bluehills5
Active Member
I'm on a bit of a veneer kick at the moment - did my Pioneer SX-650, a Marantz WC-22 case and then another SX-650. I recently bought a set of Elac B6 speakers and while I'm very happy with the sound, the black vinyl covering was starting to grate my sensibilities as it did not match the other vintage wooden components in my system so I decided to rip off the vinyl and slap on real veneer.
Here's how I did it..
Magnetic grills
I decided to also swap out the peg mounted grill attachers and to use magnets so the wood look is undisturbed. I was concerned the magnets might interfere with the speaker magnets but then found the Elac UniFi speakers also use magnetic grills so I felt OK. I used "6mm X 10mm Neodymium Disc Strong Rare Earth N50 Small Fridge Magnets" and they just needed the holes drilled out in the wood with a 15/64" drill (about 5.8mm) and 10mm deep. The rubber holes in the grills were also drilled out and the magnets needed some force to insert so I'm confident they wont pull out. In the front wood, I also glued them in even though they were tight in the holes and needed to be tapped in with a piece of wood. Oh- and I made the mistake of putting in the magnets before matching polarity and so I had to pull some out and turn them around. You want to have them all the same +/- direction so you can swap left/right grills or turn them upside down if you so desire.
Veneer.
First, I have no expert tools save 2 sash clamps (4 would be better), a Stanley knife, a few scraps of sand paper and some flat scraps of Melamine boards to clamp the veneer when drying. These were scrounged from the neighborhood where it seems every second house is tossing out old Ikea bookcases. The paper backed veneer was glued using Titebond 2. It took some time though as there are 12 panels (6 each speaker) and each is glued, clamped, wait to dry, trim edges with knife and then sand smooth.
The back plastic port seems to be glued in so I made a big round hole in one of the clamping boards to fit over it. I also pre-cut the port hole in the veneer using the front trim panel's tweeter hole as a template as they are close to the same size and sanded out to fit exactly.
The holes for the speakers and binding posts were gouged out and trimmed using a sharp Stanley knife using fresh blades and downward cuts.
Stain was Howard's restore-a-finish in dark walnut and rubbed down with feedNwax, basically because I had some leftover but I think the color came out OK.
I also re-glued on the back product sticker and the front "Elac" badge (the badge's 2 x 3.5mm pin holes are 22mm from the bottom edge and 100mm from each side).
And here are some pics..
Here's how I did it..
Magnetic grills
I decided to also swap out the peg mounted grill attachers and to use magnets so the wood look is undisturbed. I was concerned the magnets might interfere with the speaker magnets but then found the Elac UniFi speakers also use magnetic grills so I felt OK. I used "6mm X 10mm Neodymium Disc Strong Rare Earth N50 Small Fridge Magnets" and they just needed the holes drilled out in the wood with a 15/64" drill (about 5.8mm) and 10mm deep. The rubber holes in the grills were also drilled out and the magnets needed some force to insert so I'm confident they wont pull out. In the front wood, I also glued them in even though they were tight in the holes and needed to be tapped in with a piece of wood. Oh- and I made the mistake of putting in the magnets before matching polarity and so I had to pull some out and turn them around. You want to have them all the same +/- direction so you can swap left/right grills or turn them upside down if you so desire.
Veneer.
First, I have no expert tools save 2 sash clamps (4 would be better), a Stanley knife, a few scraps of sand paper and some flat scraps of Melamine boards to clamp the veneer when drying. These were scrounged from the neighborhood where it seems every second house is tossing out old Ikea bookcases. The paper backed veneer was glued using Titebond 2. It took some time though as there are 12 panels (6 each speaker) and each is glued, clamped, wait to dry, trim edges with knife and then sand smooth.
The back plastic port seems to be glued in so I made a big round hole in one of the clamping boards to fit over it. I also pre-cut the port hole in the veneer using the front trim panel's tweeter hole as a template as they are close to the same size and sanded out to fit exactly.
The holes for the speakers and binding posts were gouged out and trimmed using a sharp Stanley knife using fresh blades and downward cuts.
Stain was Howard's restore-a-finish in dark walnut and rubbed down with feedNwax, basically because I had some leftover but I think the color came out OK.
I also re-glued on the back product sticker and the front "Elac" badge (the badge's 2 x 3.5mm pin holes are 22mm from the bottom edge and 100mm from each side).
And here are some pics..
