Can I make my orange Orange black?

[GearAddict]

Is it possible to get replacement sleeves for Orange amps? And if so, are they easy to swap over?

[ICBM]

You could just do what they did in the 1970s and buy a tin of gloss black paint .




I don't know the answer to the first question - they do make "black Oranges", but I don't know if they'd sell the sleeves separately - but the answer to the second question is yes... lay it on its back, undo the four big bolts in the bottom and lift it out by the metal handles.

[GearAddict]

Does the paint thing work?

I've dropped Orange an email to see if they will sell me a sleeve.

[ICBM]

Does the paint thing work?

For a while, until it starts to wear off - then it looks dreadful.

Definitely don't paint it, that was a joke, sadly based on experience...

There are quite a lot about, and custom-colour Marshalls too, which are quite rare and are now worth much more than the standard black ones... but in the late 70s anything that wasn't black was considered the height of poofy hippy bad taste, and so a large number of them were painted black . It's a bugger to remove as well, even though the common paint strippers don't actually attack the vinyl - getting every last speck of black paint out of the vinyl grain, the seams and any previous dings is a nightmare and unless you do it completely, it's always obvious that it was painted and hence much less valuable. You usually have to replace the grille cloths if they've been painted - I've heard of people being able to reverse them (inside for outside) but I've never seen one where the paint hadn't soaked through enough to make that a non-starter.

I've dropped Orange an email to see if they will sell me a sleeve.

If they won't, try someone like Zilla.

[GearAddict]

I'll drop zilla a note too. Ta.

I always think the black Orange amps look a bit funny though...i think it's the white face plate. Might be cheaper to buy a mesa

[parker_knoll]

you can just retolex the existing sleeve. believe it or not it's not that hard to do yourself.

[ICBM]

But it is hard to do *well* unless you have a bit of experience at it and the proper tools. I wouldn't recommend trying it, because once you've stripped the original vinyl there's no going back. Almost all the amateur re-covering jobs I've ever seen look exactly like just that, it's hard to get the vinyl perfectly tight and even.

Much better to buy a replacement sleeve. That way you can put it back if you ever want to sell the amp, and a proper alternative sleeve for a standard amp size has value in itself.

[parker_knoll]

i stand corrected

[GearAddict]

Well, out of interest - Orange don't supply sleeves separately and I had the following from Zilla:

"The price of something like that would be £125 (which is what we normally charge to recover a head), plus 315 postage."

I think that must be £31.50 postage rather than £315 Still a bit steep, postage-wise.

At that price I think I can live with orange

[John_P]

Well, out of interest - Orange don't supply sleeves separately and I had the following from Zilla:

"The price of something like that would be £125 (which is what we normally charge to recover a head), plus 315 postage."

I think that must be £31.50 postage rather than £315 Still a bit steep, postage-wise.

At that price I think I can live with orange

Is that the price for a new head sleeve or just for them to recover it?
(I'm looking to convert my jubilee combo into a head)

I'd be tempted to leave it as well for that price - Have you thought about swapping with someone who has a black one?