Will these do? AR 70s

[onwardjames]

I'll eat my shirt if these things don't come out sounding amazing.

People with this much patience border on mythical to me. Wish I had your stamina. Looking great so far!

 

[Drugolf]

What Glenn said. After a few coats and it's looking good, that's when you do a wet sanding with the oil to get a bit more shine and depth to the finish.

 

[neevo]

@onwardjames i think you’ll find it’s a disease rather than patience

I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t feel I’d done everything I could to make them as good as possible.

@Drugolf im still in sanding stage at the moment. Been away all week and only done 2 sides of 1 cabinet. I’m hoping to have another crack today and hopefully finish the sanding and get 1 application of tinted oil again, applied lightly this time.

 

[neevo]

You can see how I’ve ballsed up the oil in these pics. It’s thick, dark and resting on the surface. I’ve worked out where I went wrong, I was treating the finish like a surface finish vs a penetrating oil that’s supposed to have all excess wiped off before it dries:



Here you can see the shiny oil that’s dried on the top. Luckily it can be sanded back:



I’ve sanded both cabinets down with 80 grit, then finish sanded with 280 grit. Here is thesanded cabinet against the one about to be done:



Sanding them back worked very well and I was able to get nearly all the finish off with the sandpaper. Although it clogged on the initial removal of the oil:



I was nervous about how the oil would go down on the freshly sanded veneer so I used my test piece again to test how it would lay down, plus I mixed up a fresh batch of tinted oil so I could get the colour spot on now I have the black fronts to check the colour against:



Prepped and ready to go:



Well what’s the result?

I don’t want to claim pro level results but I’m so glad I went through all the work to redo the oil:





Not only is the colour perfect but the oil has gone on beautifully. All the sanding has also left a flawless finish as all the grain has been filled already. I’m not sure I’ll need another application so I’ll let it dry and check to see if that’s as far as I need to go.

 

[neevo]

Before:


After:

 

[neevo]

I’ve fitted the Dayton binding posts and the crossovers are connected. Dropped in the 10” woofers and I have a couple of problems.

1. The gasket is thick and causing the cage on the woofers to deform when the drivers and tightened up. I’m going to try and find a replacement thin foam I can use instead or alternatively some rope caulk or similar.
2. The bloody heads on the bolts foul the rim on the driver. No easy fix for that without damaging the cage and I’m not modifying the drivers at all.



Thinking of some ideas on how to make it work. Two ideas I have are a) shave down the bolt heads so they work (risk they get too small plus I’ll lose the black finish) or b) make some black nylon D washers so I have the bolt heads proud (I’d need to use the speaker surrounds then though to match the height of the bolts.

 

[neevo]

Made some new gaskets from some closed cell foam I had lying around:




And with that I put the woofers in. I managed to get the bolts in pretty much without issue by rotating and moving the drivers a little, but one bolt deformed the edge of the woofer slightly which I’ll need to fix up with a hammer and dolly a bit.





All wired up and ready for a test fire:



How do they sound? Hard to say as the kids and wife are in bed so can’t put too many watts through them. But the mid and top end is mightily impressive. Don’t remember them sounding so “sweet”... and I mean that literally, they have a buttery smooth top end to them (I wonder if it’s the fancy caps I put in). Woofers sound great too, Glenn mentioned they need break in time and they certainly aren’t as loose and strong in the bottom end as I’d want yet, but there are glimmers of what I can expect. I’m going to give them some more volume tomorrow

For those that want a walk around:

 

[Helle]

You should upload this clip to GD70’s video thread.

A job well done!!

 

[GD70]

Neevo!
They look perfect! I wouldn't do anything more to the cabs.

I bought the woofers for my 12's when I had some VC rub in one original woofer after I replaced the surrounds. I played the replacements for maybe a day or two while I redid the surround on the original woofer, and all was fine. Yours have brand new surrounds and will definitely need time to loosen up.

From what I heard in your video, they sound very good, and could hear the bass and its potential.

This was an excellent project with great documentation! Well done sir!
Cheers, Glenn

 

[neevo]

Thanks Glenn! Agreed on the surrounds, they sound like my LS50’s did before they loosened up so I’m expecting they will sound much better after a while. There’s plenty of low sub bass, it’s just the 100hz and over that needs some time to develop.

Cabinets are definitely finished. Just need to finish the grills.

 

[Drugolf]

Wowza, fantastic man!

 

[tyella]

Absolutely lovely job!

 

[neevo]

Thanks everyone for the kind comments, I’m really pleased with how they’ve turned out and hopefully the grills work out as I’d hope too and finish the look.

Special thanks to GD70 of course who’s been my guide and parts supplier throughout the build, definitely couldn’t have done it without you Glenn

They’re currently running with some music and the bass turned to max and all the treble turn down to min to break in the surrounds.

 

[neevo]

Last stage kicked off this afternoon. Grills.

Made up another temporary spray booth (doesn’t do anything as I end up with spray dust everywhere that luckily the vacuum picks up):



Ended up with the same patches where the body filler was as I did with the cabinets and given they’re under the grill cloth I thought about leaving them, but instead decided to give them a gentle sand to knock the first layer of paint back and get a more even finish.

Have a second wetter coat on now and will lay a third in 15-20 minutes.

Then leave to dry and finally pick a grill cloth colour.

My cheap eBay grey grill cloth came in and it’s completely inappropriate. Way too thick and cheap looking. I will check my samples again and see if one of those will work better.

 

[neevo]

Quick knock back with sandpaper barely made an impact on the body filler patches. Might press on and see if it makes any difference once the grill cloth is on (I suspect not). No point getting too anally retentive over something you literally won’t be able to see.

 

[neevo]

@MCM_Fan can you help me understand how the grillcloth is formed around the corners of the grills?

Is there a fold give the amount of depth to the grills or does the fold happen on the back side corner?

Do I need to align the weave of the fabric on the grill to keep it parallel or is that too OCD?

Reason I ask is that it seems like the fabric would bunch on the corners a little.

 

[GD70]

@MCM_Fan can you help me understand how the grillcloth is formed around the corners of the grills?

Is there a fold give the amount of depth to the grills or does the fold happen on the back side corner?

Do I need to align the weave of the fabric on the grill to keep it parallel or is that too OCD?

Reason I ask is that it seems like the fabric would bunch on the corners a little.

Yes, the fold overlaps are on the backs. Start stapling at the center of each side and equally work your way on opposite sides until you reach the corners, all the while pulling the fabric tight.

 

[GD70]

When you cut the fabric, make sure to give yourself plenty of extra to be able to grab for stretching.
Here's a few pics of the grills for my AR12's, and AR-3's, and AR-LST2's for some examples .
Glenn

 

[neevo]

Do you staple only Glenn? I have a pneumatic staple gun but was also thinking I’d need glue (which I have).

 

[GD70]

Do you staple only Glenn? I have a pneumatic staple gun but was also thinking I’d need glue (which I have).

Just staple. Others have used glue successfully as well.