So this happened.... Excelsior "mod"

[simonhpieman]

Once upon a time I had a beautiful Fender Excelsior amp. It was covered in a lovely chocolate coloured vinyl and I looked after it very carefully, never gigging it and keeping it safely tucked away with the intention of later selling it.

Then, one day, I got 2 cats. The cats were beautiful and friendly but thought they fucking well owned the place and scratched my beautiful Excelsior to shreds. Relicing in the worst possible way.

After avoiding my Excelsior altogether and getting particularly depressed about its appearance, and with my DeVille crackling more than ever ahead of a pretty important show I got a bit upset and sat in front of some terrible Channel 4 OCD cleanliness documentary and did this with my bare hands:





I was going to spray it white but it would probably just get badly dinged up. Oddly, I've had more compliments about it since I did this but I'm not convinced entirely.

What I will say is that 62 AVRI Jag with flatwounds + this = absolute tone heaven. Makes the "dark" setting come alive with every control change on the guitar making such a huge difference.

[davewrites]

Not a problem that 50' of Duct Tape couldn't solve!

[simonhpieman]

You sound like the sort of man I could work with and I would like to read your pamphlet or sign up to your newsletter.

[rumfoord]

I like it! But I know what you mean about not being convinced. My first gut reaction was pretty positive, and then I could feel it decrease slightly as a I realized what I was looking at was mdf (weird. ..frickin' psychology).

But, (in a good way) it looks kind of like an industrial concrete building. Maybe in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. My feeling is that it would look better with the badge removed and replaced with something else (not sure what) that would kind of tie it all together (depending on your personal style). Anyway, lol, I do mean all this in a good way kind of way.

[NoiseNoiseNoise]

Paint it in a disruptive pattern grey.

[PixMix]

So what is it? How did you do this? It does look like artificial rock, concrete, or something along those lines.

I had an Excelsior that I liked a lot, but ended up trading it for a 1974 Vibro Champ. I really liked Excelsior's big sparkling clean tones. I think I might still have somewhere a Bill M tone mod that I ordered, and it took forever to arrive, so by the time it came I had already traded the amp.

[mackerelmint]

looks like dirty MDF to me.

[Tree's]

[UlricvonCatalyst]

I think the duct tape idea sounds okay, or you could do a Jim Lambie with different-coloured insulating tape, kind of like Ben's multi-coloured scratchplate.

I have to say I'm not in the 'don't change a thing' camp.

[simonhpieman]

So what is it? How did you do this? It does look like artificial rock, concrete, or something along those lines.

Mackerel is right - it's what the amp looks like underneath the vinyl. I just ripped the vinyl off (angrily and with my bare hands over the course of an hour or two) and this is exactly what was underneath - warts'n'all. It's still a bit tacky to the touch from all the glue that's left and any whiter areas you can see is where the glue has filled the little holes in the MDF.

The amp's going to be out gigging an awful lot so anything I do to it short of getting it re-covered is probably going to be pretty pointless as paint and things will just chip off really easily. It's also used for a function band and I can't be seen to be turning up with something covered in gaffa tape at a wedding, for example, as much as I love the DIY thinking behind that!

If anyone's got any better suggestions of what I can do quickly, cheaply and easily I'm all ears, although it doesn't offend me as it is. At the end of the day, it's just an amp - a box that sound comes out of. Imagine painting your hi-fi? (Do people still have hi-fis?!)

[Despot]

I feel that I have to address the elephant in the room here - none of this addresses the true problem; the two cats.

The appropriate response should have been to have them incarcerated in your local death row (aka animal shelter) in response to their wanton vandalism.

Because they know (THEY KNOW) what they're doing. And they don't care. A strong stand needs to be taken, for the sake of all. Cats cannot be allowed to build their power base through these seemingly small acts of aggression. Don't miss their bigger collective plan - to evolve opposable thumbs so as to rule us all!!

[rumfoord]

I keep threatening my cats with these if they can't be more careful with the couch:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NC2P9BP/re ... 5324202444


A crazy idea might be some sort of laquered decoupage---if you can think of something classy to use. Oh, also, obviously if there's weddings involved you should just use white duct tape.

Sorry, I'm rolling the jokes in here with semi-serious suggestions. But one more thing is I feel like I remember reading somewhere about some kind of aerosol rubberized spray that looks like tolex...used on bass cabs sometimes?? maybe it's the same stuff they put on truck beds??? I can't seem to find it, but maybe these vague thoughts will spark someone to link to something actually useful.

[PixMix]

Since you mentioned decoupage, many moons ago I "finished" this $30 thrift shop find in a decoupage sort of thing. I used a thin top coat of epoxy, and that's really hard and durable. Of course, you wouldn't have to use the same ugly color I did.

[Con-Tiki!]

Since you mentioned decoupage, many moons ago I "finished" this $30 thrift shop find in a decoupage sort of thing. I used a thin top coat of epoxy, and that's really hard and durable. Of course, you wouldn't have to use the same ugly color I did.

actually, that looks cool.
color is perfect.