Kenny's Hiwatt pics (tecky stuff only)

[Highlander]

Any clues yet...?

[nofi]

you're going to recover your amp with said skirt.

[Highlander]

Give the man a Kewpie doll...

A long time back I decided to recover the amp as it had become somewhat tired and shredded but when looked into the cost of tartan material it became somewhat cost-prohibitive, so it was very much on the back-burner, much like the required repairs and capacitor replacement that the beastie also needs as I don't intend to try to get back to regular playing until post relocation...
Anyway, we've been looking for storage solutions that are easily stackable and moveable for a bunch of stuff and suitcases are a good option if cheap, and a local charity drop-off point gets them on a regular basis, selling on for circa £2/$3 - bought six on Saturday, and there in the 99p rack was this huge tartan skirt, so...

Deconstructed it this morning and the resultant material may be just enough for the job - about 2m/yds by 600mm/18"...



Wrapped some of the material round to give it an idea of what it will look like... not sure what to do about the replacement piping or its colour...

[chromium]

Hey Ken, depending on how bad the tolex is... one trick I've done before is to scrub it down, glue it down where needed (I used Weldwood contact adhesive), and then I used that rubberized spray on undercoating (for vehicles) to fill in any gaps where the tolex had ripped.  I'd spray that stuff on a piece of cardboard and use a scalpel to spread it into the voids.  Not perfect, but it made it "presentable" again without a lot of effort 

Once it was all done, I used the black stain from a leather furniture repair kit to blacken the entire enclosure (applied via a sponge) and then sealed it with a water-based clear sealer (came in the kit, but I've seen similar stuff at the hardware stores).

This was for a circa '76 Oberheim synth that I restored a few years ago.  It would have been pain to recover this, but it came out nice and has held up well.

















All that said, I like the idea!  I've seen some other British valve amps covered in the the union jack... never tartan.

[clankenstein]

Great! i like it.

[Highlander]

Nice repair work, Joe, but mine's past that point... If you look at the front it was reversed in the 80's as the front had become too ugly to work with and it was a real pig to remove the old glue DR had used (this was one of his garage-built beasties) and no one knows what sort of glue he used and it just seems to be reluctant to come off the timber - the remains of the damaged back is in the shed - I need to cut a replacement piece for that and the mesh is gone due to a previous shed leak I was unaware of until too late...

I have seen a tartan Marshall stack themed to the guitarist's Clan once - predominately red and green but can't remember name...

[Highlander]

Went down the shed earlier this evening and somewhat surprised to report that the mesh, albeit somewhat corroded, is still on the back plate, but the wood has had it... hadn't looked at it for a few years...

I'm going to try and remove what's left of the tolex as intact as I can to figure out the pattern for the tartan...

[lowend1]

Kenny, why don't you ask Mr Huss if it will fit one of their Hi-Tone head boxes? You have the nameplate, and the chassis looks worthy of a re-housing in terms of value... I had my '72 rehabbed last year and I bought the cap kit from Hi-Tone. Well worth the investment - the amp is an absolute hammer!

[Highlander]

Billy... Mark's asked for first refusal if I was ever silly enough to sell the beastie, but I'd like to resurrect what I've got rather than a full replacement... Hi Tone "can-not" supply capacitors to the UK... not sure if there are transportation issues but that's what their website has said for some years now, since Mark Huss suggested the replacement when he helped me age mine... all the present caps are dated '69, hence requirement to replace them... I've got to sell some of the debris round here before I go to any significant repair expense (hence the MAG300) prior to our relocation... my deal with SWMBO...

[Psycho Bass Guy]

If you can get a good variac, you could attempt to re-form the caps. It's a very long and painstaking process, but not much actual work is involved, and if any of the caps have ruptured or just gone beyond saving, it can't fix them. It's easy, just time intensive and won't hurt anything by trying.

[Highlander]

I haven't seen a variac in decades... someone mentioned that but I'd already just switched her on after a long layoff when I started gigging again about six years back and that meant, so I was told, too late now, and it was presumed they were okay for now, but that was then...
I'll source a UK supplier when I can and just replace them, and check those pre-amp valves like you suggested a while back, but probably not until I've relocated...
I'm not looking for a gig until re-settled so I don't see a rush... the "Highlandification" of the beast is just circumstances and availability of material...

[clankenstein]

hi , if you decide to replace the  valves, colomor valves  might be worth a look if you want n.o.s. exact replacements.i got some mullard el84s for my vox from them a few years back(must have been before 1998 when i moved over there)and they are still going strong.from memory i think they are somewhere around london because i got my brother to ride down there from golders green on his motorbike to pick them up.nothing about caps is stirring in the sludge of my memory though.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I haven't seen a variac in decades... someone mentioned that but I'd already just switched her on after a long layoff when I started gigging again about six years back and that meant, so I was told, too late now, and it was presumed they were okay for now, but that was then...

That's actually a sign that they were healthy then if you didn't get any hums or noises. It makes no difference now. If you spend a little time watching eBay and know to search "autoformer, voltage regulator, variable transformer," etc, you can score one for very cheap.  Even good quality new ones are fairly inexpensive.

[Highlander]

Noted Boss...