# Ceriatone Superlead headbox build



## Dutchie (Dec 4, 2011)

Hello gents...


Here a little topic on how I rehoused my amp this summer. In between work, kids and family stuff it took me 6 months to complete. Maybe you recognize it as an hour here and an hour there.


Bought a Ceriatone 100 watt superlead from a guy in Mississauga for a decent price. The seller build a pine box around the chassis that was ugly as hell. At least in my opinion. Shopping online for a nice head cabinet I soon realized that about $275 + shipping cost did not really fit into my budget. To keep my budget low I decided to give a crack at building one myself.


I do not have pictures of the entire process but it gives you enough visual as to how I did it.


The whole project cost me about $80 in materials. I bought my property with a couple buildings on it and one of them has lumber and plywood stored in it. I found some nice baltic birch that I decided to use.


Here we go....


This is how I bought the amp:




























It was a really clean and well built chassis by Nik at Ceriatone. The chassis was loose in the box and was sliding so time to change this...


Nice plywood. Very dense and heavy. Now I know that the original Marshall heads use 1/2 inch versus the 3/4 i have here but we'll see what we can do with this.











Made an old school drawing with measurements I made and found on the internet. Sorry no fancy CAD drawing here.











I have a picture frame clamp to make perfect 90 degree angles











Here is where we move the right one into the left one 











screws to hold dowels made and glued in




















The wood looks a little rough as it was painted white but that paint kept it from rotting and decay


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## bolero (Oct 11, 2006)

looks good so far! what tolex are you going to use?


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## Dutchie (Dec 4, 2011)

@ Bolero:

To keep the cost low for now I just went to Fabricland and bought some marine grade vinyl. Not a tough as Tolex but it worked for me. I will post the rest of the build today if I get the chance!


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## bzrkrage (Mar 20, 2011)

Dutchie said:


> @ Bolero:
> 
> To keep the cost low for now I just went to Fabricland and bought some marine grade vinyl. !


Yep, that's were the cherry swede 410 comes from.
Good job so far bud, look forward to seeing the rest.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk -& All Round Nice Guy.


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## Dutchie (Dec 4, 2011)

Here is the rest of the almost complete building diary...

As you can see that the little picture frame clamp did it's magic. I have nice level 90 degree corners









Then it was time to start on the front. I had a piece of 1/2 inch plywood kicking around with a little bow in it so I sat it over a few nights with weights on it to straighten it a little.









Drew out the outline and needed measurements









Cut, sanded the edges and fit. Perfect!









Here you can see some of the bracing I built in. It's just 3/4 pine board ripped on the table saw. Then glued and screwed.









With the top on









Up next I took black paper and traced the outline of the amp chassis. Since it is so heavy did not want to move it every time I wanted to test fit it. So I traced it, cut it out and taped it to the inside bottom. Aligning it perfect.









forstner for the rounded corners in the front baffle

















Cut out


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## Dutchie (Dec 4, 2011)

Cleaned the edges off with my rasp very gently. Some sanding and later routed a roundover on this (no pictures of this unfortunately). All pretty straightforward.

















Took a 3/4 (radius) bit and rounded over the whole cabinet in 3 passes per side to avoid tear out and burning the wood


















Here the round over is all done. I applied a little bit of filler here and there to sand and smooth everything out.

Front view








Rear view. As you can see I cut out the back panel as well for a fit








Side view








Next step was to paint the insides black so here is the head taped and painted black









Up next is routing the channels for the piping. I used a 1/8 inch ($8 @ Canadian tire) and my little laminate trimmer.

Here is the result


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## TeleToons (Aug 13, 2014)

That's looking great so far. Never tried piping before so going to be watching how you do it.

I've used leatherette/vinyl from the fabric store and it was fine, going to have to look into "marine grade". That sounds interesting


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## Dutchie (Dec 4, 2011)

Up Next is measuring and outlining the vinyl. I used a big square for this so that all my pieces are even.









All ready to be covered up!!









I used the following glue. It is low odor and water based. So it's easy to wash of your hands! But also once done you can wipe of all the excess glue with a damp cloth. It requires 20 minute dry time before gluing the vinyl on.









I used 4 pieces for the head, matching them up at the piping channels. I went slow and took my time on a nice dry warm day.










































Used a cloth and rolling pin to remove bubbles.









As for the corners. I started with the rear corners. As I had never done this I started there to get the hang of it. Also the rear in not seen as much in case the corners turn out not as nice as you want. Once I knew how the material and glue behaved I did the front.


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## Dutchie (Dec 4, 2011)

Up next is piping. I used 16AWG electrical wire from Home Depot. 25 feet black wire for under $7. Perfect. I used a little shim and hammer to tap in the piping gently and applied some crazy glue where needed. I have no real progress pictures of this but here is the result.









Here is the head with top and sides tolexed and piping applied. Starting to look like an amp head.

















After this I tolexed the bottom and installed the piping. Fit in the chassis to drill the mounting holes and test fitted the front and back. As you can see I routed the round over on the front as well as the piping channel. It looks off on the corners but thats black paint. Handle was $15 that ordered online and installed.









From here I have no further pictures of the amp as I finished it. All that was left was installing the rubber feet, tolex the front and back. I installed shielding in the bottom to eliminate radio interference. I used aluminum tape and layered it 3 times.

Here she is all done...

































And now on to my next project a 4 x 12 speaker cab that I am working on. I am also fixing up this 1978 Big Muff Pi Op Amp pedal... This sucker is HUGE!!! It is all original and has the SPDT switch pooched. So I have a 3DPT and will wire it for true bypass. This can be easily reversed if needed. For now I want to fix it and see how it sounds over my 1/2 stack!

















EH1322 serial dates it with the pots to 1978. This pedal is as old as I am!


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