Amp finishing

[DarkPenguin]

So,

I put together a tube depot tweed deluxe kit amp a while back.  Instead of buying the kit with the tweed cabinet I bought a pine cabinet separately.  I had 0 expectations of the amp powering on after I put it together so I didn't want to waste the money on a cab that would be nothing more than a monument to my ineptitude.  But it worked perfectly and suddenly I had to find a cabinet.

Anyways, I bought a lovely pine cab from some ebay dude.  Pretty thing.  Bigger than the one I would have bought.  Amp sounds great.  But funny thing pine.  Can't take a knock at all.  Clearly stain with wipe on poly is no match for even a fingernail.

How should I finish this thing?  Keep laying on wipe on poly?  Spray it on?  I've a harbor freight lvhp (some combination of those letters) thing I need to try.  Give up and cover it with tolex?  It doesn't need to take a ton of abuse but it does move around.

Thoughts?

Highly recommend the tube depot tweed deluxe.  Great sounding once you understand the controls.  Put a eminence maverick speaker in it.  Lovely.  If only that speaker fit in my blues Jr I'd have one in there, too.

 

[Cagey]

Pine is a soft wood. You could put an epoxy finish on there and it would still dent/scratch/gouge easily. That's why many enclosures are made of Birch plywood, although some are made of pine ply, but in either case they get covered in something. Usually Tolex, but at least something like that. I've seen some that use that plastic stuff they spray in truck beds as a liner - that's very durable, but I'm not sure it's a DIY option. Sometimes you'll see indoor/outdoor carpeting used. That works well, unless you have cats.

 

[drewfx]

If I remember correctly, I used 10 coats of wipe on poly on the pine 1x15 cab I bought. It's definitely fingernail resistant, but I wouldn't take it gigging or anything like that:

 

[DarkPenguin]

I'll give the wipe on poly another dozen coats.  I need to redo the grill cloth anyways.  After that I'll do tolex if I'm still not happy with it.

 

[fdesalvo]

I love the 5E3 circuit.  If you want a tighter bottom end, sub in a 5V4 rectifier.  You can also reduce the size of the first two coupling caps in the preamp for less woof if so desired.  GREAT circuit!!

 

[DarkPenguin]

I love it the way it is.  Such a dirty amp.

 

[fdesalvo]

So nice with P90 bridge pickups, too.  Oh, she dirty!  :icon_biggrin:

 

[DarkPenguin]

I have a ridiculous coat of poly on there.  Put on a bit thick but it is definitely more damage resistant than it was.

Now if only I could get the grill cloth on even...