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JohnnyTheBoy
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Joined: 04 Feb 2011
Posts: 540
Location: Middle England
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 Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 10:55 pm Post subject: Treating My 1962 Fender BandMaster To A Makeover |
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Hi all!
First big post in a long while, as I've been changing jobs, getting married and having offspring!
A while ago I was gushing about my incredible luck at being able to buy a salty 1962 Fender BandMaster for cheapz. Here's the threadsurrection :
http://www.shortscale.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44232&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=
Here's a piccy to jog yer grey matter of how she looked when I bought her for £40 in December 2011....
I took the decision to return the amp back to standard by getting the amp tech I use (John@HarmonicElectronic Coventry) to remove the reverb tank & transformer, and return to standard.
My brief was to replace any valves and capacitors, resistors etc where needed, and tweak bias, replace power cable and clean everything. In the meantime I would sort the cabinet by cleaning the black tolex back to blonde, replace the front panel grill cloth, and replace the hardware with original stuff where needed.
After tons of Nitromors stripper, elbow grease and light wire brushing, I was no further forward than backwards!
Very soon it was becoming apparent I wasn't going to get the finish I was after, so I decided to cut my losses and purchase original blonde tolex from Solsound and recover using the original tolex pieces as templates.
Power jack hole filled, and whole head filled and sanded.
Made a new back panel out of spare ply, and routed inner holes with bevels like original ones.
End Results!!!
All in she owes me around £250, so cheap as chips and a sound investment. Oh yeh, it sounds SUPER AWESOME!!! especially the vibrato!!
Cheers
Johnny.
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Bacchus
Whatever's handiest
Joined: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 20396
Location: wandering
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| Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 11:19 pm Post subject: |
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Nice. I'm actually really impressed the tolex held up to nitromors at all.
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Sloan
Sexy Predator
Joined: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 11797
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| Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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Quality thread.
"when I bought her for £40"
Holy shit.
I am so glad you got rid of the black/silver and went to the original tan/oxblood. A+++
I got to work on one 62 Bandmaster and I regret not actually taking time to play around with it. |
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Ankhanu
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Joined: 10 Nov 2009
Posts: 2952
Location: Nova Scotia
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| Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 12:07 am Post subject: |
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Goddamn that's good stuff
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| ekwatts wrote: |
| That's American cinema, that is. Fucking sparkles. |
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JohnnyTheBoy
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Joined: 04 Feb 2011
Posts: 540
Location: Middle England
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| Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 12:30 am Post subject: |
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| Bacchus wrote: |
| Nice. I'm actually really impressed the tolex held up to nitromors at all. |
The nitromors you get nowadays is a pile of wank! I stripped lacquer off alloy wheels with the old recipe and you could see it bubbling in next to no time! Burnt yer skin like fook too! I used 2 cans of the new stuff and totally wasted about £15 on it 
The new tolex from Solsound only cost me £20, and I still have loads left to do another head or small cab.
The old tolex was very very tough, and seems a different weave to the newer Fender stuff I used.
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Rhysyrhys
The Kraken
Joined: 02 Nov 2009
Posts: 2998
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 12:43 am Post subject: |
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Firstly congratz on all the life stuff! 
Secondly wow - what a lovely amp for that price. You must be chuffed mate.
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| hotrodperlmutter wrote: |
| you is/are stupid/uninformed/shortsighted on rhysyrhys. |
You'll cowards don't even smoke krack. |
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JohnnyTheBoy
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Joined: 04 Feb 2011
Posts: 540
Location: Middle England
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| Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 12:47 am Post subject: |
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| Sloan wrote: |
Quality thread.
"when I bought her for £40"
Holy shit. |
I was a spawny git, that's all I can say! Right place/time with the promise I had to sort it out properly.
| Quote: |
| I am so glad you got rid of the black/silver and went to the original tan/oxblood. A+++ |
Yeh me too, I've done it justice now, and tried to emulate the way Fender did it all in the first place.
| Quote: |
| I got to work on one 62 Bandmaster and I regret not actually taking time to play around with it. |
Damn shame! They are clean as hell...
My tech went to the trouble of recovering the new caps with the old cap casings, to give it a vintage look! Honestly he was as bad as me ha ha! And the best part.. He only charged me for parts and did the work out of admiration for the quality of the amp!! He's a proper gent!
