Rex81
Well-Known Member
I know there are a ton of these threads out there, but we never seem to get tired of reading about a new one, so here's another for you.
I got these from a local AKer who just didn't have the time to get to these. I've never owned or heard a pair so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Plus I like to tinker, and these will keep my hands busy for awhile.
They're a pretty good starter pair. Typical bumps and bruises, a couple of broken corners, scratchy audio cutting in and out from bad pots, one broken grill frame, and one missing badge. But they're early units (09111 and 15848) with alnico fabric woofers and all the drivers work.
Couple shots of overall condition:
First project was to pull the woofers and clean off the black sealant with a thin putty knife. These things were on there pretty good. You have to be careful not to dent the baffle when prying them out. I had the best luck with slipping a paint can opener underneath, then pulling straight up.
Next, I de-soldered the pots from the one speaker and opened them up. One looked pretty good, the other was oxidized pretty bad. I cleaned them both with some DeOxit and the wire brush on my Dremel. Then went over them with some #0000 steel wool to polish them up. They came out nice.
When I moved on to the other speaker, I determined I didn't need to desolder them at all. I could just work on them right in place. I recommend doing that. That saved me some time. The other speaker's pots looked them same: One not bad at all, the other pretty green.
I finished them up by applying some dielectric grease I bought at the local AutoZone. This smoothed out the action and should hopefully keep them for oxidizing over the next 50 years. They didn't have any little packets or small tubes in stock, so I left with enough for several lifetimes. Oh well. It was still only $6.
That was all the work for day 1.
I got these from a local AKer who just didn't have the time to get to these. I've never owned or heard a pair so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Plus I like to tinker, and these will keep my hands busy for awhile.
They're a pretty good starter pair. Typical bumps and bruises, a couple of broken corners, scratchy audio cutting in and out from bad pots, one broken grill frame, and one missing badge. But they're early units (09111 and 15848) with alnico fabric woofers and all the drivers work.
Couple shots of overall condition:
First project was to pull the woofers and clean off the black sealant with a thin putty knife. These things were on there pretty good. You have to be careful not to dent the baffle when prying them out. I had the best luck with slipping a paint can opener underneath, then pulling straight up.
Next, I de-soldered the pots from the one speaker and opened them up. One looked pretty good, the other was oxidized pretty bad. I cleaned them both with some DeOxit and the wire brush on my Dremel. Then went over them with some #0000 steel wool to polish them up. They came out nice.
When I moved on to the other speaker, I determined I didn't need to desolder them at all. I could just work on them right in place. I recommend doing that. That saved me some time. The other speaker's pots looked them same: One not bad at all, the other pretty green.
I finished them up by applying some dielectric grease I bought at the local AutoZone. This smoothed out the action and should hopefully keep them for oxidizing over the next 50 years. They didn't have any little packets or small tubes in stock, so I left with enough for several lifetimes. Oh well. It was still only $6.
That was all the work for day 1.