Tuck and Roll

[johnallg]

I'm thinking I need a 15" cab and your handiwork looks so professional. I drew up plans for a 2 x 12" cab (ran the parameters through a program) and had all the parts collected to make the cabinet, but it's never gone farther than that. I looked for multi-ply plywood (Baltic especially) around here but all I found was a marine grade with tight plys and no voids, but then lost steam. Oh, and I was just going to paint black.

[teb]

The next one will be a folded horn, like my old Sunn cabinets, but with a 15" speaker instead of an 18" Cerwin Vega (I already have four amps and these days never play anyplace but in my office - I think there may be something seriously wrong with me...) I found some plans that were worked out by people who actually know something about audio stuff and they're very similar to the old Sunn horns, but smaller.

http://www.speakerplans.com/index.php?id=domhd15

Surprisingly, I found 4'x8' sheets of 3/4" Baltic Birch at a local home improvement store and waited for plywood to go on sale. I think a sheet of it cost me something like $57.00. I bought the chrome corners, the jack plate, side-handles and grille cloth from a store on eBay, the wheels from the same home improvement store and the "Tolex" (or something very similar and quite close to the texture on the old Acoustic head) at a fabric store that sells a lot of upholstery fabric. The covering job wasn't anywhere near as tedious as I thought it might be. I used water-based contact cement (no smell or dangerous fumes and you have the ability to reposition things a bit) yet once dry it sticks very well. Corners cover any minor sins that might happen as you learn to cut those little mitres in the Tolex.

The plan:



Covering:


Finished!


All in all, it's a nice weekend project if you enjoy building stuff.

Maybe for the ultimate "history of rock and roll combo" I'll build a Sunn-style horn cab, and do it tuck and roll - but with tweed! Then we can start a "world's ugliest amp" thread!

[pflash4001]

I still have my Dad's old 70's Kustom 250. It used to have a 2 15 cabinet, but that was stolen years ago. I'd love to find another one of those cabs...

[mgrendel2]

My first bass amp was a kustom 100 watt black t&r head and a fender 2 15 bottom. I had no problem with keeping up with 2 guitars and a drummer.Those were the days.

[rictified]

Kustom made a 3 15" bass amp with separate head, was very tall. I saw a band here in 1969 use one with a Fender V bass, talk about some bucks nowadays, sounded OK although the Kustom was distorted. They were all the rage during the early 70's here. Whole bands used them. They were a fad however. Ampegs and Marshalls came along and stole their thunder. Same thing with the Acoustics, they were another fad which didn't last too long, Alice Cooper used to tout them. 360's were fairly common for a while for bass, but sounded muffled due to their folded horn 1 18" design, were loud though from about 20' out and farther.

[blue330]

Yes, everybody used to have 3 Acoustic 360s- it was THE "coliseum" set-up: John Paul Jones and The James Gang come to mind. And Robbie Kreiger played guitar through them, on stage, anyway. You never see the old Acoustics anymore although I am pleased to say we recently played a couple of shows in Florida with a band who had a 360!
As for Kustom, I think these are still very useful amps. Our little club band uses a Kustom 150 with a 2 x 12" cabinet for the bass and it's plenty loud. And it has a fabulous "vibrato" effect, sort of like a Magnatone.

[bob_atherton]

The very first 4001 that I ever got to play was a used 1970 FG through a used late 60's Kustom 200 head through a black sparkle 2x15 cab.

Six months later in 1974 I bought a brand new 4001 for about the same money that they were asking for the other two. I know, I know....

[blue330]

Oops, I didn't mean to suggest that Robbie Kreiger played through 360s! I don't remember what those ones with the horns were called. I bet they'd really get your attention around 2KHz!

[johnallg]

"My first bass amp was a kustom 100 watt black t&r head and a fender 2 15 bottom. I had no problem with keeping up with 2 guitars and a drummer.Those were the days."

Mitch, that was my first rig too!

[rictified]

Yeah, I've seen pictures of The Doors with all Acoustic stuff including walls of 4 x 12 PA cabs with horns on top if I remember right.

[bard2dbone]

I had an Acoustic 360 rig for a while. And it was even while I had my 4003.

At one time or another I tried most of the cliche bass amps. But I generally got ones that weren't quite typical. My SVT had a weird distortion that I loved. Then I got it re-tubed and the tech got it back to its proper sound, which got rid of the sound that I liked.

My main memories of both the SVT and the 350 involve strained muscles. I liked the tone of the Bassman I had, but it was too underpowered to gig with. I like my current SWR rig pretty well.

But sometimes I miss that old 360 thump. It sounded 'okay' on stage. But about thirty feet out into the audience it was the voice of God.

[rictified]

I hated folded horn cabs, as you say they are very anemic up close, are great on very large stages although they have very little clarity and punch. Give me a correctly functioning SVT anyday, those are the voice of God everywhere in the room, haha!

[teb]

I loved my horn cabs, but though the head was an Acoustic, the cabs were Sunn 118's. I used them for everything from small clubs to big halls. They were crisp sounding from up close all the way to the back wall and I never seemed to suffer from any kind of close-up problems hearing myself, even playing fretless with no stage monitors. I keep watching for them and one of these days I'll find an old one to rebuild that's close enough that I don't have to ship it.

[ricnbacker]

I had a big T&R back in 79 or 80 before I got my Bassman. it was very loud and very cool.

[harleybacker]

+1 Tuck´n´roll fan
Kustom 3x15" box and Kustom 250 head
http://sweb.cz/frflanyi/Kustom.jpg