1972 Traynor 2x15 cabinet

We recently acquired this cabinet for the arsenal and it arrived infused with a thick coating of nicotine and THC ~ and smell to go with it!  It's missing the Traynor badge, but the screws alone are a tell-tale sign of where it was made.  Only in Canada would a manufacturer use Robertson-head screws!









Equipped with a pair of Marsland 15" ceramic magnet speakers, which give it a super clean, fat tone with a throaty midrange.  The design was originally for bass, but many guitar players have found these speakers quite excellent for Fender-type amp tones with single coil guitars.



We disassembled the cabinet completely for cleaning.  A good scrub-down of warm soapy water did the trick and the brown sludge that resulted was used for weed control in the garden!  It cleaned up very nicely and now has a great road-worn look, plus it no longer smells like Keith's tour bus.  The grille-cloth on these 70's amps is much easier to clean than old tweed style cloth from earlier generations that used cotton as a main material.  Regardless, it still requires special care.

A spray bottle filled with 4 parts hot water, 1 part white vinegar and a few drops of scented mineral oil (to dull the smell of the vinegar) works very well.  Just make sure to remove the speakers first!  With the entire baffle removed, the grille-cloth was sprayed liberally then very gently scrubbed with a soft bristle brush.  We then used a shop-vac to remove all excess water and repeated the process twice more.  Huge difference!  Before and after pics below show the same area of the cloth.  Left in the sun to dry, it took on a classic vintage patina that didn't look stained at all.  This will sure look and sound great under our '69 silverface Bandmaster Reverb!










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Broken potentiometer shafts

Here's a Les Paul who's owner prefers the look of Tele Custom style volume & tone control knobs.  Not a bad option until a while later they go wobbly and off-centre because they're a set-screw, solid shaft type that don't fit properly over the typical splined shaft of a Les Paul or Strat.  Once removed, the two tone control shafts were broken as a result of the set screw and the volume controls were obviously destined for the same result.

In order to keep the original controls intact ~ and to have the guitar ready for a fast approaching gig ~ a workable solution had to be found.  The intact volume shafts were an easy fix/mod.  Inserting a 1/16" piece of metal cut to fit the gap in the splined shaft is an effective repair that is easily reversible.  You can see how the lop-sided knob has dug in to the maple cap, which won't be a factor after this.  For the tone controls pictured above, however, I had to think outside the box...

It needed a small piece of sculpted 3/16" diameter steel rod to complete the missing 2/3 of the shaft, effectively making it a solid shaft.  Where to find such a thing without driving across town to the industrial metal supply store to ask for scrap?  Peg Board hangers!  They are the exact diameter required and also have a protective coating that prevents corrosion.  The added bonus is the little blue rubber ends ~ they fit perfectly snug over the 9v adapter cable train to stop shorting out of the unused terminals of my pedalboard.  For a package that was less than $2CDN at the local hardware store, this is a great find!

After some persuasion with a hacksaw, vice grips,  sander, file and some super glue, the solid shaft was established.  Granted, this can't be used with the original knobs but for this particular instrument it's all about function and less about fuss!

Travelling Tone Lab

Hello everyone!

We've recently taken the Tone Lab on the road and will be working on some great projects in the near future.  Some wonderful things developing with Birchway Sound and our partners that we look forward to telling you all about, so stay tuned for updates.  Also, if you would like to read about or see the occasional picture of our ongoing guitar repair work, please follow us on Twitter @Birchway_Sound.

Our friends at guitartonetalk.com were kind enough to post an article by our resident Luthier which can be read here:
http://www.guitartonetalk.com/2013/07/22/tone-vs-feel-the-importance-of-a-good-setup/
Some excellent reading through the whole site and we look forward to providing articles for them in the future.

Any suggestions, ideas, rants or bad jokes related to music, bands or guitar work are always welcome!  Please drop us a line at BirchwaySound@gmail.com