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C'est arrivé, AR 2ax

The West Marine product may or may not work for your application, depending on which product you're talking about. From personal experience, West Marine brand 2 component epoxies have a very short pot life, between 10 and 20 minutes. You must be deadly accurate with the mixing ratio or the product won't cure properly. If you mix too much of the product at one time, you get thermal run away. This means the product heats up, begins to smoke and cooks itself into oblivion. It develops an amine blush, the waxy film on the surface that must be sanded off or washed down with sudsy ammonia to get anything to possibly stick to it. The darned stuff also cures exceptionally hard and brittle. This probably doesn't matter much for what you're doing. I would suggest you look into MAS epoxies. They're not cheap, but their performance is better than most.

Biggles
 
I've had good results using Minwax high-performance wood filler - available at most hardware stores - for rebuilding corners, bashed edges, and other assorted boo-boos. Pretty forgiving as far as mixing, cures quickly and is pretty hard when fully cured.
 

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Apolek said:
I've had good results using Minwax high-performance wood filler - available at most hardware stores - for rebuilding corners, bashed edges, and other assorted boo-boos. Pretty forgiving as far as mixing, cures quickly and is pretty hard when fully cured.
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Never used that one either although I've heard it mentioned a lot. It's a polyester filler (Bondo) right?

I should be clear that I'm using the glue as filler on very small areas. Large fills would get either autobody filler or an epoxy filler.
 
Sorry to hi-jack. I use West Marine epoxy for woodworking projects like filling cracks in slabs, etc. I will try the Minwax product for the corner fills. Thanks
 
cwh said:
Good and bad update.

Been slowing working out the 2ax's cabinets. Getting close to being finished. Despite being structurally sound the cab's veneer required a lot of nit picky filling/repair. Took them as far as my critical attention span could go. These speakers deserve to look their finest. After the last coat of oil gets a chance to rest I'll faux finish the repairs to blend in.

Bad news is one of the tweeters is dead. Add it to my list of single drivers that I need. Please anyone out there that's got a spare for a friend and family price...Or ADS tweeters or....

The woofer is with Audivex in Berkeley Ca. getting (hopefully) repaired. He'll be attaching a new voice coil to the cone so that's kinda awesome. Appreciate working with a craftsman, think he's the only speaker repair guy left of this skill level.
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Can you post some closeup pics of the areas with the faux finish please?
Thanks!
 
GD70 said:
From what I can guess, are the faux finish areas are the darker areas?
Looks good.
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Yeah, sorta, pretty much...The camera makes it all look dark. I've layered translucent colors over the solid color fill. Cut in grain pocks before that too. Making an obvious repair less so but still a work in progress. Love to hear what tricks furniture restorers & finishers use. I've played with heavily cut shellac with pigments and sharpie ink as color. Also just denatured alcohol and sharpie. Probably mostly spinning my wheels but what ya going do.
 
There's so many techniques you could drive yourself crazy. Yours look very good!
I will still almost always splice in actual veneer as it gives the best final finish in my opinion.
 
@Galaxie65 LST project inspired me to get my 2ax speakers finished up.

Two bits were holding me up, woofer and tweeter. Got the re-voice coiled woofer back from our local speaker craftsman a couple months ago. Last month AK member CJVx's rebuilt tweeters came home after spending less than a week in his care.

So with all necessary parts and some inspiration I now got a working pair of AR 2axs. I'll mess around with testing/positioning best I can, precariously perched on the other rigs in the room.

One thing to note. I'm playing with cotton batting in the cabinets. This is something @drbiggles is testing out at the moment. He's experienced why it's critical in the Bozak designs and hopefully with his help we can figure out if the benefits extend to the acoustic suspension types.

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Hey man,

Unfortunately, acoustic suspension is my last stop in 100% cotton upholstery batting vs fiberglass vs ultratouch. I haven't gotten there yet. So, you know I'll be stopping by this coming week some time to have a listen. The cotton upholstery batting is the most expensive, and most difficult to source out of all of those. So far, it's beat out the competition hands down, not even a remote question about sonic superiority. You go man!

Biggles
 
drbiggles said:
Hey man,

Unfortunately, acoustic suspension is my last stop in 100% cotton upholstery batting vs fiberglass vs ultratouch. I haven't gotten there yet. So, you know I'll be stopping by this coming week some time to have a listen. The cotton upholstery batting is the most expensive, and most difficult to source out of all of those. So far, it's beat out the competition hands down, not even a remote question about sonic superiority. You go man!

Biggles
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I think with a little trial and error we’ll make some interesting discoveries.

So far I’ve moved the 2ax onto their sides mounted on top of ESS Rock Monitors. Pushed Al Green this morning followed by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. The ARs seem to jive well with soul/neo-soul. Powering them with an Adcom GFA555 and the speakers are soaking up the watts. Wish my Fisher or Scott tube amps were functional. Now’s the time for a/b comps.
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Hey,

Me too on the tubes, especially the Fisher. I know they'd suck my Pioneer SX-1000TW dry, the AR4x's did. First volume spin, gone. Vintage tube power is where the AR's want to be.

Biggles
 
Funny how hungry those little AS speakers are. Noticed a similar need with a pair of Altec Capris. With the right amount of current they came alive.
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And this is why many of us have a multitude, if not a few different available amplifiers. One never knows what one is going to need! Yes, that's my story and/or justification.

Biggles
 
drbiggles said:
Hey,

Me too on the tubes, especially the Fisher. I know they'd suck my Pioneer SX-1000TW dry, the AR4x's did. First volume spin, gone. Vintage tube power is where the AR's want to be.

Biggles
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Actually Bigs, My Pioneer SX-1000TA made my 2ax's sound wonderful. Actually that combo is what ultimately lured me down this rabbit hole of vintage audio gear. Cap coupled seems to be a great fit for the 2ax.
 
Drugolf said:
Actually Bigs, My Pioneer SX-1000TA made my 2ax's sound wonderful. Actually that combo is what ultimately lured me down this rabbit hole of vintage audio gear. Cap coupled seems to be a great fit for the 2ax.
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That's good to know, thank you sir!

Biggles
 
Either my Fisher 500C or X-100-B is best with both my 2ax's, and 2's(especially). I've tried several solid state amps(Adcom, Harman Kardon, Crown) and while all can sound ok to very good, none produce the magic as the Fisher tube gear with those speakers. Same goes for my KLH Model Five's.
 
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