Amp Coasters

[miroslav]

Did you ever pick the amp head off your cab and find that the black rubber feet from the head left marks in the Tolex...?
Small indentations & smudges...and on lighter colored Tolex, sometimes black stains from the rubber.

I found a simple way to prevent this from happening.
You go to the hardware store or auto store and pick up a small roll of 1/8" cork (used for making gaskets).
Find a round object (jar lid or whatever) and with a pencil draw circles on the gasket for as many rubber feet that you want to treat...and then cut them out with scissors.
Use a rough piece of sandpaper to smooth out the cork edge as cork cuts a bit rough.
Place the cork coasters under the rubber feet.

In addition to protecting your Tolex...the cork also makes for better grip, so the head won't slide as easy as it does on some types of Tolex.
You can make the cork coaster in any size you need, and they are great for other things too...between other gear surfaces or anything you want to protect.
Of course, if you move your amps around a lot, like for gigs and what not...it might not be worth your while...but for studios and home use these are quite handy. There are probably a lot of other uses for them.

 

[Steenamaroo]

How rock and roll!!!











Seriously though, good tip.

 

[mjbphotos]

Or you can just use beer coasters - all but the cheesiest dives have them available, usually freebies from the beer distributor!

 

[miroslav]

Or you can just use beer coasters - all but the cheesiest dives have them available, usually freebies from the beer distributor!

They would be good for gig amps.

I actually got the idea from some cork glass coasters. The only thing, most beverage coasters are kinda big and made of paper.
These you can cut to more exact size, and they don't absorb any beer that gets spilled!

 

[moresound]

This should also help absorb the vibrations of the cab and not transfer them to the head!

 

[stevieb]

This should also help absorb the vibrations of the cab and not transfer them to the head!

This adds a whole new meaning to the term "cork sniffer."

 

[Capriccio]

Or self-adhesive furniture pads which come in many sizes. I use these to stop things scratching the wood flooring. They are thick felt so would behave similarly to the cork coasters.

 

[SHEPPARDB.]

Before I started racking all of my gear I used the Wagner iso cubes.They are designed to decouple commercial HVAC equipment from the pads they sit on.I lucked out and got about 1000 of them for free.They work great for displacing the weight of heavy gear.I have used them for monitor pads and also floating the floor in my studio.

 

[miroslav]

Or self-adhesive furniture pads which come in many sizes. I use these to stop things scratching the wood flooring. They are thick felt so would behave similarly to the cork coasters.

The only problem with those is that they will actually make an amp head slide real easy on top of the cab...not something I would want to risk.

 

[moresound]

This adds a whole new meaning to the term "cork sniffer."

 

[ocnor]

You could just mount skid plates like any normal cabinet would have.

 

[miroslav]

You could just mount skid plates like any normal cabinet would have.

It looks like it's about a 1/4" tall....so how does that work when the amp head has rubber legs that are about 1" tall?
Also...would you really want to screw something into your heads/cabs, especially if it was a more expensive amp/cab rig?

I think those trays are for old-school amp heads that have those small metal "button" legs, which tend to slide easy.
I have a 5E3 clone that has them, but it's a 112 combo, and my cork coasters work great on it too...no screws and the cost for the whole sheet of cork was about $4. There's enough cork in the roll to make a few dozen coasters.

 

[stevieb]

Only cab I would shy away from mounting a skid plate on would be a vintage one, so as to not devalue it. Newer cabs, even high-zoot ones, would not suffer, I would think.

 

[mcmetal]

Well for the studio,whatever works.
Gigging amps are gonna get abused anyway! I don't own a single cab that was gigged with that doesn't have it's share of dings.It's gonna happen...unless you fork out for a roadcase.

 

[miroslav]

Like I said...for gigs, worrying about smudges, dings, rips, etc...becomes a futile effort the more you gig.
I have the nice padded covers and even a large hard case with foam...but just moving amps/cabs around even carefully, you are bound to hit something sooner or later.
The amp coasters are more for home/studio amps that can be preserved much easier and for anyone wanting to avoid those rings on top of cabs that are always left by the rubber feet. I have all my amps in a "permanent" location, lined up one next to the other...and I only move them when I need to get behind them or change tubes. But even with minimal moving, I've bumped them enough times!

I'm still not sure how that anti-skid plate would work on amps that have longer/larger rubber legs, as the amps would sit too high on their legs for the anti-skid plate to work...and IMO, the skid plate causes more "damage" to the cab than the head's rubber feet, so why bother screwing in an anti-skid plate if you already have rubber legs.
Like I said...I think those anti-skid plates are really meant for amps that use the old style metal "button" legs instead of the rubber ones, as I think the anti-skid plate is just the right thickness to work with those smaller "feet".

 

[ocnor]

I'm still not sure how that anti-skid plate would work on amps that have longer/larger rubber legs, as the amps would sit too high on their legs for the anti-skid plate to work.

The large rubber feet work great with the skid plates. The amp is perfectly stable and will not move even if you bump/push it.

 

[miroslav]

What I meant was...with larger rubber feet, the amp/head naturally sits up higher off the cab...but the anti-skid plate looks to be only about a 1/4" thick...so how does it come into contact with the base of the amp if the rubber feet are much taller than the anti-skid plate???

Also, many cabs have the handle on top of the cab (all of mine do)...so how does the anti-skid plate go on with the handle...?

I still think those anti-skid plates were designed specifically for older Marshall amps and maybe some others where the legs were small/metal buttons, and the handles were off on the side maybe...?

 

[ocnor]

 

[miroslav]

I see now....I kinda thought those plates were much larger and were meant to be used as one plate and to sit across the middle of the cab, which is why I thought they were for heads with the small, metal "button" feet...that the feet would straddle the plate in the middle of the cab and let the head sit on top of the plate.

DUH!

But then...I still don't see their purpose if your amp head already has rubber feet, which help against skidding...???
I can see how the plate would help "lock in" the feet and keep them from going out of the plate's slot, but honestly, is that much really needed?
I guess for gigging, where amps get bumped harder on stage, they might be a good addition.
I only have one amp/cab where the rubber of the feet is very hard, and the head/cab have the shellacked tweed...so that one is kind of "slippery"...but on all my other amps, the rubber feet are quite grippy on the Tolex and you would have to really push hard to get the head to move off the cab.

Anyway...they look pretty cool now that I understand how they are used (honestly, I've never seen them in use before), thought I would still hesitate to screw them into the cabs. The one amp I was talking about above is my Swart SST with the dark brown shellacked tweed. I'm not about to drill into the cab on the outside...