Tweed Covering Without the Tweed Hassle

[Commodore 64***]

I want to rehouse my 5E3 project. It's currently in a Valve jr. combo cab, and it just doesn't seem proper. Also, I'm not enamored with an external cab set-up. I'd like a grab and go amp. I have the constraints of the Valve Jr. chassis box and tube/transformer orientation, but I'd like to have a Deluxe type theme and am using a 12-inch Emi Cannabis Rex.

For my first try, I bought a knot-free 1x10 pine board at Home Despot. I got lucky and found one in the cheap pine boards, so it was like, 12 bucks. I used up some cocoa brown tolex that I had and wasn't quite satisfied with a couple of things including the color, the screw holes, and the squareness. I don't have any pics of this one other than the one below. You can see it in the background. In the foreground is my 2nd attempt. This time I used a knotless pine 1x12 from Slowe's, had to fork over $35 for the premium stuff.


I put a roundover on the corners and top and bottom edges and used pocket holes for joining.


So I don't like the cocoa brown tolex, and I really like the tweed on my Pro Jr. But Fender Tweed is nearly $50 a yard, and tweed needs to be laquered. My experiments with fabric and contact cement were not encouraging. Perhaps the Fender Tweed is easier to work with, but the denim and plaid samples I tried just made a big nasty mess. So here is where this thread turns into a commercial for http://www.tubesandmore.com/ . I ordered up 3 yards of their tweed patterned vinyl tolex.


This will be the 4th item I've ever covered with tolex. This time around, I know what glue I want to use. It's the "Tolex Glue" from tubesandmore. Water-baseed, so cleanup is a breeze, no fumes, and it holds well. Here's everything you need. This was my first try with a paint roller to apply the glue. Works great.


I covered this using the 2 part approach. A big piece for the top and sides, and a small piece for the bottom. One of the mistakes I made on the first iteration was drilling the chassis holes after I covered the box. Drilling through tolex makes it ugly. This time I used a forstner bit and pre-drilled the top.


This is just a rough template of where I need to put the top of the carcass.


I have metal corners for this cab, but the corners turned out surprisingly well. 4th try is a charm, I guess. (Sorry about the lack of focus, this is the best of 4 shots I took)


I don't know about you, but I think it looks pretty darn close to tweed.


But How close? Well, here's a shot with my Pro jr. on top.


This is as far as I got. I have some Oxblood grill clothe from tubesandmore, and the front will look a little funky, because of the way I have to mount the chassis, but I'm optimistic that this will actually look OK!

[Ch0jin]

Awesome job on the cab! (shocking job with the pictures.... )

It's cool to know there's another option to tweed though as I'm a huge tweed fan!