Srv 4 12 cab restoration

[qtone]

Years back while living in Austin I purchased a 4 12 cab which had Jack Morgan on the back and dont mess with Texas sticker..

I met Jack several years later past that and he informed me that cab in fact belonged to Stevie Ray and he said sell it back to me.

I said you just told me it was Stevie Rays !
he looked at me as if knowing he had blown it and said
don't ever sell that cab man Stevie gave me that cab as a present.

He went on to inform me the cab had been redone in a bad tolex
and was not original tolex wise anymore... but originally it had been Purple.

Anyway tonight I decided too restore this cabinet and I broke it down
to make ready to get it recovered in original purple.

I researched the cabinets which were made in purple in 1968 and those had brown basketweave cloth not salt and pepper weave.
This cab I bought has brown basket weave cloth so that checks out with the story Jack was telling me at the bar.

I took the baffle out tonight and it is loaded with celestian rolla 80s.
Those are what Srv had in it. He gave it too Morgan as a gift.

Morgan told me Stevie was not pleased as he had the cabinet redone by some local cat who said he knew what he was doing and he used peavey tolex which was Wrong.

I bought a roll of 10 yards from the marshall distributor korg marshall in new york 20 years ago and so now I am going to cover this cabinet in that.

The back ill keep and just make another solid back and cover in purple..
or keep the original back in black with dont mess with Texas 150 years of pride sticker on it..

Thought id share the project I realize its not dumble but since this cab had 80s in it The thought occurred to me that perhaps he was driving this cab with something rather loud..

This cab was black and had basketweave cloth.
By this time Stevie had black cabs with black cloth including
that Dumble 4 12 cab. He had them change the grill cloth all to black
including on the supers....

This cab he did not want to mess with and change black as the grill was still good and I think he just gave it away because of the tolex was going to have to be redone again and no one could do it right.

Till now that is...
I will use this cab for a plexi I need to replace this year
but I do have plans on buying a SSS head and there is an ODSR
Like boldasloves sitting here as well...

#2 of those heads built.... I dont think the 80s would sound great with that odsr amp but it might sound better with say the SSS head though I think he was running EVS in those cabs under the SSS heads.

[qtone]

Ill post more pix as the project unfolds I am going to try and cover it myself.
So it should be loads of fun. If I can afford it though id send this to Kerry Wright and have him cover it..

If in fact anyone here knows how to contact Kerry Wright let me know please.
Depending on cost id as soon let him do it.

It should look correct with the original purple lavant tolex.
This project has been along time coming so I plan to make it right.

Hope its ok I posted this here...

I think its possible he played his dumble through this cab as he used 80s
but was frustrated as the tolex was coming back off and just gave it too Morgan as a gift to get it out of his hair.

Tommy told me one time as I asked him if he remembered it and his comment was yea Stevie wanted to just switch all his cloth to black
as I was asking about why he took the original fender grill off and switched to black as well..

He said he wanted a uniform look and did not care about asthetics being vintage he wanted all black....

I think he just said no one can do the job right leave it be and let someone else mess with it.

That would be me and yes ive put this off for along time.

But its time its restored with care.

[Cliff Schecht]

I'm excited to see the results! I'm a huge Stevie fan. Maybe the 6 foot SRV poster behind my head gives it away...

[Structo]

Cool back story!

[Luthierwnc]

There is always a little extra blood pressure when you are working on a project with provenance.

You probably already know this but there is a Marshall cab retolex series where Jim Seavall (of Southbay) does a complete strip and recover on a vintage Marshall 4X12. The thread is on both the Gearpage and the Metro forum but when I pulled them up, the pictures showed as unavailable. It is an extensive photo blog that runs dozens of posts over the course of the rehab. Maybe those pics are still out there in the ether. sh

[qtone]

Yes pressure indeed.. I found out today the grill cloth is not brown basketweave but rather salt and pepper the front was so aged and weathered from ciggys and dust and no telling what else that it appeared as brown cloth.

I actually might have changed horses in midstream as I saw Greg Germino's
blue tolex bluesbreakers with pinstripe and now I am tempted to get it done
in that color vs purple.

The grill could go on something else as it is pretty hashed cosmetically.
I am thinking of buying a Germino anyway and thought the blue was neat.

Kinda bummed its not an original brown basket weave but it should turn out ok regardless.

The blue is about the color of the border colors on the page here.
Royal blue with pinstripe is quite fetching on the eyes.

Since its a 68 it would fall into that era as they did some pinstripes into 68.
Most of them were done by Feb or March though from what I read.

I might leave it to the pros to do it... Waiting on word from Germino to see what he thinks about doing a Monterey in blue and doing this cab for me.

I see the work he does or Kerry wright and just think why bother.
I dont feel so bad about changing the cloth now that its salt and pepper.
its pretty hashed and might look better in another beat cab or something.

I did not see till the baffle was all the way out and where I could see the sides and its salt and pepper..

Morgan did tell me the cab was purple and Id have bet the cloth was brown basket weave from half a foot away its brown to the edges and all one color.

It will look alot better and I think Blue is the color im going with and using pinstripe cloth..