My DC-5 is now orange!

[blacklight_uk]

CAVEAT: IF YOU ARE SCARED OF SEEING MESA/BOOGIES IN ANY COLOUR OTHER THAN BLACK, PLEASE AVERT YOUR ATTENTION NOW AS THIS WILL LIKELY MAKE YOU CRY AND WANT TO VOMIT.

Now for us non-purists, a little treat

This took me 4 or 5 hours over the course of 2 days and cost me about £35 in total

It's not as clean as a professional job but i think it looks alright. The important thing is that now it has MOJO :lol:

 

[Setzer]

Nice tidy job,well done!

Is this your first attempt at recovering an amp? because if it is you should be well chuffed with the outcome as it looks great.

Same model of DC-5 as mine too.

 

[edward]

Very nice work! Congrats, and great match with the Orange

Edward

 

[Exdeath]

Neat. I plan to stick mine in a vanilla taurus headshell in the future - white/cream amps look really cool.

 

[blacklight_uk]

Thanks guys

Yep my first go at this kind of thing so i am pretty happy

 

[fsmith]

Looks great!!! I like it.

Any pics showing the process? I've always been curious about stripping the original tolex and recovering. I have a cab that I'd like to recover.

How did you strip the old?
What did you use to glue on the new?

thanks for any insight.

fred

 

[MJ Slaughter]

Nice! I really like the different colors when I see them on great amps like this but I find it hard to commit to a color other than black. You're not afraid to stand out from the pack where I'm just a conformist.

Was it hard to get the grill on? I know they use what looks like thousands of staples to hold it on the grill frame.

 

[Griz]

Nothing ryhmes with orange. :lol:

 

[blacklight_uk]

Yeah haha the grill was the most frustrating part of the process. I didn't have an unpicker handy so i had to do it all with a flat headed screwriver. It took about 3 hours solid to get all the staples out and i ended up cutting myself loads. Good.

I don't know if i'd do it agin. I'm happy with the result but it really was a lot of work. Getting rid of the old glue was very difficult too as i didn't have any solvent handy.

 

[jerseydrew]

Looks really good!!!

 

[fsmith]

GTS,
Thanks for the tips. I'll try and find those pics and maybe give it a shot.

 

[blacklight_uk]

Yeah man GTS is pretty much the master here! One tip i'd give you though is when you strip the old tolex you'll notice there are two layers to it. One is the bit you see on the outside and underneath is a sort of mesh lining. Make sure you don't seperate the layers when you strip the tolex no matter how appealing it is to pull off a whole strip in one go! It's like pulling off a sticker and leaving bits of it stuck on. Getting it off after is the biggest PITA in the world!

If you're struggling to pull the tolex off don't force it because you'll seperate the layers. Take a hair dryer (or a heat gun if you want to be manly) to it and it should just peel away.

Also measure everything exactly as it just makes life easier. Draw on in pencil on the back of the tolex where you need to make cuts and folds and then all you need to do is get the glue on and stick it down. Use a wide paint brush for the glue too as you want to get it on quickly before it dries completely. You should apply it liberally to both the wood and the tolex and then wait for it to dry a bit before sticking it down. Make sure you stretch the tolex taught before sticking it down, then go over it with a rolling pin to make sure it's flat. It'll bubble up and look awful but that's just the tolex reacting to the glue and as it dries it'll go flat again and tighten up.

One other thing - corner protectors. The ones on mine were a real pain and i had to cut them off and replace them. If you want to keep the ones in there i'd ask somebody else how to do it. I just got frustrated and went at them with a hammer and a stanley knife!

Hope some of that helps, sorry i don't have any pics of the process.