:
Pretty sure that contact cement is the preferred adhesive although it's hard to do a pro job since you can't reposition the material once it is attached.

How do the pros hide the seams?

I could see doing the top, sides, and bottom with 1 piece with a wrapped edge for the front and an overlap at the bottom, but what about the back?
Have no tolex cabs here to look at.
Click to expand...

The back made it more difficult. It's basically two giant pieces, one top to bottom and the other sides and back. I really had no choice but to throw the staples on it - I know it doesn't look quite perfect, but I'm a very active musician and this cab gets gigged with a lot. Besides, I looked at my friends original 63 blonde bassman head and cab and guess what was running down the seams - staples. Function over form I suppose but I'm happy with it.
 
#10
btw, I HAVE to thank my girlfriend who helped me out with almost all of this whole project. She's a wiz when it came to imagining what the corners would have to look like folded and trimmed - and she's great at wrapping presents, so without her it would've looked A LOT worse.

I'm pretty stoked to see what my band will say - and I'm excited to see how it'll look stacked up on my Orange 1x15.
 
#11
Jim C said:
Pretty sure that contact cement is the preferred adhesive although it's hard to do a pro job since you can't reposition the material once it is attached.

How do the pros hide the seams?

I could see doing the top, sides, and bottom with 1 piece with a wrapped edge for the front and an overlap at the bottom, but what about the back?
Have no tolex cabs here to look at.
Click to expand...

When you wrap the tolex around the corner (no glue yet) they'll overlap, then you take your straightedge and your razor and make one cut through both pieces. Then when you remove the excess the seam will line up cleanly. Works the same with any type of covering.

Shouldn't need the staples if you've got a clean seem and decent glue but hey....can't see 'em from my house.

I'll usually wrap the whole thing and put any seems on the bottom and back, more out of sight. Unless you're working with an odd remnant of covering or an odd shaped cab like a monitor wedge or something.
 
#13
I actually used 3M 90 adhesive spray. The strongest stuff they manufacture I think. It's crazy strong and worked great for the sides and back.

Then, I just added staples along the edges for extra support - this cab will be gigged heavy, so on top of my staples, I'll probably have some nice scuffs, marks, dings, and of course rips. I can't wait to see what this looks like after a year, haha. :)
 
#16
scuz said:
That's an awesome job, ST! I never really liked the shiny SWR grills and what you've done is a massive improvement. How did you go about removing the rat fur?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliment! I'm happy with it - this was my very first time doing ANYTHING like this. I'm not at all a carpenter, or reupholster type of person in any way, just a bassist who got tired of using an ugly cab.

Dude the Rat Fur was a BEAR to remove. Probably the only thing keeping me from ever doing this project again. Anytime soon at least...

Basically, I just started by pulling the carpet off around the loose parts with my hands - just pure brute strength - I noticed if I pulled slow (and really really hard) the stuff wouldn't break, and a few of the sides I got to come off in large pieces.

Then there was all this leftover fuzz you can see in the pics. This disgusting stuff, I tried removing with a paint-scraper (but not damaging the wood). Paint scraper only really worked for "scapling" the edges. That part was kinda fun.

As for the sides, it pretty much just had to be a smooth surface, I realized I could just SAND the fuzz right off the surface of the box and into the grain of the wood, almost flattening it all out.

Lots and lots and lots of hand standing. I went through 3 pieces of 80 grit paper and a six-pack of beers in a night.

I woke up the next day and said, whoa, I'm pretty much done! And my shoulders hurt like HELL and I had all this sticky glue-residue under my fingernails and stuff, it was a messy messy project. In retrospect, I'll borrow/rent a power sander next time.
 
#18
davel66 said:
That is a neat looking project!

I wonder if a heat gun with a stripping blade would be a good option to remove the fuzz. The gun would have to melt the adhedive (allowing the fur to be easily scraped off) before the fuzz itself started to melt and burn.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that would be ideal. I tried the hairdryer trick to "loosen" some glue, but this stuff is really tough. The problem was, it just got REALLY tacky and messy when the glue started to heat up, so I decided I had to just sand the glue down while it was still hard without melting it first.
 

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