How to pull grille cloth w/o damage

js22

Active Member
My addiction is still completely under control. No, really, it is.. But at only $5, it seemed like an eminently sensible idea to buy a pair of Radio Shack DS-1000 speakers. The $5 was really just for the walnut veneer cases and nostalgic fuzzy brown grille cloth. Any sound I manage to get out of them is icing on the cake.

I know that the grille cloth is attached to a thin plywood (?) panel which in turn is held to the baffle by velcro (very Space Age!) The problem is that the panel edges sit so tight to the speaker box that I can't get anything to slip in between to pry them out. A credit card is way too thick. A single sheet of paper fits, but is useless.

The one thing I don't want to do is mess up the cabinets or the grille cloth.

One crazy idea I had was to use some "hook" velcro to grab the fuzzy fabric, but I'm kind of afraid that would mess it up.

So what say the experts: are there any standard tricks for this job?

No pics yet. The speakers are at work and I was in a hurry to beat the snow home and open some wine.

I did however give them a brief listen. I played some Kathleen Battle singing Mozart, through a Pioneer SA-7500 that I just cleaned up and repaired (power switch franken-mod with thyristor, LED power light, and another franken-mod for the selector switch which had a broken off shaft when I pulled the amp from the recycle pile...)

Anyway, lets just say that a powerful soprano hitting the high notes was done no special favors by the DS-1000s, nor by the concrete floors of the room....
 
Sometimes a sheet rock screw screwed into the grill frame will give you
enough leverage.
 
Sometimes a sheet rock screw screwed into the grill frame will give you
enough leverage.

Hmmm.... That's interesting. I'll take a look tomorow and see if I can manage that without boogering up the cloth. I can tell the panels *want* to come free, just need a little tug.
 
Sometimes a sheet rock screw screwed into the grill frame will give you
enough leverage.

It worked perfectly! Thank you RxDx!

I pulled the speakers apart. Woofers in great shape. Tweeters had foam rot. These speakers have no "crossover", per se, just a series cap (2.2 uF) for the tweeter.

I don't have any concrete plans for these yet. On my "one of these days" list, I might add some tweeters and play around with an electronic crossover and bi-amping (cuase you can never have to many amps...)
 
It worked perfectly! Thank you RxDx!

I pulled the speakers apart. Woofers in great shape. Tweeters had foam rot. These speakers have no "crossover", per se, just a series cap (2.2 uF) for the tweeter.

I don't have any concrete plans for these yet. On my "one of these days" list, I might add some tweeters and play around with an electronic crossover and bi-amping (cuase you can never have to many amps...)

Pictures would be helpful. Sounds like you are confusing tweeters with woofers. Tweeters do not normally have "foam rot." Woofers have surrounds that mate the cone to the basket. Common materials for woofer surrounds include paper, cloth, rubber, and foam. Foam surrounds need periodic replacement.

A single cap in series with a tweeter is a first order high pass filter. It is a "crossover." Whether it is good or bad crossover design depends on many factors, none of which is the fact that there is a single cap.
 
Heh, heh ... It's pretty easy when they have the words "tweeter" and "woofer" written on them. Here's a pic which shows tweeter with foam rot and woofer with healthy paper accordion/surround/thingie.

20190217_152312.jpg
 
It looks like that foam is a diffraction foam ring placed around the tweeter cone. Tweeters have very little excursion and do not require such large surrounds between the cone and the basket. I bet if you look under the foam you will see that the cone is attached to the basket.

If it is a foam ring to reduce diffraction, it is readily replaceable. Such rings are typically felt or foam and stuck around the outer circumference of the cone. Check out this thread on Realistic MC-1000 speakers: Tweeter Foam?? post #6

index.php

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?attachments/mc1000tweeter-jpg.134038/
 
It looks like that foam is a diffraction foam ring placed around the tweeter cone. Tweeters have very little excursion and do not require such large surrounds between the cone and the basket. I bet if you look under the foam you will see that the cone is attached to the basket.

If it is a foam ring to reduce diffraction, it is readily replaceable. Such rings are typically felt or foam and stuck around the outer circumference of the cone. Check out this thread on Realistic MC-1000 speakers: Tweeter Foam?? post #6

index.php

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?attachments/mc1000tweeter-jpg.134038/


Wow, thank you RTally. Amazing how helpful AK continues to be.

Since the purpose of the foam is only to reduce refraction, I'm wondering if it's necessary to replace it at all. What do you think? There are no gaping holes or anything.

I'm not working on a TOTL system here, just sort of an impulse buy for fun and tinkering.
 
Wow, thank you RTally. Amazing how helpful AK continues to be.

Since the purpose of the foam is only to reduce refraction, I'm wondering if it's necessary to replace it at all. What do you think? There are no gaping holes or anything.

I'm not working on a TOTL system here, just sort of an impulse buy for fun and tinkering.

Pictures help!

I would recap the speakers and listen to them for a while. If they have not been played for a while, I find that the old paper accordion surrounds sometime take a few hours of good bass playing to loosen up.

Replacing the foam would be a tweak. It might be fun to play with if everything else with the speaker is top notch. But it is a lesser priority than getting the cap replaced. I would replace the foam with felt or some other material. Lots of posts on AK about diffraction rings around tweeters.

As for the grills, you may want to glue a pull tab to the bottom. I use a length of color matched cloth ribbon folded in half and glued to the inside of the grill. The looped end sticks out past the grill just enough so you can grab it and pull the grill away from the speaker. (about 1/4 or 3/8 inch)
 
Pictures help!

I would recap the speakers and listen to them for a while. If they have not been played for a while, I find that the old paper accordion surrounds sometime take a few hours of good bass playing to loosen up.

Replacing the foam would be a tweak. It might be fun to play with if everything else with the speaker is top notch. But it is a lesser priority than getting the cap replaced. I would replace the foam with felt or some other material. Lots of posts on AK about diffraction rings around tweeters.

As for the grills, you may want to glue a pull tab to the bottom. I use a length of color matched cloth ribbon folded in half and glued to the inside of the grill. The looped end sticks out past the grill just enough so you can grab it and pull the grill away from the speaker. (about 1/4 or 3/8 inch)

That's a great idea about the pull tab. I had thought about using a piece of string as a temporary tool, but I can picture a loop of ribbon-like material being a tasteful and useful long term solution.

Also, I like your idea about exercising the speakers a bit and taking things step by step. Since they're already apart, I may do some light steel wool and paste wax work on the cases and then put them back together. Then bring them home for a more sympathetic listening environment.
 
If you use steel wool, be sure the drivers are removed and far away. Steel wool breaks apart into small steel fines that are perfect for being attracted to speaker magnets. I prefer to use 220 and 320 grit sandpaper with Danish Oil to refinish speakers. Others like Howard Restor-A-Finish.
 
The other thing about steel wool is that any particles left in the wood will rust
and stain it.
 
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