Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I have a near mint '65 AC30 Super Reverb Twin. This is a dual cabinet model with an 'angled head' and a 2-12" speaker cabinet in a roll around trolley. It's a gray panel model with built-in 'top boost' and black diamond grille cloth. The only issue involves the grille cloth on the speaker cabinet. It has a nasty major snag/tear in the center. The head cloth is perfect. I can't locate any cloth that is an exact match. The current black cloth has a greenish tint to the diamond pattern, whereas this cloth looks goldish. Should I recover both cabinets with the black diamond cloth that's available or should I leave it 'as is'? Should I recover both cabinets in the current brown diamond cloth? Any ideas?

Could you use black thread and sew the tear back together good enough to save the older black w/gold cloth and still look good?

John: No, the tear is about 3" wide. It runs across the diamond pattern, so the gold/red/silver threads are all pulled loose in this area. It's a real shame because otherwise the whole rig looks just as shiny and nice as my my new AC30CC2 rig. I've owned the '65 model since '81. It was torn when I got it.

I would try to repair the original cloth first. Look on eBay for beat cabs or original cloth that you can salvage a piece from.

I would carefully remove your original torn cloth and by following the diamond patterns, have a professional seamstress sew in a patch to carefully match. You will be able to see that a patch was done afterwards but it will still look great and be more of value than a new regrill job.