Thinking of cutting down one of my amps to a head. Any DIY folks with advice?

[la szum]

I have practiced cutting with my circular saw so many times and can never cut straight with it.

Yeah definitely use a guide against the shoe when using a circular saw. When I read Sawzall, I heard Skilsaw. Reciprocating saws are for quick, dirty, and dildos.

Yup. There are definitely some tricks of the trade you can use to get a table saw quality
cut with a circular saw. Most circular saws have an adjustable guide on them. You can
also use a straight edge of some sort and a couple of clamps and use that as your guide.

I have used the level and clamps method a bunch of times.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Seriously considering gluing 4 slats together and drilling holes to mount the head. Just want to eliminate how dumb a combo looks on a speaker cab.

Buy a fee 90 degree angle brackets and screw them together. Glue isn’t gonna hold without some sorta joint.

 

[Devin]

I need to do this to my 5150 2x12 behemoth

 

[JiveTurkey]

I need to do this to my 5150 2x12 behemoth

I wish Raf was here with some choice Samson combo pics

 

[Bob Zaod]

I decided I am going to build a chassis out of 2" Fir. Just havent decided if I am going to tolex it or or stain/poly the thing. My plans at this point do not include using it for gigs, but that could change. If I do, I want it to look good obviously. I have measured out everything and will be grabbing the lumber tomorrow. I am leaning towards just standard black tolex. I will use the handle and the feet from the combo chassis so that part is covered.

 

[Life Eats Life]

Practicing being in normalcy here fellas,
Bob, don’t start tearing that thing up.
That’s not some 3:30 am barfly tail man.
That’s far more trouble then it’s worth.
I do appreciate this mid-life mad scientist
ambition.
Remember Coyote Arm?
Well obviously you don’t.
I’m beginning to think you need an ass chewin’
from Sheriff Buford T Justice, yep.

 

[Bob Zaod]

Practicing being in normalcy here fellas,
Bob, don’t start tearing that thing up.
That’s not some 3:30 am barfly tail man.
That’s far more trouble then it’s worth.
I do appreciate this mid-life mad scientist
ambition.
Remember Coyote Arm?
Well obviously you don’t.
I’m beginning to think you need an ass chewin’
from Sheriff Buford T Justice, yep.

I've had more than my share of coyote dates haha

 

[Iron1]

My former Father in Law and I set about cloning a Mesa Lone Star cab about 3 years ago. We went to Lowes and bought some nice birch wood, then cut it to the dimensions (which, as mentioned above you can have Lowes do for you), screwed it all together and dropped a Black Shadow in it. The box came out great but doesn't sound like the Lone Star as we made it closed back and apparently the Black Shadow and closed back cabs don't get along.

But, making a box for the head is far easier since you don't need to worry about speaker holes, etc.

We were going to build a second one, but he unfortunately passed away a few months after we completed this one.

All that to say, building a box is pretty easy, as mentioned above.

 

[MadAsAHatter]

I decided I am going to build a chassis out of 2" Fir. Just havent decided if I am going to tolex it or or stain/poly the thing. My plans at this point do not include using it for gigs, but that could change. If I do, I want it to look good obviously. I have measured out everything and will be grabbing the lumber tomorrow. I am leaning towards just standard black tolex. I will use the handle and the feet from the combo chassis so that part is covered.

Good choice on building instead of trying to cut down the combo. In the end it'll look better and you'll have the combo shell intact if you ever want to put it back to original.

I've built several head shells and speaker cabs and it's pretty straight forward. I do have a couple of tips that may help along the way.

• Make sure to take the thickness of your covering (if you are covering it) when planning dimensions.
• You can go as simple or as fancy with the joints as you want, all will be sufficient. Of all the shells I've recovered, they all have used butt joints & glue. I've gone one step further on my builds and tack it together with brad nails.
• The headshell will likely not be tall enough to drill mounting holes for the chassis from the inside, unless you have a right angle drill/chuck attachment. Trying to locate the mounting holes directly from the outside of the shell may not line up exact. You may end up too far forward, back, etc. I've found the best way to locate the mounting holes is to make a paper template of the chassis, place it on the inside of the shell where you want it to sit and mark the holes. Then measure the hole location and transfer those measurements to the outside of the shell and drill.
• Tolex is just a brand, not a special material for wrapping amps and cabs. You can use any quality upholstery vinyl. That opens up more colors and designs to you. A reputable online fabric retailer I've personally bough from that has a good selection is BigZ Fabrics.
• There are several adhesives you can use, contact cement and spray glue being the most used. If the one's I've tried, I've found the Gorilla spray glue works best. I'll still put some staples in to hold the edges of the fabric down on the inside if the shell.
• This video series from Uncle Doug is probably the best on how to build and cover a shell. He's doing a small combo amp, but the same principles apply. He also uses finger joints, but as I mentioned in tip #2 you can use any type of joint you want.

Just to show off a couple of piece's I've done. The 3 Crate amps and KSR I only recovered. The rest are ones I built from scratch.

 

[laxu]

I am leaning towards just standard black tolex.

Noo, anything but that, please! Custom chassis should look like one! Even for standard tolex stuff there's plenty of more interesting options.