I bought Eva an antique desk in back in 1999. I bought it from a Christmas sale at the Spiller furniture building in downtown Tuscaloosa. Im not sure if it was truly an Art Deco peice, but I do know that i have heard people refer to that style of funiture using the term Art Deco. I would guess it was made in the 50s, but I dont know for certain.



Regardless, its too late for me to show you a photo of this desk because I already deconstructed it and turned it into a speaker cabinet, but this photo to the left is very similar to the layout of desk that i am refering to.




The desk ended up in getting moved out to my shop about a year ago. I built Eva and I a dresser/entertainment center for our room and we really didnt need the drawer space anymore. I had the idea to convert the desk into a speaker cabinet one day when i happened to look at it and notice that the joints were coming apart. That made it easy to take apart and reassemble in an afternoon.


The piece, when it was still a desk, had a drawer bank on the left and the right side, and the center section was a sitting area with a drawer above the knee space. A mirror was mounted on rails that locked into the back of the desk. I think this would actually be called a woman's vanity desk that would serve as a place for her to sit and fix her hair and make up.

What you are seeing in these photos is a speaker cabinet that i made using only the parts from the left drawer bank, which leaves me the right side of this desk left to make a matching cabinet to this one. Also, Im thinking that the knee drawer will work perfect as a housing for a guitar chassis. For instance an old silvertone guitar head would look great inside this wooden housing.



Both far ends of this desk were finished and the inside ends were joined into the knee drawer. This means that each inside panel had a dado as well as nail holes in it. I filled all the craters with bondo and laminated the whole thing with some dark gray laminate that I had in the back of the shop. Its not nearly as heavy as it looks.

It doesnt look brand new by any stretch. It looks like an old piece of furniture that has been well used. I reinforced the carcase and it is solid. No rattles even at high volumes and distortion.

I bought a marshal mini amp extension speaker and moved the speaker into the piece of furniture. The grill cloth was the most time consuming part because i couldnt find a fabric that looked right on the cabinet. Eva bought me several different yards of fabric, but what i ended up using was this old JC pennies shirt that i bought at thrift store. I wore it when i was younger.

John has been playing a small peavey combo with a speaker out jack. I plan on making him plug into this next time we are together for Dexateens shows. I imagine that this cabinet will give him a bassier tone due to the fact that the cabinet is very deep.

I’m sure that a boutique amp guy would turn their nose way up over these cabinets that I have put together. They don’t sound bad to me. They work. They are interesting.

The truth is that I have not made enough of these cabinets to discover the science of how to manipulate and determine how the cabinets will sound. I am learning as i go. Having said that, we all know that an amp or speaker only sounds as good as the guitar player that is using it.



This cabinet above is what Patton has been using for his bass speaker.

I found this cabinet at a thrift store for 8 bucks. I think it is a radio extension speaker but I am not sure. The speaker was 130 with tax and wiring installation. Patton has been playing his Ampeg head through it and it sounds cool to me. Seems like Patton said that it seemed a little too deep, so we are going to try porting the cabinet. There is a science to a bass cabinet that might not be an exact science, but is certainly important. As I already said, I am learning as I go.



I am installing track lighting behind the lip above the grill for added effect.

You cant say that these things arent interesting and you cant say that they dont work. Come see us play and hear them with your own damn ears. Shows posted at the dexateens myspace.