OT Speaker Cabinet Repair

Various options

1. remove loose crud, wrap sellotape round 3 sides of the gap/join, fill with resin or no more nails type stuff in layers
2. Cut a replacement from plywood or OSB, add new cloth
3. Use them without it
4. Steal cloth from front covers of a larger junk pair etc etc For a thin add-on layer I'd look at metal, or if you've got 5 or 6mm to spare then pvc sheet would do.

NT

For a similar situation, I hotmelted the corners of the frame to the cabinet. A pair of thin gauge hooks, bent rod, that will pierce the cloth, so you can pull on , while the glue is cooling. Place a label on the back , saying use low temp hot air gun to free the corners. First corner , just set in place, then the hook opposite, then the other pair stretched while cooling. If remnant bits of frame rattle , or other problems, at least you can heat up and return to as-was, and try again with some reinforcement or something.

Wax paper and JB Weld, with pressure.

Use the wax paper as a 'resist' to prevent the JB Weld from sticking where it should not. Use the pressure to hold everything flat during the cure. Th en use an X-Acto or razor to trim off the flash after the cure. I have repa ired similar damaged which is holding to this day (over 5 years).

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Honestly, I think that you might find that building a new one is going to be easier and less frustrating than trying to fix something that is

(1) falling apart, and (2) probably not made in a way which anticipated it ever being repaired.

Once that sort of cheap pressboard starts to disintegrate, the problem will only get worse. My impression is that the glue holding the particles together starts to fail due to age, humidity, mildew, etc. In order to really stabilize it you'd have to saturate the material with a new resin of some sort... and this would almost certainly gunk up the fabric.

I'd look at building a new set of frames - either out of better-quality hardboard (e.g. Masonite) or out of flat strips of decent wood, glued together in the corners. This is not-terribly- difficult hand-tool work. Then, get some new grill cloth (you can buy the real stuff from MCM and various speaker supply companies, or find an open-weave fabric of your liking at a fabric store). Fastening it onto the frames can be done with adhesives, or (if your frame material is thick enough) a staple gun with short-legged staples.

If those are from the early/mid 1980's and don't have sentimental value, do yourself a favor and sawsall them into the garbage.

They sucked.

I had both the III's and IV's back then and brand new besides the imaging those produced, the sound to those were flat and lifeless. No dynamics. If you started to crank the power up, the fuses blew and usually did nothing to protect the tweeter, which probably hasn't been available in 20 years.

Nice cabinets for towers, excellent soundstaging but nothing else.

There has been too many technology advancements in cone material, magnets, basket and cabinet construction where those are only worth furniture value.

-bruce snipped-for-privacy@ripco.com

Ah yes, developements like PbF solder at VC/pigtail unions.