Restoring all my BH bases

[hatrack71]

It is time. I have acquired a lot of Bottlehead stuff. I bought all of these from other audiophiles on various forums. Really none of them match. I have to this day:

4 Foreplay preamps, two with Anticipation upgrades
2 pair of Paramours, one pair with C4S upgrades, the other with really nice Jantzen caps
Seduction Phono Pre

.....9 boxes total...

My goal was to just fix the less than tasty carpentry and reveneer in solid walnut. After doing the first set of Paramours and Foreplay pre, I have decided to go all walnut instead and build new enclosures. Here are pics of the first set anyway. They turned out good and look like solid wood w/o the typical profile edge problems of backed veneer. Just a ton of prep work on poorly assembled boxes and a lot of time veneering. Much easier to rip solid walnut and start over. I have already completed the Seduction box doing just that. I just need to sand and lacquer and I will add a pic of it..

 

[johnsonad]

That looks great! Nice work!

 

[Grainger49]

All the wood looks nice to me.  Do I have this right, the FP is solid walnut and the Paramours are veneer? 

 

[Paul Birkeland]

It's great to see some of those legacy products getting some love!

 

[fullheadofnothing]

Ahhhh, so you must be the guy who ordered a bunch of badges but wasn't in our customer database!

Glad to see they went to a worthy cause! They turned out beautifully.

 

[hatrack71]

All the wood looks nice to me.  Do I have this right, the FP is solid walnut and the Paramours are veneer? 

All these are veneered. I will photograph the Seduction base I finished a couple days ago as soon as I sand and lacquer it. It is the first one in solid walnut.

 

[hatrack71]

Ahhhh, so you must be the guy who ordered a bunch of badges but wasn't in our customer database!

Glad to see they went to a worthy cause! They turned out beautifully.

Yes, that was me. 9 total going to Montana.

 

[Grainger49]

Really??  You want to send those to me??  I have a FP 2 and a pair of Paramours.

Note to Dan, no prices were discussed in this post.

 

[hatrack71]

Really??  You want to send those to me??  I have a FP 2 and a pair of Paramours.

Note to Dan, no prices were discussed in this post.

I actually didn't plan on remaking these bases after reveneering so I'm keeping these. I'm gonna have spare bases after I make new ones for the other 5 though. What exactly are you after? Just generic get by bases or re-veneered bases? Do you have IEC plugs on yours? The IEC cutouts on these were a mess when I got them. I patched and recut them so they fit perfectly, everything covered and looking good. Then veneered over with solid walnut veneer. You could see gaps before but it's perfect now on all units.

 

[randy@matrixq.com]

Great choice with the solid walnut.  I'm a big fan of real hardwood.  Like the folks at Coca -15s1 say "Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby." 

I will have to say you did a great job on the veneer as well.  Can't wait to see the whole lot.

 

[Grainger49]

I have a total of 4 store bought bases for my Bottlehead equipment.  Two are Zebra Wood, one is Maple and one is Purple Heart.  Kind of a mix and match thing. 

My lone medium chassis, Eros, is in a stock base.  You don't have a spare medium base coming, do you?

 

[hatrack71]

Forgive the pics, the foam is casting weird shadows on the wood. I'll call these teaser pics. I am liking the solid walnut far more than the veneered boxes. Therefore, I decided I will be making the first three pictured above all over again out of solid African mahogany. I will have 6 original bases left over extra- 3 veneered in solid walnut and the other three maybe veneered in rosewood or walnut again. I'm thinking rosewood. Not sure what I'll do with them though. I tried to clean up the birch pre and added a badge but I fear it's fate will also be a darker walnut or mahogany base. I am making matching side panels for a DIYtube Stereo 35 to match it if I do.

Edit: holy crap these pics are bad. I'll get better ones.