atthezoo
New Member
Edit* the images are thumbnailed below, I dont know why they didn't show up in post
Hello, about 2 and a half years ago a friend of mine gave me a pair of JBL Decade 36 speakers he had bought new so many years ago. The grills were trashed, particle board that did not hold up to the abuse they had seen. The cabs were in fairly rough shape with water staining, light scratching and the black face and back needed help. The biggest issue was the JBL125A's (10 inch woofer) were completely frozen as the magnet had shifted catastrophically. I sent the woofers to a fellow forum member who did a fantastic job at a fantastic price, feel free to pm me for their name as I am not sure the rules on advertising for someone. I also had the woofers "regaussed sp*" which was necessary in my situation, the difference was amazing before and after gaussing. I also added female banana receptacles to the back as the original speaker terminals were worn out and seemed sort of cheap to begin with.
I decided to build my own grills as replacements are very costly. I used half inch birch ply painted black. I was able to reuse the center post which seems to be made of steel or iron of some sort. The most difficult part was achieving the correct angle on the "triangular" front, but once that was sorted they went together easily. I covered them in a non-original color option for this speaker but I loved the color and think they look great! I believe it is a JBL color available on some speakers, at least where I ordered the cloth they said it was a JBL blue.
While I was building the grills I decided to try and build some stands. I had seen a photo online of custom stands made of welded steel. I am not much of a metal worker but I have some basic wood working tools so I thought maybe the same 1/2 birch would be nice for the project. I went with a joinery technique where the joints are made by laminating the plywood pieces together and staggering the ends so they all fit together. I'm not sure about the technical term but I had seen a few videos of "chris salamone sp*" using it and it looked rather straight forward. The pieces end up being 3 layers thick of 1/2inch ply which seems to be more than adequate to hold these heavy speakers.
Hope you enjoyed the project, let me know what you think. I am fairly new to this stuff and I dont know, what I dont know.
Hello, about 2 and a half years ago a friend of mine gave me a pair of JBL Decade 36 speakers he had bought new so many years ago. The grills were trashed, particle board that did not hold up to the abuse they had seen. The cabs were in fairly rough shape with water staining, light scratching and the black face and back needed help. The biggest issue was the JBL125A's (10 inch woofer) were completely frozen as the magnet had shifted catastrophically. I sent the woofers to a fellow forum member who did a fantastic job at a fantastic price, feel free to pm me for their name as I am not sure the rules on advertising for someone. I also had the woofers "regaussed sp*" which was necessary in my situation, the difference was amazing before and after gaussing. I also added female banana receptacles to the back as the original speaker terminals were worn out and seemed sort of cheap to begin with.
I decided to build my own grills as replacements are very costly. I used half inch birch ply painted black. I was able to reuse the center post which seems to be made of steel or iron of some sort. The most difficult part was achieving the correct angle on the "triangular" front, but once that was sorted they went together easily. I covered them in a non-original color option for this speaker but I loved the color and think they look great! I believe it is a JBL color available on some speakers, at least where I ordered the cloth they said it was a JBL blue.
While I was building the grills I decided to try and build some stands. I had seen a photo online of custom stands made of welded steel. I am not much of a metal worker but I have some basic wood working tools so I thought maybe the same 1/2 birch would be nice for the project. I went with a joinery technique where the joints are made by laminating the plywood pieces together and staggering the ends so they all fit together. I'm not sure about the technical term but I had seen a few videos of "chris salamone sp*" using it and it looked rather straight forward. The pieces end up being 3 layers thick of 1/2inch ply which seems to be more than adequate to hold these heavy speakers.
Hope you enjoyed the project, let me know what you think. I am fairly new to this stuff and I dont know, what I dont know.
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