Feb 28, 2016 – By: jhs5150

…yearning to rock free (once again.)

Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you get really lucky.

I had been looking off and on for a Marshall Dual Super Lead amp from 2000s because I had heard really good things about them. It turns out they were Marshall’s best selling amp of all time: so popular that they have now reissued them. The DSL 100h is being made with many of the same features as the original that was made from 1998 to 2007. Sure, I could have bought a new reissue for around $900 and had seen them on Craigslist already for between $600 and $800 dollars but I didn’t want a reissue. I wanted a genuine, made in England DSL 100. And so the hunt began…

Towards the end of January there was a huge snowstorm that dumped one to three feet of snow in my part of the country.  That Friday, because the storm was not due to start until the evening I had put in a full eight hours. I got home and on a lark, I looked through the local Craigslist ads. I saw an ad something to the effect of “Marshall DSL 100 Amp” for what I considered a very low price. It turns out it was listed by a pawn shop in south Jersey and they had just reduced the price to get it sold and it was originally $125 dollars more. I thought; “pawn shop deals – do they really exist? There have been tons of stories about Gibson Les Pauls found in pawn shops in the 1960s that people got for ridiculously good prices back then, most seemed too good to be true and I seemed destined to find out. I went on to read the description that said: “carry strap missing, no foot switches, reverb not working and some tears in the Tolex.” I viewed the pictures of the amp and sure enough it was a vintage DSL, not a Vietnamese import and at that price none of the problems were a factor to me. I thought that except for the reverb, if it was in working condition I could fix the rest. It was after five on a Friday night. I called the number on the ad and it being after business hours I didn’t expect anyone to answer and they didn’t. I figured I would call them on Saturday to inquire about the amp but wait, there’s that snowstorm thing. Would they even be open on Saturday? I called on Saturday morning during the snowstorm, somehow thinking someone might be there to field my questions about the amp. Of course they should have been closed but I didn’t care; I was on a quest. I called to no avail — sure enough they were closed.  My quest would have to wait at least one more day.  I ventured out on Saturday night as a test, returning a movie and to see what the roads were like – passable but not in the greatest shape. Hopefully the roads would be cleared by the next day.

I awoke on Sunday to find a foot of snow on the ground and up to three feet of it in drifts in front of my garage. I had serious digging out to do and my thoughts of trying to drive to check out a used amplifier were pushed to the back of my mind. I had prepped for the snow, going out twice after the storm had started to keep up with it using my snow blower. The snow was blowing horizontally though; so much so that most of the cars got little or no snow accumulation on them, which is a rarity around here. I dug out for the third time — all the while wondering if the roads would be cleared the next day for me to go to work, or would work be closed so I could go and check out the amp? The more I thought about it I realized that the snowstorm could work to my advantage. I figured if someone else was interested in the amp then they would have run into the same problems as I had. I decided I would go in late to work and make the hour drive South and hope they were open that day.

Monday came, I texted my co workers, telling them I would be in about 2 hours late due to the storm (heh, heh.) I got in my truck, loaded the address into my phone’s GPS and headed south. The roads were in fairly good shape, I had no problems making my way down to the pawn shop. I drove right past it because it was in what looked like one of those suburban bank buildings and I was looking for a pawn shop, not a bank. I realized I had passed it, turned around and made it to the location. It looked open but I really couldn’t tell. I pulled into the drive and realized their lot hadn’t even been plowed yet.  “Damn”, I thought; “was I even going to make it in to look at the amp?” So here I am in the parking lot, trying to make it around the corner to get to the front of the building and I’m getting stuck in a foot of snow. I wasn’t going to be denied.  I popped the trusty Explorer into four wheel drive and powered my way to the front of the shop.  At last, I saw someone out there putting salt on the sidewalk. I asked “are you open?” He said he was — Cool!  I parked my truck in the handicapped spot closest to the door (after all, who’s gonna call a cop in the snow?) and made my way in. At first I didn’t see it and thought “Damn, it’s gone.” I asked at the counter about it and a gentleman named Nick said “it’s right over there.” In my excitement I had completely missed it on the left, behind the counter as I came in.  I asked if I could look at it.  He put it up on the counter. It was as-advertised: a little worn looking, no handle but the knobs were all there along with the plastic Marshall logo (it’s a sheer sign an amp had been battered – if the logo is broken and/or some knobs were missing and it was neither) and except for some small tears in the covering (Tolex) it looked pretty decent. I asked if we could hook it up and he agreed. It had been sitting on top of a 15-inch bass speaker cabinet and that was the only thing we could have plugged it into to test. Nick supplied an electric ”nonami’” guitar (my word for a non-name branded guitar) and I plugged it in. Sure enough, it was making guitar noises. I ran through the various tone knobs and controls. It was all there, except the reverb. I had checked the price of reverb units online before driving down to see the amp. A new one would have cost $35 bucks and if that was all that was wrong with it then it was a small price to pay. It was mine for the taking. I tried to negotiate a price but he was firm on it so I said I would agree to that if they wouldn’t charge me sales tax. They agreed so I knew this was going to be an “under the counter” sale but there was no warranty so I didn’t care and so they wrote it up and I carried it out the door. I got to work and finished out my day. At the end of the day I showed one of my co-workers the amp as it laid in the back of my Explorer, face up. He was a gadget guy so I knew he would appreciate it (it was a big gadget) and he did.