It's taken me a ridiculous number of years to do it on n off, but perseverance paid off 
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JohnnyTheBoy
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Joined: 04 Feb 2011
Posts: 540
Location: Middle England
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| Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 12:53 am Post subject: |
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| Rhysyrhys wrote: |
Firstly congratz on all the life stuff!
Secondly wow - what a lovely amp for that price. You must be chuffed mate. |
Thanks Rhys! I've had an awesome year so far. To be happy in your day to day life is great, but to finally get a job I enjoy and am respected in is just the TITS!!
Marrying my fab lady, and having a gorgeous month old daughter is the cream on top for me!
Yeh super stoked thanks. Hard finger bruising work, the waiting game and so so happy I've resurrected it!
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lorez
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Joined: 16 Dec 2009
Posts: 9093
Location: Hopelessly Wayward
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| Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 6:23 am Post subject: |
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That's an amazing job, it looks stunning
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| paul_ wrote: |
| drink 2 beers and wank to the Sears catalog. |
| robroe wrote: |
| I dont need a capo. I have the other chords in my tonefingers |
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JohnnyTheBoy
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Joined: 04 Feb 2011
Posts: 540
Location: Middle England
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| Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 9:44 am Post subject: |
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| lorez wrote: |
| That's an amazing job, it looks stunning |
Thankyouplease I still can't quite believe I have it!
I've now also wired my 2x12 so I have a heavy duty impedance switch to switch from 16ohms series to 4ohm parallel so I can use all my heads on it.
So far the Bandy has only got to 2 on the vol. It's damn loud I tell the!
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BearBoy
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Joined: 30 Aug 2011
Posts: 6001
Location: Strung up to the lemons
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| Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 9:48 am Post subject: |
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That looks fantastic. Great work. And a bargain to boot!
Congrats on the IRL stuff too
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| Fran wrote: |
| I love how this place is basic as fuck. |
| ekwatts wrote: |
| I'm just going to smash it in with a hammer and hope it works. Tone is all in the fingers anyway. |
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JohnnyTheBoy
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Joined: 04 Feb 2011
Posts: 540
Location: Middle England
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| Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 10:15 am Post subject: |
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| BearBoy wrote: |
That looks fantastic. Great work. And a bargain to boot!
Congrats on the IRL stuff too |
Fanks Mr Bear, am on a roll at the mo 
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dezb1
The Oppressor
Joined: 01 Mar 2009
Posts: 7699
Location: glasgow
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| Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 10:49 am Post subject: |
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£40 crack converters round my way try to sell Gorilla amps for that price.
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| Hurb wrote: |
| I don't want to live in a world where Fran doesn't play guitar. |
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Protagonist
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Joined: 28 Oct 2016
Posts: 56
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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| That looks beautiful. As someone who's still searching for an affordable Fender amp, I'm incredibly jealous of the price you got it for. |
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Thomas
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Joined: 09 Oct 2008
Posts: 3291
Location: Glasgow, UK
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 1:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Everything about this story is awesome!! Great jerb!! |
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Fakir Mustache
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Joined: 25 Sep 2013
Posts: 4079
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Hawt. 110V or 240V transfomer on that? |
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HNB
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Joined: 15 Apr 2012
Posts: 4089
Location: Puyallup, WA
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Excellent resurrection! Great job with the new tolex. |
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Doog
mid-century modem
Joined: 24 Apr 2006
Posts: 20982
Location: London
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 3:53 pm Post subject: |
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| So frickin siiiiick! |
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Nick
Y'SEE!?
Joined: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 8543
Location: Albany, NY
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Excellent work! I probably wouldn't have even thought of taking on the responsibility of restoring it with the condition it was in before, but it came out amazing. |
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JohnnyTheBoy
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Joined: 04 Feb 2011
Posts: 540
Location: Middle England
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 6:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Fakir Mustache wrote: |
| Hawt. 110V or 240V transfomer on that?. |
Well its a Triad 68249, which I believe is an export model between 117-240v. It may even be adjustable but am unsure.
| HNB wrote: |
| Excellent resurrection! Great job with the new tolex |
Cheers my man, it was actually a lot easier than I thought as it's a 4 piece assembly. Just took my time.. Had a few hiccups as can be expected, but overall am well chuffed with it!
Thanks for all the encouragement dudes!! Has been worth the grief ha ha!
Johnny.
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