{"id":4357,"date":"2011-07-29T11:14:54","date_gmt":"2011-07-29T15:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gad.net\/Blog\/?p=4357"},"modified":"2011-07-29T11:14:54","modified_gmt":"2011-07-29T15:14:54","slug":"1963-fender-bassman-face-lift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gad.net\/Blog\/2011\/07\/29\/1963-fender-bassman-face-lift\/","title":{"rendered":"1963 Fender Bassman Face Lift"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As I wrote in, How to Capture Brian Setzer’s Tone<\/a>, I bought a 1963 Fender Bassman head in my quest for tonal nirvana. In a further attempt to deliver the goods, I bought a barely used Mojoton 2×12 cabinet. Though this combination sounded good, it looked like it had been pieced together from parts sourced on Ebay and online classifieds which, of course, it had.<\/p>\n

I’m far too obsessive to let mismatched components coexist under my care, so I did what any obsessive nerd would do. I set out to completely change everything.<\/p>\n

The cabinet I’d bought was designed to look like an original 1963 Fender Bassman cabinet, which was cool and all, but I’ve never been a fan of the all-blonde look. What really does it for me is the blonde\/oxblood combination found on the earlier 1962 Bassmans. Though my amp wouldn’t be historically accurate, I thought this combination would look killer, so I set out to get what I needed in order to make my vision a reality.<\/p>\n

New Mojo Head Cabinet<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>The first step was easy, or at least it should have been. I ordered a new head shell from Mojo Musical Supply<\/a>\u00a0in matching Blonde tolex and oxblood cloth. Since the cabinet was from Mojo, the tolex was a perfect match for my cabinet. It should have been easy because I thought that the amp chassis should have just slid right in. I was wrong.<\/p>\n

For reasons that I can’t fathom, Mojo ships these head cabinets without mounting holes. That meant I had to figure out where the holes should be and drill them myself. I’m no carpenter, so that proved to be a bit of a challenge for me. I measured probably 38 times, drilled my holes, and managed to get it right, but it was a pain. Threading the long bolts through the chassis is not a fun job to begin with since one of them is almost completely obscured by the transformer. Suffice to say the chassis is in the new cabinet and it looks great. As I would come to learn, that was the easy part after all.<\/p>\n

New Grill for the Mojo Speaker Cabinet<\/h3>\n

Next I needed to replace the grill on the speaker cabinet. That seemed simple enough, but again my optimism was misguided. I learned some tips and tricks with my Google-Fu (which is strong) but as with most things in life, figuring out what knowledge was useful was a challenge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Since I was using all Mojo cabinets, making sure the grill cloth matched was as simple as ordering a couple yards of matching oxblood cloth. In order to get the old fabric off, I had to just about disassemble the entire speaker cabinet. Since this is a closed back cabinet, the the back is held on with 480,000 screws. Luckily I have power tools and a 10-year-old who likes to help. If you have a similar cabinet, be careful when you take the back off. The speaker jack on the back panel is wired to one of the speakers with a length of wire that is far too short. If you pull the back off and put it on the ground, you’ll likely yank the wire leads right off the speaker, possibly damaging those leads in the process.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Inside the speaker cabinet I found another six thousand screws (18 really), but these bad boys had a special head that a regular phillips or flat-head screwdriver wouldn’t budge. After a couple of trips to the hardware store, I figured out that I needed a #2 square bit. Naturally I now have a set of #1, #2 and #3 square bits. In my defense, it’s not like I could take the whole speaker cabinet to the hardware store with me. My Google-Fu is strong. My arms, not so much. Since these screws are deep inside the cabinet, and right against the edge, I also needed an extension for my drill. At least I was smart enough to get that on the first trip.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Once all these screws were removed, I was able to pick up the cabinet, leaving the speaker baffle on the floor. Since I needed to remove the speakers, I inverted the cabinet and put the baffle in the cabinet upside-down, which provided a nice little desk to work on the speakers. After carefully removing the speaker wires (I’ve pulled the wire braid right out of the cone in the past – these terminals are far more fragile than they look), and four nuts for each speaker, I was able to remove the speakers and put them in a safe place. With the speakers out of the way, I removed the Fender badge from the front, and carefully stored the screws. I was now ready to tackle the worst part of this job: removing the existing speaker grill.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On every speaker baffle I’ve ever seen, the speaker grill is secured\u00a0by countless staples. Every single one of these staples must be removed. Every… single… one. There is no easy way to do this that I’ve found, and to address the inevitable question, no, a staple remover will not work. These are not office staples keeping homework together; these are upholstery staples that have been pounded into plywood with a pneumatic stapler. I found that an old chisel worked best. Any tool that’s tough, but with a sharp edge and a right angle should do the trick. I got into a rhythm that went something like this:<\/p>\n