I got it home that night and the first thing I did was to try and find out why the reverb didn’t work. Guitar amps and some upright organs use what’s called a “spring reverb unit” or “tank” as some like to call it. I thought maybe it might be a simple fix. I took the back off of the amp and found the reverb tank mounted to the inside of the amp on the back of the wooded plate that the logo is attached to.

As soon as I got it out flipped it over and found that the two long springs that create the reverb effect were supposed to be suspended by a spring in each corner. Well, one of the springs had broken where it is attached to the housing. I thought: “it couldn’t be this easy. This little broken spring was the cause of the reverb not working?” I stretched out the bottom of the spring to make a new loop and re-hooked it to the housing and voila’, I was finished – but would it work? I hooked everything back up, plugged it in and the amp was now fully functional – on to the next issue.

When I bought the amp I wasn’t sure whether I was going to “fix and flip” it or keep it. I really hadn’t thought about it. I got it so cheap I think I could have easily made $300 if I fixed what was wrong and put it right back on Craigslist but when I started looking I was really thinking in terms of buying it for myself and since I already had a ’82 Anniversary Series JCM8OO 50-Watt amp and cabinet that came in white Tolex, wouldn’t it be cool since the Tolex and front grille cloth were already torn in spots (not to mention what looked like mold below the logo) to strip the coverings off and re-cover it “anniversary style”? The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.

And so it began. I made a list of parts I would need from the various suppliers –

• White tolex
• 800-style grille cloth
• Carry handle
• Corner rivets
• Gold piping
• Tolex glue

I didn’t even know if these parts were available but it turns out they were. I would be reusing the feet, the logo, the bottom shielding plate and the vents — everything else except the box and the chassis would be new. I managed to source most of the parts from one source – tubesandmore.com. The Tolex I got on Ebay from a supplier who was actually pretty close to where I lived. I planned to re-use the corner edge guards (but ended up ordering new ones later). For the glue I bought some Weldwood contact cement from Home Depot but being on a budget and finding two unused cans of them I decided to use some 3M spray adhesive I had around the house and return the contact cement (at first anyway; more on that later.)

I began to disassemble the amp. I removed the black plastic vents at the top of the amp that clip into place, then I removed the corner guards and the rivets holding them down. I then stripped off the old Tolex using a heat gun and removed the shielding plate from the bottom on the inside of the amp. So, after a few hours worth of work I now had this:

Now for the hard parts: Using the old tolex as a template, I cut a new piece of white Tolex. Using a can of spray adhesive I began applying the glue to the box and the vinyl itself, one side at a time until all four sides were covered. I carefully cut the Tolex to cover the corners, trying to match the way they were done in the factory. After trial and error I decided to do the rear corners and clamp them in place overnight, then do the front corners in the morning after the rears had dried. I brought the box in the house because it was getting cold outside where I had been working. I left it on the dining room table (it’s a good thing I’m single or there would have been Hell to pay) and went to a movie. When I got home that night I realized the glue wasn’t holding as well as I thought. So I decided that glue wasn’t working and would go to Plan B – the Weldwood glue. Since half a day had now been wasted on Saturday I would be spending Sunday fixing the problem. The new glue held much better but I hadn’t reapplied it to the spots I had already glued down, except the corners. I got it all glued down and clamped.

By this time I had been working on this rehab for two weekends and I wanted to get it finished. I started working on it on weeknights so I could have it done and move on to other things but then a funny thing happened on the way to cabinet rehab. When I reinstalled the vents and the new handle the Tolex had started to bubble — it was a sure sign that the glue I had used originally was not going to harden and it would not look professional, the way I wanted it to. I gently lifted the Tolex up from of all the places I hadn’t re-glued before, re-glued them and set 2x4s and 10lb. weights on them to keep everything flat overnight. In the morning it was all looking good – I could finally move on and get the rest of the cabinet finished.

I had decided that the old corner guards were not going to look as good as the rest of the amp was with the new Tolex on so I ordered a new set from tubesandmore.   I installed the corners and the new rivets, the vents, the feet and wow — this thing was starting to look like something!

After removing all of the staples holding the grille cloth from the backing board and removing the piping, I gave the backing board a wipe down with alcohol to remove/kill any mold that might still have been on it and gave it a quick shot of flat black paint. I also gave the front and rear of the chassis a wipe down with a mild degreaser. A total of four hours later I had the grille cloth, the piping and the logo affixed to the front panel. I screwed the panel in, installed the reverb tank to the back of it, reinstalled the chassis and back cover and… are you ready?

Voila’

Before and after

It was a lot of work, but it was also a labor of love and a LOT of fun. I was hoping for good results and this came out better than I could have imagined. I now have another “anniversary” model to go with my 800 – a 100 Watt, two channel amp to compliment my 50 watter. I guess you can still find some pawn shop deals if you are at the right place at the right time.

Now if only I had a matching speaker cab…