cool, do you think you want to paint the metal like that or just paint the lettering?
it would also be cool to have the metal revealed as the lettering.

I donno yet what the faceplate will be made of. I think I can talk the guy into selling me a blank strip of it and I'll cut the holes etc. But there's a front piece as part pf the chassis, and then the cfaceplate goes on over that, followed at the last by the knobs.

dude I'm selling a deluxe reverb!

Just bought my first classical guitar about a month ago. It's some Korean company called Sung Won, it's nice for the $250ish that I paid for it. I miss having all of my instruments at home in America, especially my Fender cyclone. Having a classical is starting to change my playing, I'm doing more finger picking type stuff than ever before.

You've probably mentioned this elsewhere, Leon, but what are doing in Korea? Teaching?

yeah, teaching English for a year while waiting for something approaching a decent job market back home.

Cool. A buddy of mine did that way back when and had a fucking blast: Became a minor celebrity doing DJ gigs, smuggled high quality drugs around and really enjoyed the teaching experience to boot.

It's been pretty great so far. Getting paid good money just to B.S. with Korean kids in English. I've starting jamming with some people so I might start playing around in the foreigner bars. No drugs to be found anywhere, but that's just as well I guess.

Pretty sure I'm gonna do this now. I've been emailing with the owner of the custom amp company, who's been a champ about all my stupid questions. They can definitely put anything I want in that chassis from my old amp, and it looks like from what I can hear on youtube clips, I like their clone of the Matchless Lightning the most. It's a 15 watt amp, one channel, just volume bass treble and master volume. It appears to able to pull off a killer tawngy country tone and then get wonderfully gritty when pushed. He just emailed back as well and agreed to mod it with an effects loop and half power switch to bring it down to 7 watts... fuck yes.

Here's what we're working with:





So we rip the chassis out of it...


And then put what he sends us into it.



Cats, you still up for a faceplate design? He's gonna send me a blank black one that fits, so I can mail that to you. Here's the stock one they make, for reference.

awesome! just talked to screen printing bandmate about this yesterday. he's up for it. is the black some sort of acrylic or latex?

I don't know yet.

So... whaddya wanna do?

well. mail it to me and I'll come up with a design for it, when you're happy with that then he'll try and print on it.
the more information we can get about what it IS will be helpful because that will determine the paint type used and how it gets dried.
otherwise its an experiment, which is fine because have huge brains and we'll be able to figure it out.
sending you my address now

Sweet. I'll get it ordered and report back.

Further proof that you are doing the right thing--those are some really cheap/crappy looking insides. Blech.

I know! Once I started reading about that model online, I started seeing the same two or three big gripes that I had. The reverb was so shallow it was pointless, the board components were cheap and fried out, and there was a lot of background hum no matter what you do.

Some inspirational photos...















I need to find more of just the control panels.

you should modify the front of the speakers too.. i dunno what it's called... speaker canvas?
get rid of the fender logo and have some classy striping or something. just a thought.

I was wondering what to do about the Fender logo... The silver cloth area is called the Grill I believe. I could pretty easily recover it - Bloor has linked me to a place that sells all kinds of cloth for it. It's not hard to take out, and I have a staple gun. Then I could put nicer speakers in it. Oh and then I could play it somewhere outside my house! Like, with other live people.

Oh and here's a link to new grill cloth choices.

http://www.tubesandmore.com/?gclid=CLTFl6Hg_ZwCFSa0sgod0Apzbw

I like the original Marshall Salt & Pepper, among others.

I think the Salt & Pepper is def the best choice there. It's gonna be beautiful.

I wonder if I can re-cut one of the 10" speaker holes in the baffle and put a 12 in there... It'd be nice to have the sound of both a 10 and a 12. Anyone know if that's kosher, amp load wise?

I have no idea ... but that idea excites me.

Good thread. There's a s**tload of info on here Cap'n, thanks. You're a flippin amp bloodhound.

I've been mulling this over and sitting on that busted amp for waaaay too long.

Once paypal finishes transferring in the $ I'm sending payment, btw. We gonna do this shit.


Hey cats maybe you should just paint the faceplate... instead of design / screen? You can sign it.

I am up for that, but I don't think I can hand-do the vintage look you're going for. However, I could turn it into a 60's psychedelic masterpiece.
Up to you Cap'n