NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

[CapoFirstFret]

So last week a local fella posted this cabinet up on Facebook and I just sent him a message telling him I thought it was awesome but I had no way to swing it right now. He responded and quoted an unreal low price. I told him I still just didn't have the spare cash and then a few messages back and forth, and I ended up trading some odds and ends I had around the studio that I hadn't used in forever for this beautiful (well, awesome) cab!

This is a 1968-1970 Leslie Model 16. These were developed in a partnership with Leslie and Fender specifically for guitarists and were the precursor to the Vibratone (in fact they're identical mechanically/electronically). I got to the guy's house, plugged it up, sure enough it worked! I got it home and took off the front grill (someone replaced the original grill cloth with some terrible black burlap-like material), the side vents, cleaned up the inside, oiled the motors (this was the first time it'd been fired up in years), did some tinkering to get both the slow and fast motors operating, and voila! It's beautiful.



Ignore the terrible playing. I was listening more than I was playing to see if everything was functioning properly.

Link to YouTube since I've forgotten how to embed videos apparently!

 

[jeremy]

Re: NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

cool score!

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

Wow, awesome!

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

Awesome!

 

[Mincer]

Re: NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

Wow, those aren't so common. How much does it weigh?

 

[CapoFirstFret]

Re: NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

Wow, those aren't so common. How much does it weigh?

I was actually quite surprised by the weight on it considering the size. It weighs considerably less than my Super Reverb despite being much bigger. Suddenly makes it a possibility for live shows...though it is still huge.

 

[jeremy]

Re: NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

and super reverbs are heavy as hell. not quite boogie heavy, but close enough

 

[GuitarFanatic]

Re: NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

I rarely see these here in Australia. As soon as the word Leslie pops up on Gumtree, it's immediately overpriced and some undesirable model.

 

[CapoFirstFret]

Re: NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

I was flabbergasted at the reasonable price. I'm going on vacation in a couple of weeks but as soon as I get back I'm going to be ordering some aged blackface Fender grillcloth (which to the best of my knowledge is what these had originally) and will be recovering it. I'm going to order enough to recover my Super as well while I'm at it (since it's grillcloth is ripped). I may order some new corners for it to and get it looking all fresh and clean.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

Great find! Those are the definitive Leslies for guitar, IMO. One word- 'Badge.'

 

[CapoFirstFret]

Re: NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

Got a small update on this thing! I got my grill cloth in yesterday and gave it a go today. I'm pretty happy with the results considering this was my first attempt at doing grillcloth work ever.

Gonna order some new corners, screw eyelets and then try to track down an emblem. I may be stuck throwing a Fender emblem on here.

Sent from my SM-G960U1 using Tapatalk

 

[Mincer]

Re: NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

That looks awesome next to the Super Reverb! Great choice of grill cloth.

 

[CapoFirstFret]

Re: NAD [Saturday] - Rotary Goodness!

That looks awesome next to the Super Reverb! Great choice of grill cloth.

It's actually really close to the original grill cloth that came on these since CBS bought both Fender and Leslie at the same time. They had the silverface grill cloth originally.