Vox AC30 , 1961, Buff cab and brown diamond grill cloth

N

N_Cook

Guest
Been used to some extent all the time from bought new by the owner 1961.
Just a bad joint/socket requires the cab being banged occassionally.
Survived a fuse failure at a about 1965, fag packet liner "repair" ,
replaced properly next day. Otherwise no one having been inside other
than to retrieve the nuts that fell off the handle retainers , in the
60s, and left handleless ever since.
Any advise on ameliorating a rip in the grill cloth? Unless anyone can
convince me otherwise I will leave the cloth and trim in place and
remove the speakers and work from the rear. Survived all that gigging
and roadying , but the cloth ripped by recent house-removal men.
No definite dates seen inside, I've not looked up the secondary etch
marks on the original Tungsram and Brimar valves yet, but
Main can cap , Hunts with a line
U UH KBQ 562
and the choke of the 3 Woden Txs , marked
66311 & J/84
(sic)
year 61 from first and last of 66311?
 
The best way to address this is to try and salvage a piece of the cloth from a corner on the inside and use fabric glue to attach it from the rear. This will provide the support for the rip and hopefully not be seen from the front.

I have done this with a few newer amps, but not one that old. The technique should worh though.

Dan
 
Woden datecodes seem to be the 2 letter codes
AU on 2 and BU on the mains Tx
and otherwise AK on the pot bodies
 
On 09/01/2015 17:31, dansabrservices@yahoo.com wrote:
The best way to address this is to try and salvage a piece of the cloth from a corner on the inside and use fabric glue to attach it from the rear. This will provide the support for the rip and hopefully not be seen from the front.

I have done this with a few newer amps, but not one that old. The technique should worh though.

Dan
Click to expand...

Unfortunately only a ribbon of surplus cloth inside and that is well
stuck down. Even the rear panels were well stuck to the cab with the
glue for the rexine covering or glue from somewhere. I have some open
weave brown cloth that I'll use.
 
I've managed to pull away a minor bit of the carcass, a batten , nailed
over the return of the cloth , to reveal a useable amount of cloth.
What sort of glue, and hence softener , to release it?
 
I've managed to pull away a minor bit of the carcass, a batten , nailed
over the return of the cloth , to reveal a useable amount of cloth.
What sort of glue, and hence softener , to release it?
 
Water is the solvent. Just a damp cotton wool ball for 5 seconds and the
cloth lifts easily wiht a plectrum under it. Warm air dried in case
water got around the edge , before cutting off the surplus.
I intend fabric gluing a patch , one side initially , pattern matched
behind the rip, then 3x 6 inch long pieces of hooked part Velcro across
the rip, on the front surface, to take the tension and bring back the
diamond pattern, before completing the gluing .
3 handles from scrapped valve Tektronix scopes for the replacement
handles. They are single hole at each end of the handle , unlike the 2
hole,4 fixing, later ones. The central longer leather one and the 2
smaller ones have all taken brown furniture stain, with some heating, to
cover the Tek grey-blue colour, although looked quite reasonable as is,
against the buff cab. Nicely distressed leather and chromed anchors look
the part.
 
I was told that Aleenes has a fabric glue that works extremenly well. It is called "Fabric Fusion" and is permanent.

In a pinch, I have used 3M 847 gasket adhesive which can be obtained in brown. This is a flexible rubberized gasket cement that I use for speaker surrounds with great success. If the tear is not readily visible when "fixed", I found that this handles the flexing of the cloth well too. Note that I used this method before I knew of the fabric glue.

Dan
 
On 11/01/2015 14:10, dansabrservices@yahoo.com wrote:
I was told that Aleenes has a fabric glue that works extremenly well. It is called "Fabric Fusion" and is permanent.

In a pinch, I have used 3M 847 gasket adhesive which can be obtained in brown. This is a flexible rubberized gasket cement that I use for speaker surrounds with great success. If the tear is not readily visible when "fixed", I found that this handles the flexing of the cloth well too. Note that I used this method before I knew of the fabric glue.

Dan
Click to expand...

I tried fabric glue but being open weave it had no strength, so I mixed
some brown toner into hotmelt glue, slabbed out to about .5mm and cut
into 2x2mm sqares. Melted a square on .5mm thick pieces of PTFE to smear
on the backside of the hole, to reinforce and flatten the curled edge.
Used a variable temp soldering iron , run on 60% mains to lower the
lowest setting. Repeated around the full edge. Then at leasure remelted
patches in place.
Patched up repair, but aesthetically not much point with the grill cloth
flopping around. So warmed with hot air off with the T section top trim
and one side of the white piping , to stretch and refit the cloth. The
piping was nailed in , presumably before fully fitting the rexine
covering of the cab.I intend using a number of lengths of hooky Velcro
pinned to the cab covered by the T , to glue back a bit taught and then
refit both bits of trim.
 
I think I've worked out how they get the diagonal red,green and yellow
threads into the weave.
Lay up the warp as usual with its shedding. Then an external frame along
the edges with a sync'd shedding. Manually running the threads in one
run over the groups of 3 tenters to cover the whole area. Passing the
shuttle through the normal shed and the diagonal shed
 
Makes a change from electronics farting about.
Next time I'll determine how much cloth is surplus from the stretching
process before salvaging the strip off the edge, so can get more than
the measly half-inch ,as about 1.5 inches wide was missing, and cutting
to the edge of the diamond threads would make for a more invisible mend.
Cutting back the spine of the gold T section trim helps reinsertion,
with prepared hotmelt film on the rexine side of the T. Hotmelt film
over the backing to take the stretched cloth, using velcro grabs.
Top pic as received, flash so false colour, does not show the bagginess
of the cloth, and upside down. Tektronix handles in the bottom image.
Middle pic, normal light, I could not tonally match the faded with the
unfaded dark brown of the salvaged strip, I tried
http://diverse.4mg.com/vox_ac30_cab.jpg
The VOX logo disappeared long ago also, but easily obtained from fleabuy
 
The 3 vol pots , Egen marked J58 AK, heavy log, measuring now 380K ,
could not be easier to rennovate. Solid wiper spring arm fixed to a
paxolin disc by 2 tangs. Grind 1mm wide small slot into the paxolin on
the wiper-pip side of each tang , just enough to allow the tangs to move
forward 1mm . Fill the now voids on the other side of the tangs with
glue spots. Now the new track is 1mm larger radius than worn out middle
track.

All valves test fine except one 6BQ5 (EL84) no CH/R problem and gain is
fine, but the balance point wavers across a range, so varying gain about
20% sensitive to vibration. What sort of effect would that have on the
sound output? Loose electrode?
 
Perhaps there is an error in the Woden/Vox code to date data that is out
there in a book somewhere.
The owner is certain he had this amp and was playing it for his 17th
birthday in 1962 and that it was bought for him the year before , for
109 GBP. He remembers which shop and price but unfortunately no
receipt/warranty paperwork survives
 
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