Advice please

[Oddkid]

I've searched the forum a bit and haven't been able to find anything about people building amps and speaker cabinets.

Basically, i'm interested in having a go at a bit of DIY. Well i say a bit. I would like to do the following:

1. Build a 1x12" Speaker cabinet as an extension for my JCM900 combo.

2. Build a 1 or 2 channel 60W Tubed amplifier head.

3. Build a second speaker cabinet (Hopefully 1x12") for the amp head.

4. Build a project guitar perhaps from a Perle body. I'm thinking 7 string Destroyer.

5. Build an original guitar from scratch.

6. Work with a friend to build a carbon fibre guitar

Now you guys might remember i mentioned the carbon fibre guitar when i first signed up here That's still very much in the works. There's a lot of preparation to go before that's a reality though so it'll be the last thing i tackle. I think the first and easiest project will be an extension cabinet for the JCM.

So the cabinet first. Has anyone done this before? I envision building a wooden cabinet and cladding it in perhaps some sort or vinyl. Then fixing one 12" speaker in there and hooking it to a jack input and finishing it with a pair of handles and a cloth front. Is there anything else i need? Do cabinets need power supplies or any other resistors or anything?

I know its possible to get hold of amp kits but has anyone here built anything? Again this will be an ongoing project, i'm not expecting to knock one out in an afternoon. As far as i know, the kits seem to be single channel jobs, whats the take on dual channel ones?

Guitar wise, i'm looking at perle guitars to start with, i have an idea about what i want to make. At the minute it's intended to be a back up to my JRV but its also intended to be a learning exercise for later projects. I'm struggling to find a 7 string neck though, so i'm unwilling to commit to the project yet.

Has anyone got any advice they could share with me please?

 

[Swyse]

I've never built anything for speakers or cabs, so I can't help there much, but in my experience as long as the ohms of the speaker match the ohms you amp needs then all you need is some wire and a jack(or old speaker cable you want to sacrifice I suppose).

I've done up a kit guitar and a parts guitar in my time. The kit guitar was a GFS kit and it wasn't worth what I paid for it. It wasn't possible to intonate it and it had piss poor quality everything. The parts guitar I did was a mahogany tele body from ebay, hardware from GFS (side note: if anyone gets the locking tuners from there be aware that the locking function sometimes snaps strings) and a neck from Turner Bob, who has an ebay store as well as custom necks available to order. My neck from Turner Bob was only like $110 and I certainly got what I paid for but just that, what I paid for. It was nice, but it didn't blow my mind. I believe he said he can do 7 string necks, but last I checked he couldn't do anything but 25.5 scale.

I've heard mostly good things about Nate Perle's work. Your best bet is to get a RG7621 or RG7620 neck for the iceman body, but if you want something a bit fancier the member Djohns74 has made a couple nice looking things for members on here.

For amp kits, I can't comment specifically on amps, but I've built an OD from a kit from modkitsdiy.com and the instructions were well made and I was done making it in under an hour. It was the thunderdrive kit. They have a couple of amp kits, but I only think they offer 1 channel. Vostre Roy on here has purchased a kit from Weber amps, and has had a myriad of problems with it. Hopefully he has resolved them and can comment more on amp kits.

 

[Oddkid]

It was the Modkits i was looking at actually. I was wondering how hard it would be to get the single channel kit and modify it.

 

[silent_k]

People have certainly built their own cabinets before -- you may need to do some searching outside of this forum (try the Telecaster forum, for example). Mojotone makes amp kits and sells parts, like Tolex covering material and grill cloth, etc. Their amp kits are only one channel, though. For speaker wiring, like Swyse already said, you have to match the impedance of the amp to that of the speaker and you'll be OK -- for speakers you might use on your stereo, where you have both woofers and tweeters in the same cabinet, you need a crossover network that can properly separate the frequencies for the different drivers.

You should look at Warmoth for a parts guitar, too. Yes, their stuff is more expensive than somewhere like GFS, but in my experience GFS products are garbage. As with everything else, you get what you pay for, so if you're going to do it, do it right. If you want to do the finishing yourself, a basic Warmoth neck and body won't be cheap but will be reasonable for what you get (I see right now that they have a beautiful, unfinished 7-string body with a quilted maple top for $255).

 

[Swyse]

^ Great point on warmoth, every warmoth customer I've talked to has been very satisfied, which is certainly not the case with GFS.

 

[Oddkid]

Cheers for the info. I have eyed up warmoth before i'll give them another look in.

Mojotones eh? I'll have a good browse of that.

I had heard that i need to make sure i match up the speaker properly. I'll work out what i need them. Reckon i can do a cab in a day if i focus!