Ar3 Restoration

A few months ago I picked up this set of AR3's at a antique wireless meet.They were so dirty and beat up that no one looked at them.I got them and a AR2 for $30. I later found another AR2 so I now have a set of AR3's and a set of AR2's. I took the worst box to work on first.They had huge digs all the way down to the plywood and pieces of the veneer gone. I am rebuilding the crossovers so I sanded one box down today. I went through the veneer and I didn't try and remove every bad spot.I was able to use some redwood stain on the spots where I went through the veneer and then used a restoration oil and here is what one looks like after two hr work.One midrange was bad and I have rewound the coil and I have the midrange working again. I reset the coil using tiny blocks of foam and I never thought the mid dome would work but it does. It sounds the same as the other one. This is not some thing the average person can do but I have rewound a lot of voice coils for antique speakers before. So what every though was a piece of junk will soon be like new in sound and look nice also.
Ed

Nice work! :thmbsp:

Great work EddyR :thmbsp: Do you know what year your 3's were manafactured? They look like early models. I plan to start on my AR-3's after I finish with my AR-3a's.

Very nice! But, I don't see any missing veneer. Looks perfect to me. Interesting stuff about the mid driver. Got any pics of that? - Mark

very nice indeed!

yeah EddyR, what Mark said...where's them voice-coil pics? :scratch2:

Good work eddy--it's good to see vintage come alive again! the bird

I sanded the edge of the veneer down and used redwood stain and dust from the sanding mixed together to make a past and let it soak in for a few minutes and then went over it again with the oil. I learned the trick of using some of the old finish 40 years ago and have taught it to many restoration people over the years. Use a striper and remove some of the finish and keep the goop that comes off. Then use that to stain the new parts the same as the old parts. Works great on pine. I can take a picture of the midrange if you want. I did not remount the wire cover or pad.When I took it apart the foam had tunned to jelly. Rewinding was easy but setting the gap and making the foam spacers was pure luck. I just had to prove I could do it.I am not going to use the AR mid ranges as I don't trust the one I rebuilt to last and the other one must have the same problems even though it still works. Nether tweeter worked when I got them as they had broken wires near the voice coil but I repaired that. I used to repair old Ham and Antique equipment when there was no replacement parts. I even rewound IF transformers. I use to say to people "If you have the money I have the time". A dome tweeter is really a very simple device.Making it sound good is the hard part. I had to edit this as I forgot to put in the year. The Block caps that I am removed had 1963 on them. I will take picture of midrange and post it.
Ed

I'm inpressed. Nice job. :thmbsp:

EddyR said:

The Block caps that I am removed had 1963 on them.
Ed

Click to expand...

Hey. Our AR-3's rolled off the assembly line in the same year Only mine are the Unfinished Pine cabinets.

Thanks for the tip about the stripper goop. I'll have to remember that.

A tip of the Hatlo hat!

EddyR said:

One midrange was bad and I have rewound the coil and I have the midrange working again. I reset the coil using tiny blocks of foam and I never thought the mid dome would work but it does. It sounds the same as the other one. This is not some thing the average person can do but I have rewound a lot of voice coils for antique speakers before. So what every though was a piece of junk will soon be like new in sound and look nice also.
Ed

Click to expand...

Amazing cabinet work, Eddy. Be sure and show us when you're done.

But I'm very interested in the work you did on the mid. Any chance you would take the time to lay out the steps in a bit more detail? Like the dissasembly, how you rewire (lathe, by hand?) and how you used the foam blocks for centering the spider?

It sure sounds like it must take steady hands and a lot of patience!

OK you wanted some pictures well I have a few. You are not going to believe this because it is so simple. The first picture shows the midrange taken all apart and you will notice that the center magnet is off set at least 1/16 of a inch. I loosened the bottom bolt and centered it.That is the way it was since 1963.In picture #2 are all the parts are laid out and I was going to have a adapt a new voice coil to the dome but I could not come up with a good way to do that so I said what the he---- and lets see if I can add new leads.I made new holes in the dome 1/8 inch from the old holes and made the connection there. I added new leads but I could not set the face on the magnet as the power of it was to powerful to hold every thing it place and tighten the bolts.I then removed the repaired dome from the face plate and mounted it and got it on center. I them remounted the dome and it is self centering and held in place with small pieces of rolled up foam rubber jammed into the four notches.I ran a band of electrical tape around the dome to seal it and stop it from coming out.Picture #3 shows it all together. I did not rewind the coil. The leads were broken off at the coil so I moved the lead holes back 1/8 inch and brought the voice coil wire through the dome and made the connection there. I did not solder it I made a mechanical connection and glued it in place.I did not do this with the Idea of using the the dome again but several people told me it was impossible to repair.I made a comment on another forum that I though they were rather crudely made and I may have hurt some feelings.I got a email from someone who told me no one can rebuild a AR midrange with out new parts and a lab.Well it works and I have driven it hard on my Carver PM900.It plays louder than it's mate. I would not trust it in a working system and the tape is starting to get loose.It is a very heavy duty voice coil but the leads are the weak point.I am sure the foam rubber I used will fall apart soon.All this took less than two hours.I owned a camera repair business for many years,Florida Camera Repair,so I have all the small tools to do this type of repair.
Ed
Ed

very cool EddyR!

any advice for this? a beryllium tweeter :scratch2: