ReHouse Bugera 212 (mdf or some crud) into DIY ply/hardwood: sensible? or just looks?

[Adieu]

Toying around with a DIY project idea, to rehouse my Bugera 6262 into something nicer....

would rebuilding the combo cabinet help sound, or just potentially improve looks and durability? Upgrading to V30s, is closed/semiclosed back really as helpful as rumored, and how would that alter sound? Any benefits outside convenience to splitting it up into a head & 2x12 cab?

Any point to choosing hardwoods over ply for the cab? If yes, what kind of reasonably priced new wood would be best? Would scavenging wood from oldskool hardwood furniture perhaps be better? If so, which wood in what thickness should I be on the lookout for?

On a less corksniffy note, how are old bookshelf sections (real wood, not mdf) for repurposing into 2x12 cabs? Seems like a real simple solution, any contraindications except obvious flimsiness? Just reinforce edges and corners, or any other tricks to it?

Also...frontloader or rear best for closed cabs?

Thx.

 

[Tangle001]

Re: ReHouse Bugera 212 (mdf or some crud) into DIY ply/hardwood: sensible? or just lo

Toying around with a DIY project idea, to rehouse my Bugera 6262 into something nicer....

would rebuilding the combo cabinet help sound, or just potentially improve looks and durability? Upgrading to V30s, is closed/semiclosed back really as helpful as rumored, and how would that alter sound? Any benefits outside convenience to splitting it up into a head & 2x12 cab?

Any point to choosing hardwoods over ply for the cab? If yes, what kind of reasonably priced new wood would be best? Would scavenging wood from oldskool hardwood furniture perhaps be better? If so, which wood in what thickness should I be on the lookout for?

On a less corksniffy note, how are old bookshelf sections (real wood, not mdf) for repurposing into 2x12 cabs? Seems like a real simple solution, any contraindications except obvious flimsiness? Just reinforce edges and corners, or any other tricks to it?

Also...frontloader or rear best for closed cabs?

Thx.

To my ears separate cabs are sweeter, be they 1x12, 2x12, or 4x12s. I had the idea reading your post, two 1x12s might be interesting(?). And I'm guessing your solid shelving would be great whatever the species. I'm not an expert on the cabs but I do have a lot of experience comparing acoustic guitars. You all have noticed solid wood acoustic guitar bodies have better immediacy and brightness in their sound, while the plywood ones often sound nearly as sweet but not always, they are just a little bit subdued or even duller sounding. Thinking about this I figured an acoustic body made of solid wood could sound brilliant for decades and decades, but maybe a plywood one that maybe sounds good at first could get even duller at some later date if the glue that held the plys together broke down. I don't know this for sure, I guess it would be the type of glue in the ply that would determine this. But could you imagine a guitar made of mdf? How dull would that be, I don't know. But even man-made materials sound brilliant sometimes, think of fiberglass electric guitars, or danelectros, or acrylic violins, they sound brilliant a lot of times. Sorry for all the words, you are going somewhere I need to go too.

 

[MetalManiac]

Re: ReHouse Bugera 212 (mdf or some crud) into DIY ply/hardwood: sensible? or just lo

MDF is actually choice for the back of the cabinet, as it kills some bad resonant frequencies. Hardwood is always best for the baffle and sides. Your hardwood like Oak will give a very hard sound, whereas your softer woods like birch and pine will resonate better and give a softer rounded tone.

I'd say bookshelves are great, except the good ones with wood thats actually suitable are so dang expensive I'd be remiss to hack one up for a guitar cabinet.
btw- your distinction between hardwoods and plywood is misleading. There are hardwood and softwood plywoods. A good grade of plywood is Birch 13 ply for instance, and its excellent for cabinets, but will behave differently than a solid piece of wood.

 

[Adieu]

Re: ReHouse Bugera 212 (mdf or some crud) into DIY ply/hardwood: sensible? or just lo

MDF is actually choice for the back of the cabinet, as it kills some bad resonant frequencies. Hardwood is always best for the baffle and sides. Your hardwood like Oak will give a very hard sound, whereas your softer woods like birch and pine will resonate better and give a softer rounded tone.

I'd say bookshelves are great, except the good ones with wood thats actually suitable are so dang expensive I'd be remiss to hack one up for a guitar cabinet.
btw- your distinction between hardwoods and plywood is misleading. There are hardwood and softwood plywoods. A good grade of plywood is Birch 13 ply for instance, and its excellent for cabinets, but will behave differently than a solid piece of wood.

By hardwood I meant... solid wood? Planks-wise, 1 wood type 1 layer?

When you say an oak cab will sound "hard", are we talking good-heavy, or are we talking bad-boomy??

 

[youngthrasher9]

Re: ReHouse Bugera 212 (mdf or some crud) into DIY ply/hardwood: sensible? or just lo

Birch plywood is choice for making cabs. It's pretty readily available, and most of the best brands of cabs are made with the stuff. I wouldn't use non-ply woods for a cab. It would be more likely to crack, or in the case of particle board just sound meh and fall apart over time. You can probably find/order it at home depot or lowes, and some hardwood stores.

 

[Low_fidelity2100]

Re: ReHouse Bugera 212 (mdf or some crud) into DIY ply/hardwood: sensible? or just lo

Buy a 212 Cab, Build a head cab... Sure there's other options...but they're not worth it in the end.

You won't be able to build a 212 cab, that sounds decent, for less than you could buy a decent to good quality cab. (As long as you're not hung up on the name stamped on the front of the cab.)
When you factor in material costs, hardware, speakers, research (a speaker cab isn't simply any box with some speakers in it...the dimensions/shape/interior volume if closed/etc...all have an impact on the sound) and Labor (your time is worth something isn't it?)...you could have bought a good quality cab with great speakers, and have money left over. Unless you're looking for something radically non-standard, you're just better off buying a loaded 212 cab. There are alot of great builders around now, making great cabs, at very affordable prices (just check out Avatarspeakers.com if you haven't already, as one example). If you're doing it for any reason other than because you simply just want to/enjoy building stuff, then you're better off just buying a cab. Even better off if you're willing to buy used. Buying 2 vint. 30's will cost you almost as much as half the decent cabs that come equipped with them, possibly more if you're patient and buy used.

The head cab on the other hand, you can build yourself easily. Just has to be something to hold the guts of your amp basically...It honestly doesn't even have to look nice. Though obviously no one wants to lug around an ugly amp....But regardless, as long as you get the dimensions right to hold your chassis securely...it's kinda hard to screw up a head cab. As long as it's durable, provides proper protection and ventilation for your amp, you're good.



Now that all said....As much as you may love your amp....You'd be far better off simply buying a better amp. Some of those bugera amps sound just fine, good even. But they're poorly built, and are not reliable in the long run. Definitely not even close to gig worthy (I personally wouldn't even bring one as a backup,and it has nothing to do with sound/tone). Etc... Fun for knockin around the house? Something to supply a low cost/different tone/texture for recording? Or an amp to leave in the living room that ya don't care if people use a place to put their beverages? Etc....Definitely worth while for any of those situations.
But worth the effort your talking about putting into it? Just isn't worth all the work and money you'd be putting into it.

Buying a good quality 212 to run it through? Definitely worth it. Cause even when/if the Bugera die's, you'll still have a good cab to run your next amp through.


Also, I'm not trying to be a dick, or a bummer here or anything. I totally understand buying budget gear, I've owned plenty myself. Still have some. But in the long haul, putting that amount of work/$ into something so disposable, just isn't worth the work. Especially when you could simply replace it with something much higher quality, for not a whole lot more money (again, if buying used). Ya know? Just my opinion, not trying to offend.

 

[Adieu]

Re: ReHouse Bugera 212 (mdf or some crud) into DIY ply/hardwood: sensible? or just lo

Buy a 212 Cab, Build a head cab... Sure there's other options...but they're not worth it in the end.

You won't be able to build a 212 cab, that sounds decent, for less than you could buy a decent to good quality cab. (As long as you're not hung up on the name stamped on the front of the cab.)

{...}

There are alot of great builders around now, making great cabs, at very affordable prices (just check out Avatarspeakers.com if you haven't already, as one example). If you're doing it for any reason other than because you simply just want to/enjoy building stuff

Also, I'm not trying to be a dick, or a bummer here or anything. I totally understand buying budget gear, I've owned plenty myself. Still have some. But in the long haul, putting that amount of work/$ into something so disposable, just isn't worth the work. Especially when you could simply replace it with something much higher quality, for not a whole lot more money (again, if buying used). Ya know? Just my opinion, not trying to offend.

Name concerns? I bought the second hand bugera didn't I? Two hundred well spent... especially after spending 130 more on speakers.



Now... I'm thinking I might want to semi-close the back, but might HAVE to rebuild the combo chassis after all.

Simply because the cheesy Bugera speakers weigh like 1-2 lbs (actually kind of an achievement that they can survive the beating delivered by a 5150 circuit with that weight & those materials), while the Celestions are, what, 10-11 lbs V30 and ~12 lbs C90?

 

[LatsMcGee]

Re: ReHouse Bugera 212 (mdf or some crud) into DIY ply/hardwood: sensible? or just lo

Well you have amazing taste in speakers my friend! keep an eye out on your local CL, I found a gutted Marshall combo that I'll probably be dropping another amp in during the spring/summer this year...There's an empty blue angel I have my eyes on right now for another one!

 

[Adieu]

Re: ReHouse Bugera 212 (mdf or some crud) into DIY ply/hardwood: sensible? or just lo

Well you have amazing taste in speakers my friend! keep an eye out on your local CL, I found a gutted Marshall combo that I'll probably be dropping another amp in during the spring/summer this year...There's an empty blue angel I have my eyes on right now for another one!

Hehe, I used to know nothing about speakers... and still understand so very little, though I seem mostly done for now. It was all inability to afford to make mistakes, nothing more! Call it "defensive shopping".

I'm pretty much done on this rig though.. Unless I decide to dump 2 of the 4 Rola g12-65's from the Carvin cab (and with current popularity trends, I can pretty much trade em straight for any other production speaker),.... And considering what those 65's get along with best, I should probably next give in to my unrequited passion for the Laney 50's from the hotrodded JCM/plexi family if I need something to GAS for... not more speaker rolling (and not much else to do for this rig, anyway, unless some evil person teaches me how to bias tubes. cuz then, me and my curious nature, we're screwed. royally.)

I'd hardly call it taste, I just researched whatever hot used offerings my extremely limited budget could handle and drew conclusions. Couldn't afford to keep what I didn't really like much, couldn't afford to try anything else not getting rid of bad choices, and couldn't afford to buy stuff I'd take a huge resale hit on if we didn't mesh. So that just gravitated me toward better deals and more likely options.

The rest was just by virtue of the tight-fisted triple-checking so characteristic of us poor people... I mean, OK, going the PV-style route for amplifier circuit, but choosing a classic Mesa config for speakers could be borderline original thinking in a super-conformist world (and I guess speakers/cabs kind of are like that?), but still... It was all economic logic that got me there. Just couldn't afford popular "nobrainer" choices, had to get a lil creative and very inquisitive to get any results. Plus I got luuuuucky on that Carvin 412 frontloader w/ the 65's (priced like 1 speaker for a loaded cab. lol), and then felt it was waaaay too nice to give up - but a bit too dark to enjoy. Which launched me on my quest of mixing different speakers.

Hence the V30, and it popping up for $75 w/ free crapocab (useless to me, but could be loaded and resold with junk I don't need, I guess?) didn't hurt either. But then I found it was too different in combo vs. w/ extension modes, and that it really seemed to not get along with that silly Bugera speaker... so, back to the drawing board. Started running out of names to feed into search fields (8 ohm local offerings are rare, and even less often not a second v30 or a 5th 65, and yet high enough in wattage), when I ran across a Mesa half-closed cab that seemed cool, and remembered the name of that speaker. Asked CL for "black shadow", boom, $65 two counties away - text the guy at 6am, he responds immediately, turns out he works in my very city. Cool. Haggled to 55 right away on "several days ago, 65 got you a new American made V30 from WGS, and they'll have more holiday sales coming - help me justify buying yours instead" logic

...and here I am. Although, admittedly, I never expected just how cool the C90 black shadow would sound, or how well it would complement the v30. Takes all the harshness right out, instead it comes up as a uniform "wall of punch". Niiiiice.