Radiate: Tristan Mason’s blog

The cab is finally done!  Since the last post, I poly’d the speaker baffle, attached & wired the jackplate, mounted the speakers, and painted & attached the speaker grills.

I found the Marshall switchable jackplate at Antique Electronic Supply.  It allows the use of both speakers at 4 ohms or 16 ohms, or either speaker at 8 ohms.  With two heads or a stereo head, the cab could be run in stereo for more spacious chorus and delay effects.  So far I’ve used it with the Stulce SA-10H shown in the picture below, as well as my friend Pete’s Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier head, and it sounds great with both.

The speaker grills are basic 12” metal waffle grills.  When I painted them, I achieved a texture similar to the amp head’s texture by spraying them with Valspar Stone paint and then spraying the red over that. If I wanted it to be durable, I could buy Valspar’s fixative spray and cover the stone paint with that before spraying it red.  But I think they’ll actually look better when they get a little scratched up, so I’m leaving them alone.

I installed two different speakers: One is a Tone Tubby Hempcone H1E Alnico, and the other is an H1E Ceramic.  I ordered them from South Valley Vintage Amps.  As I researched speakers, I found a really helpful GearNet review of a ton of speaker combinations—-definitely worth checking out.

One of these days I’ll post some audio clips.  For now, pictures:

By the way, these pictures were taken in the elevator behind our stage, which has become our makeshift amp isolation booth.  We put the amp heads in the stage hallway so we can run cables to them, and we mic the cabs in the elevator or the back room.  Of course, it would look cooler if they were all on stage, but at the volume we run our services (roughly 90dB), there’s no way to get a tube amp to sound good and also make a sound guy happy.  :)

Since the last post, I finished staining the cab.  I used Minwax Red Mahogany on the box and Varathane Summer Oak on the speaker baffle.  Before staining soft woods like pine, it’s important to use a wood conditioner so that the wood stains evenly.  I used Varathane wood conditioner, but any will do.

After staining, I applied three coats of semi-gloss polyurethane to the box, sanding lightly between each coat with fine sandpaper (220 or 320 grit).  I’m really happy with the color and sheen.  I debated between semi-gloss and glossy;  while I liked the glossy look, I was afraid there would be too much reflection off the cab from stage lighting.  After three coats of semi-gloss, I’m glad I went with that finish.

In this picture, the box has been stained and polyurethaned, but the speaker baffle has not.

Rear braces with a hole cut for the jackplate…

I added casters to the bottom of the cab.  It will be much easier to move that way.  If they rattle when I play, though, I’m taking them off.  Basically, they’re on probation.  We’ll see if they get chucked or not.

This part of the project has been about gluing and sanding… lots and lots of sanding.  Here are some more pics…

Getting ready to glue a brace.  I used the bracing technique described on the Dr. ZEE Workshop 2×8 cabinet project page. My cab is going to look quite different, but his instructions were helpful.

I clamped each brace before screwing it in so that it wouldn’t move.

I used larger clamps to put pressure on each side as the glue began to dry and I screwed the sides into the braces.

Here’s a close-up of how the sides are connected to the bottom:

Next up: Choosing stain colors for the box and the baffle, more sanding, staining, and polyurethane for shine and protection.

I mentioned in the last post that I’m building a custom electric guitar cabinet.  I’m using select pine for the box and birch plywood for the speaker baffle.  Here are the construction pics so far…

Cutting the birch.  I clamped a 1/4” thick metal strip to the board as a guide.  Seriously, it’s the only way to make really straight cuts with a circular saw.  Also, investing in a good blade is important, especially for plywood.  Get a carbide-tipped Bosch or something that’s got at least 40 teeth.

The first speaker cutout.  Tone Tubby (speaker maker) packed the speaker with cardboard, and one piece had a circle perfectly sized to the speaker for me to trace.  WAY easier than using a homemade compass or something.  Thanks, Tone Tubby.  I used a jig saw with a fine blade to make the cuts.

Here are the pieces of pine and birch after cutting.

Nope, it’s not done.  I just stacked the pieces together to see where I needed to sand them to fit.  By the way, I once heard someone say that when you’re woodworking, you should remove the word ‘perfect’ from your vocabulary.  Really good woodworkers just hide things better than normal people.

Coming next: Lots and lots of sanding, gluing the internal bracing strips that will attach the whole thing, and testing the speaker baffle.

After 12 years of playing guitar, I’m finally going to buy an electric guitar amp.  Okay, so technically it’s not my first.  My first amp was a weather-beaten 1962 Gibson Super-Medalist that had sat unused in an outdoor pavilion for years until I told the owner I would weed-eat at his camp for 3 days straight if he gave it to me.  It had leaky capacitors and dead tubes, and it shocked me viciously right through my guitar’s strings every time I touched a grounded surface while playing.  I think it’s still sitting in a friend’s basement… who knows, maybe I’ll restore it someday.

Anyway, for a while I’ve been using my Boss GT-8 pedal (see this old post), which models various amps and effects, and I think it produces some good sounds (like the electric on this recording)... but sometimes you just need a real amp.  Maybe I’m being superstitious and old-skool, but I’m gonna say it anyway: When it comes to guitar amps, there’s still nothing that sounds quite as good as tubes.  They distort gracefully, and solid state has nothing on the interest, character, and warmth of their sound.

Stulce SA-10H amp head

I’m waiting to hear about an amp head from Stulce Amps... it looks like it might be the one.  I’m also in the process of building a 2×12 cabinet loaded with Tone Tubby speakers.  Construction pics to come!