They might have used that vinyl dye type paint that is made for vinyl car upholstery.
That stuff bonds pretty well with the vinyl.
I wouldn't use strippers on it as mentioned, anything that touches that paint is most likely to attack the tolex.
The only one I might try would be that citrus stripper and then I would try it in a small spot first to see how it reacts.
This is the deal. I was in a band with this guy. He had the amp, which he painted black, I'm guessing, to make it look more 'rock and roll' and I'm sure he painted it years ago, probably before that upholstery paint.
I traded him a keyboard I had for the amp. It's a fairly classic 80's keyboard, a Korg DW-8000, it's a digital keyboard with analog filters. One of the keys didn't work. I'm pretty sure I made off the best in that trade.
I'm thinking that stripper would take a longer time to damage the vinyl than the paint. I plan on trying a small spot on the bottom, applying a little spot of stripper, wait a few minutes, rub it off and wipe it clean with water afterwards, to keep the chemicals from continuing to work on the vinyl.
Easy Off Oven Cleaner, you need the cab outside where you can get some heat on it, brush the easy off on and let set for 5 to 10 min. and then wash off with a cloth and hot soapy water, where the paint is very old you may need to use a soft brass scrub brush to loosen the paint that's buried in the pit's, this work's very well for me, I have salvaged a number of cab's with Easy Off, and it's worth a lot more with the orig. tolex on it.
I learned this trick from my Stepdad, he owned his own Paint and Bodyshop fo 57 yr's, he used easy off to remove the Lettering on Truck's so that a new name could be painted on for the new owner, it will remove the lettering without damageing the orig paint under the lettering, after buffing the finish you could see no trace of the lettering,
a word of caution, EasyOff by the namebrand is the only kind of cleaner i've ever tried this with, any other brand i can't tell you about.
All the Stripper's i have tried will damage the finish on the tolex.
It's a pain to deal with but if you can Salvage the old amp, it's worth a bunch more to a collector.
Johnhenry
Analog Assassin wrote:This is the deal. I was in a band with this guy. He had the amp, which he painted black, I'm guessing, to make it look more 'rock and roll' and I'm sure he painted it years ago, probably before that upholstery paint.
I traded him a keyboard I had for the amp. It's a fairly classic 80's keyboard, a Korg DW-8000, it's a digital keyboard with analog filters. One of the keys didn't work. I'm pretty sure I made off the best in that trade.
I'm thinking that stripper would take a longer time to damage the vinyl than the paint. I plan on trying a small spot on the bottom, applying a little spot of stripper, wait a few minutes, rub it off and wipe it clean with water afterwards, to keep the chemicals from continuing to work on the vinyl.
You really need a brush, rather then a rag to get into the texture. I use a medium floor scrubbing brush. It's soft enough not to damage the tolex, but strong enough to scrub down in the grooves.
Ok, I just hit a spot with the easy-off. Works great! At first, the black paint came off, revealing white. I thought it was one of those rare white-tolex models (aren't there some?) but NO, It must be PRIMER! Soon enough, the ca-ca brown came through.
Only spot I might have to replace is the bottom. It's torn pretty bad in some spots.
Hope you took before and after pic's !
In thirty year's of refurbishing amp's i've had to do this a bunch of time's and every time i did it i got a bunch more out of the amp.
As for as the cloth covering goes, you can forget trying to remove any paint from it, everything that i've tried, removed the dye from the cloth along with the paint, and I have used coffie and tea to age the new Gille cloth for the those that wanted it !
Johnhenry
Well that's cool! I use barbecue cleaner for a lot of things but I wouldn't have thought of using it for paint stripper. Now I have something in my arsenal between slings and arrows (light duty solvents like charcoal lighter) and big guns (like nasty ol' aircraft stripper that will take everything off including the tolex).
Save some money, too. I'll bet even with all the scrubbing it will be less work to clean the old tolex than to strip it and recover it. It will be more original.
