Rehousing my head into a smaller, metal cabinet. Any words of advice?

[misterwhizzy]

Re: Rehousing my head into a smaller, metal cabinet. Any words of advice?

You mean metal music? Agreed. Metal the construction material, however, is quite a bit thinner than wood for the same strength! But I decided trimming less than an inch off the length and width of the enclosure isn't worth the added expense and potential damage to my car. I'd rather toss around a wooden box than a metal one. Although I'm still shopping for some surplus or something that I can repurpose...

Hi, Dave. I make jokes.

[Chickenwings]

Re: Rehousing my head into a smaller, metal cabinet. Any words of advice?

You will get 30% more signal strength if you use granite.

[Dave Locher]

Re: Rehousing my head into a smaller, metal cabinet. Any words of advice?

Hi, Dave. I make jokes.

I guess with a name like "misterwhizzy" I should have realized.
Best I can figure, if I were to make it all in polished aluminum it would be at least twice as loud as it is now because the molecules in the wood dampen the transmission of sound, right? But what if I do it all in genuine mahogany? Will is sound warmer then??
(I make jokes, too!)

Seriously, though, the cheapest/quickest/most practical option is to make an ordinary wooden box for the top, sides, & bottom but to smaller dimensions and thinner wood than the original. I'll do the front & back a little bit more imaginative. We'll see.
I did find some solid aluminum boat handles at a thrift store that might look nice on the top or sides. It's evolving...

Gearjoneser: Don't worry, I also built my current guitar from scratch. My brother-in-law (who is also my neighbor) builds furniture for a hobby. Whatever I do won't be terribly original or imaginative and it won't be perfect, but it will be competently done!

[Dave Locher]

FINALLY finished!

I finally got this project finished. No, I have not been working on it since April. I was out of town for most of May and all of June, plus kids/work/life/etc. You know how it goes. It really didn't take all that long.
If I'd known ahead of time the cost of materials I would have just gone with my original idea to use metal. Aluminum is a little pricey, but so are $10 cab corners and $30 for the textured Duratex coating. (That stuff was worth every penny, though: it made my plywood box look like a real amp. My wife said "Wow, that looks professional!") I reused the Randall feet and handle and I've had that "Custom" emblem in my shop for years, so the only other expense was the $15 half-sheet of plywood and I bought a new pilot indicator light at Radio Shack for 3 or 4 bucks. I could not take the original orange light anymore! This is a nice dark red, and it sits more flush as well.

So here it is!
As promised, it is totally unoriginal. I'm still not sure about the insert shape - I did that to deal with the fact that the head is off center, which I did to balance it out. But it will be super simple to make a new face plate if I ever decide I can't stand it. If I ever really wanted to go nuts it turns out the control plate is just a separate piece of sheet steel that could be replaced very easily. Some spun aluminum and chicken head knobs and this amp would look...absolutely nothing like it sounds. This is a neo-retro as I'm willing to go with it.

It is about 7" shorter, one inch less height and depth, and 15 POUNDS lighter than the original housing. It's amazing how much lighter 1/2" birch plywood (from Lowe's) is compared to the 3/4" thick particle board (or MDF or whatever the heck Randall used) can be. If it weren't for the reverb tank, which I was not willing to eliminate, I could have made it significanlty smaller/lighter.
Now it fits nicely on my 2x12 cabinet, it fits in my car, and I can pretty easily lift it with one hand.

Sorry the photos are so big - I've never tried doing photos on this forum before. I'm also not sure why the fabric looks so pink - it's actually the dark red/burgundy color you see in the "before" photo of the original head.

p.s. The Randall box looks so ratty because some yahoo painted it white, then painted it red, then painted it black before I bought it around '87 or so. So shallow scratches reveal the red paint, deeper scratches reveal the white paint, and really deep scratches go all the way to the original black vinyl. It's been "relic" by me carrying it around to gigs for years.

[ArtieToo]

Re: Rehousing my head into a smaller, metal cabinet. Any words of advice?

Wow! Nice job. That really looks sharp.

[Dave Locher]

Re: Rehousing my head into a smaller, metal cabinet. Any words of advice?

Wow! Nice job. That really looks sharp.

Thank you! I really appreciate it.