Removing Solder from a Grill cloth

[Canucker]

So I guess some previous owner thought they'd use the amp cab as a work bench once they removed the guts and now the grill cloth has solder on it...I wanted to take votes on the best least damaging way to remove it....suspend the amp over my head so that gravity is my friend is my first though...then use some solder remover (bare braided wire)...whatever its called...heat up the iron and try to do the least damage possibly...so what are your thoughts?

[Jdansti]

This is a tough one!  The over your head trick could result in solder in your eye.  How big of a blob is it?  Could you snip some of it without snipping the cloth to make it smaller?  A small solder blob might look better than a burnt hole in the cloth.

Another option would be to snip it out completely and sew up the hole with matching thread.

The most radical option would be to replace the cloth.

[armdnrdy]

I agree.

Grill cloth is either cloth or a plastic material. Either one would/could be damaged even more trying to remove it.

If it bugs you too much....John's answer...replace the cloth.

I installed grill cloth on a speaker cabinet that I "made" out of a gutted Fender combo amp that was given to me.

There are tutorials on the net that show how it's installed. (so that it doesn't look like your child did it at school)

[Mustachio]

Does the grill cloth have plastic-y type material in it ? solder might have melted into it a lil. And heating it back up with an iron might just make the cloth melt more and create a big hole.

Can you just chip it out with your finger or a tool, and just tread lightly so you dont make it look to rough? Or don't tread lightly and tell people its "relic'd" haha Pretty sure people pay more for that type of thing all the time.

I'd be worried about heating it up and making it melt the material. id just try to chip it out with a small tool and my finger. And if all else fails like John says replace the cloth. Might be able to give it a cool unique personalized look !

I guess if you knew the melting point temp of both materials science would tell you the answer. If its the basket weaved grill cloth like most I'd guess it would melt before the solder does .

[tubegeek]

If the solder is sticking tight, then there is melted material underneath the solder (artificial fibers) and you'll do best by picking at it VERY carefully, trying to do more damage to the solder than to the cloth. At best, though, once you get the solder off there will be a misshapen area.

If the solder isn't sticking very tight, then picking at it VERY carefully will usually pop it loose (natural fibers.) This is your best-case scenario. But you've already tried that and it hasn't worked, I am sure....

I can't see anything but disaster coming out of re-heating it.

You can find out for certain whether it is a natural fiber or artificial by finding a tiny little spot you can cut off and heating the snippet up - it'll either burn up into ashes (natural) or catch fire and melt (artificial.)

[Canucker]

I kinda knew it wasn't going to end well so I thought I'd pick your brains before I picked at the amp. There is no way on earth I'm going to put on a new grill cloth because its the 1961 Maestro (Gibson) amp I've been talkiing about in the OT Lounge section of this forum. If I did the work on it from underneath thing I certainly wouldn't put my eye in harms way.....I'd just catch it in my mouth if it came close  I worked in an art gallery for 20 years so I'm a pro at picking out blemishes in matting and other fine work. I'll probably pick at it a little and when I've done the best I can then I'll do some mixing of paint and camouflage the remaining solder as best I can....thats another thing I excel at! Its really a shame because other then that spot the grill cloth looks like it was made yesterday, the cab is in fantastic shape for its age too...the plate that the controls are on (which is in back) is another story...its bent in a few different directions and a previous owner added some screws to try and flatten it...but once you remove it from the cab you see that the screws don't even go into the cab they just hang in the air.....so I have a little more work then just the caps to get to. Thanks for the input guys! Now I have someone to blame when it all goes to hell! LOLOLOLOL

[tubegeek]

when I've done the best I can then I'll do some mixing of paint and camouflage the remaining solder as best I can....thats another thing I excel at!

That will probably be a helpful skill in this situation - and probably lots of others!

Since it's a vintage piece, just go easy on it. My Ampeg Rocket (with blue checkerboard-textured covering) has some un-removable blemishes, and I wish I'd just left them the hell alone instead of messing with them. It would have been nice to have been able to put some (reversible, water-based) blue paint tpuch-ups on that sucker instead of trying every solvent known to man until I managed to hit upon one that kind of softened the blue covering enough to mess up the crispness of the checkerboard pattern if you look really close.

Ah, regrets! I've had a few....

[Gus]

Do you have material that is close to the grill cloth you can drop solder on and practice removing it or painting it?

[Canucker]

I chipped away at it as best I cold and did far more good then harm. I used a tiny flat head screw driver the kind you use for glasses repair...so I could poke without cutting. The grill is rather good quality or at least thick so I did next to no harm and removed about 40%. I have far more patience for this type of work then for learning to read complex schematics. The reason it bothered me so much in the first place is that the grill is brown and non reflective and the solder splatter reflects the light. If it were a silver Fender grill cloth I would have left it alone. I'll just mix up a tiny bit of acrylic paint to sit on top of the remaining bits just so when light hits it it doesn't shine back at me. It was the reflection that caused it to be a glowing flaw. The size was actually quite small...size of two eraser heads perhaps...now its just one. 

[Canucker]

Worked my magic and it came out really good. Patience paid off as it always does in situations that don't have a rewind button.

[Mustachio]

Awesome ! Congrats , and man those amps are awesome , I remember playing on one when I was about 16 and loved the sound!

And you know how it goes, pics or it didn't happen ! 

[Canucker]

I had another thread about the amp about how its more in need of a cap job then any amp I've ever heard but hey thats why I got it a great deal on it....so other then youtube clips through built into lap top speakers I haven't actually "heard" how this amp would really sound...but I imagine pretty good....but once I get it going properly I'll get a real speaker for it cus the original jensen has sadly been replaced with a realistic which I can only imagine will sound like crap (comparatively).

I didn't take any before photos so I'll have to dump on some more solder and do it all over again!!!
I don't have a camera...just a crappy camera setting on my video camrea so I hardly bother taking pics of stuff.

[tubegeek]

Nicely done.

You already know that you're gonna need a REAL speaker in there, not a REAListic. But until then, it'll be pretty cool anyway. Enjoy!