Rescued '61 Bassman

Rick Johnson · Post by **Rick Johnson** » 5 Jun 2014 8:32 am

Look what a friend of mine found in a pawn shop.
I restored the cabinet and my friend David Allen restored the electronics. This was a rewarding project
to see the amp back in its glory..

Rick

rickjohnsoncabinets.com

Dennis Russell · Post by **Dennis Russell** » 5 Jun 2014 9:47 am

Nice job on the restoration. I've got one of these. I bought it from my guitar teacher back in '79. Of course, back then it was used, not vintage. lol. I got the head and cabinet (12" tone ring with a replacement D-120F).

He had painted it black because nobody wanted a white amp in 70s (luckily he didn't go green fluorescent with the knobs and such). The first thing I did was try to strip the paint off, which was moderately successful.

It's a great amp. Simple and clean. And loud!

Rick Johnson · Post by **Rick Johnson** » 5 Jun 2014 10:53 am

Dennis
This was painted black too...couldn't
save the tolex.

Rick

rickjohnsoncabinets.com

mike nolan · Post by **mike nolan** » 5 Jun 2014 10:59 am

Nice Job! Any pictures of the guts before and after?

I recently put my '62 in a 15" combo cab. The head cab was painted black as well.... more evidence of guitarists being slaves to fashion.

Bill A. Moore · Post by **Bill A. Moore** » 5 Jun 2014 11:45 am

Did the green paint preserve the hardware?
Sure is a beauty now!

Rick Johnson · Post by **Rick Johnson** » 6 Jun 2014 3:28 am

I did take some pics prior to sending the chassis off. One thing I noticed when I stripped the paint off the
logo it appeared to be solid chrome not the brushed look. I put some vintage used corners back on it.

Rick

rickjohnsoncabinets.com

mike nolan · Post by **mike nolan** » 6 Jun 2014 11:07 am

That guy was really original.....

Howard Steinberg · Post by **Howard Steinberg** » 7 Jun 2014 4:11 am

In the early 70's I picked up a Bassman head of the same vintage (approx 1962 - rough tolex/brown grille). It had been painted black (badly). It took little to get it working right, but there was no way to clean up the tolex. At that time the correct covering was hard to impossible to locate. I found a solution that worked fabulously well. After getting as much of the black off as I could, I went to an artist supply store and found acrylic paint of the correct color. This type of paint adheres extremely well to the rough tolex. The head looked new after the paint job. I ended up trading it to a music store for a tweed deluxe. The owner of the store was surprised to hear that the cabinet was painted.