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Ford's Model T came in any color the customer wanted -- as long as it was black. Fender amps made between 1963 and the late '70s came in any color the customer wanted -- as long as it was black. Ah...progress!
Turn the clock back to 1966. I walked into my junior high gym for a dance, and like every other budding rock star, the second thing I checked out as soon as I walked through the door was the bandstand. One of Cleveland's best bands, The Society, (later to evolve into The Damnation of Adam Blessing) was playing. They had the usual assortment of Fenders and what-not, but there was one amp in the middle that really stood out. It was red, sparkly, and the tuck & roll upholstering invoked images of a cut-top Mercury in the barrio. It was so gaudy it was cool. I asked what brand it was, and here's how the conversation went:
"It's a Kustom."
"Yes, I can see that it's custom-made. But what brand is it?"
"Kustom."
"Alright. So it's a custom job. But what brand?"
It finally sank in. And the image of that bright, sparkling covering sank in, too.
Back to 2003. I figure that since I'm building a guitar whose paint job will stand out from the crowd, my amp should, too. (And after almost 30 years in the television industry, I've learned that all other things being equal, the more striking the visuals the greater the perception that it's better!) And what better way to make an amp stand out from the crowd...?
Yes, it's that nifty Kustom covering! After a brief search, I learned that it was manufactured by Naugahyde. (And yes, many of those cute little Naugas were uprooted from their Sumatran paradise just so I could stand out from the crowd!) For two reasons, I chose to go with silver, having had a choice of several colors. First; when I was 16, one of my friends left a silver-colored Kustom amp at my house for a few days (I think he had to finish out a reform school sentence) and sitting next to my Ampeg Portaflex it could best be described as the Taj Mahal casting a shadow over a single-wide sitting on cinder blocks. So we have another case of 'seared image'. Second, it was the only shade I ran across on eBay.
I obtained my first Fender 2 X 12" speaker cabinet when I bought a Bassman in '72. I got the second one in the mid-70s in Columbus from a bandmate. I've managed to place the approximate manufacture date of the first one as 1959-1961 and the other as a vintage '62-'64. The former was covered in rough white Tolex and the latter in smooth white Tolex. A previous owner of the former spray-painted it black (to run with the crowd?), but various abrasions over the years have allowed the original color to show through. I stripped the latter and re-covered it in aftermarket faux-Tolex immediately after purchasing it simply because the odor from the previous owner's dog was overwhelming. Since then, my own dogs have 'claimed' them as their own, thus necessitating a stripdown, cleaning, and change of covering.
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Fall 2003. Pictures 1 and 2 are the speaker cabinets drying in the sun after puttying. It took lots o'putty to smooth over the head clamp holes, dings, blemishes, and gaps in the corner joints. The gouge in the bottom of the one cabinet is where I stacked them and the handle sat higher than the floor glides.
Picture 3 shows the holes in the head. The large hole in the bottom is where I sat the head atop the older cabinet and the 'dogbone' handle poked through. This will now be used to draw in cool air through the bottom. The other hole is for a fan. There's a channel depression gouged out in the center of the back half where a previously-installed larger output transformer required a little more room when sliding the chassis out.
Picture 4 shows the various stages of recovering. I chose to use a single piece of Naugahyde on the speaker cabinets and a conventional 4-piece segmented covering on the head, since shaping here is a little more critical. (Those chrome corner pieces hide a multitude of flaws!)
Picture 5 shows the semi-finished products sitting in the garage, still drying out, and sitting on padding between surfaces, since I haven't put any glides on them.
Pictures 6 through 9 show the finished product (minus cabinet hardware) in stacked and side-by-side configuration. Note the head, with the fan in position. Note the black ring around the front rim, where the previous owner spray-painted the rough white Tolex black.
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Spring 2004. I cut new baffle boards, using 1/2" birch, bordered by 1/8" slats. They've had the first coat of paint and porting/tuning, in accordance with data provided by WinISD, which is a TERRIFIC program! (see link below) And, as you can see, I've chosen to load up one of the cabinets with three 10" speakers (Eminence Legend B102) while keeping the other one at two 12-inchers (Eminence Delta 12LF).
Fall 2004. The 1/2" baffle boards are too thin and vibrate too much. I'm in the process of changing them out to 3/4" birch.
www.linearteam.org/winisd.html
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The middle photo shows the backboard with a non-Fender jackplate. I needed something larger than the original jack cup because I installed a DTDP switch to change the cabinet impedance from 16 ohms to 4 ohms, since the amp I was using at that time had a conventional parallel EXT SPEAKER jack and at 2.3 ohms would have taken it out of Fender's tolerance range. The left photo shows the porting tubes, mounted to the baffle board with hot glue. (The package said it would set in 30 seconds and they weren't lyin'!) I realize that pink insulation may not be the best first choice for an amp as macho as Fender, but you use what you've got on-hand!
All good things must come to an end. See what ultimately happened to these classic cabinets by going to the next page.
