Looking for idea's on Bose Interaudio Grills restore

[VintageDutch]

Hey everybody..

This weekend I picked-up two Bose Interaudio Model 3000 Speakers... Mind you... They are the Grandma and Grand daddy of the later 3000XL


I my younger years I sold many of these speakers, and now that I'm in the Vintage Audio restoration game I wanted a set since I remember them as very well sounding speakers.

Anyhow...Picked them up for € 35,-- euro.. to be honest a bit overpriced taking the over appearance and wrong doings into consideration. But they become harder to find in Europe.

After coming home I set them up and I noticed some hooligan replaced the foam surrounds with Rubber surrounds..Since the rubber weight is higher and the surround is stiffer them foam It totally throws of the specs of the speakers.... This is very audio-ble... The speaker does have tonal bases but is very rich in mid lows so it kind of has a nasty bump in the sound where there should be none...

It lacks the real rich warmth, and although there is some bass it is more like Stevie Wonder is pealing an Orange with a light-saber.. Not precise...
Highs are there, placement is perfect .. but needs a new cap and resistor..no problem

The technical stuff can be fixed... cabinet... is awfully painted black...with a broom...in a dessert storm...
Horrible...but It can be fixed...

And then there are the grills... They are original (Yes Yes Yes) but falling apart...
They are made from molded plastic, covered with a kind of burlap Cloth.. Actually... not to bad ... if they where left they way they where...

Problem is the plastic molding is in places cracked, broken, kaput, and to be fair a bit brittle...
I want to fix them and maybe improve on them but keep them as original as possible...


SO I was thinking.... To enhance the sides of the grills with Mesh steel (you know the kind with the little holes in them) Glue the original grill over it.
Loose the side slabs that is original to mount/slot the grills into/onto the speaker cabinets and Use earth magnets to hold it all in place.

Although that sounds like a plan, I know many of you have already fixed similar problems so I am in need of other fixing methods and idea's if there are any to restore these grills.

Then there is the overall disformation of the plastic molding...Ihave no idea how to get these back in to reason....any ideas?

I have plenty of time to fix them since I first want to fix the surrounds (already in progress) and the filter and after that restore the cabinets...

On the subject of cabinet restoring.... What would you guy's and girls do... sanding down and use sticky foil and recover or go with real wood veneer...

 

[swechsler]

The technical stuff can be fixed... cabinet... is awfully painted black...with a broom...in a dessert storm...
Horrible...but It can be fixed...

You had me laughing out loud with this.

This seems a lot of effort to put into these speakers, but hey, whatever interests you. Regarding the disformed plastic molding, can you post pictures? I'm unable to picture what you mean.

With all the work you're putting into these, you might as well go with real wood veneer. Laminate would be another choice, but you'd need either a laminate trimmer or a router with a laminate trimming bit. I suspect that any other sort of artificial veneer will never look that good.

 

[VintageDutch]

@swechsler

This seems a lot of effort to put into these speakers, but hey, whatever interests you.

yes it is to much effort for these speakers but somehow They have a good vibe for me.. Although I know and here they are no match to my Onkyo Audio Events 8.1.. Some how I like them... maybe because i Sold a lot of these in the late 70ties?
Pictures... yes sirr..;-)

First .. the "painted with broom in a dessert storm" Paint job.

And what under that horrible paint job


Front of the offended plastic molded grill


And the damage on the Plastic mollding inside the grill


And Grill # 2 is even worss.


Problem is that all stiffness is gone ( I tried to feed a little blue pill from my friendly neighbor ;-) ) due to the broken (visible and not) molding . So the original fitting over the speaker sliding in to the sides, bottom an top panels is next to worthless and looks .... well....sad...

 

[swechsler]

OK, I think the best solution to the problem of the grilles is to actually replace them with perforated steel (that's what that material is called in the US) rather than strengthen them. You can cut 5 pieces and make an open-sided box, the pieces attached together with small brackets (or weld them if you have the skill). The screws for the brackets would protrude slightly but I don't think it would be too noticeable once you reapply the fabric. For attaching these new grilles to the speakers, use brackets attached near the bottom, with speaker grille posts epoxied to the bottoms of the brackets, and the matching sockets drilled into the front baffle.

BTW, don't take what I'm writing as gospel, I'm not an expert on this sort of construction. It's just the obvious solution to me. Hopefully someone else will see this and comment.

 

[kirk57]

I have had three pairs of Interaudio 1000 with those kinds of grills.

The issue I would see with using steel is that (as you must know) you have to rather severely *bend* the grille to get it into the 4 slots around the perimeter.
I try to not mess with them as they seem to only tolerate been removed/installed a certain number of times. Age has not made this any easier.

Yours don't look so bad, other than being deformed. Seeing that they are plastic I'd think you could just flatten the edges using a warm iron (with some cloth between the grill and iron).

P.S. my surname is Van Der Aa

 

[swechsler]

The issue I would see with using steel is that (as you must know) you have to rather severely *bend* the grille to get it into the 4 slots around the perimeter.

That's why I recommended using grille posts instead. I also doubt that using an iron to reshape them would cause the stiffness to return.

 

[VintageDutch]

@kirk57 Hello mr. Van der Aa Also from the Netherlands?

Sadly the pictures don't show the full extent of the grill problem ... It worse then the pictures shows..Then again if that was the only problem in the world, live would be great for all.
My head is battlefield right now between making my own version of the grill or trying to restore them... I have been thinking about the childs "toy" with the plastic beats with can melt with an iron into a "art piece" It is called Creotime

And then there is The stuff that some creative seamstress use to "form" cloth....
Anyhow I have to get structure back in some way with old stuff or create new structure with Iron perforated steel as mr @swechsler suggests.

At this point...to me it is weighing the possibilities of the next level and maybe as a finishing touch, as I'm still working to get the black paint of the cabinets..
It is actually not hard, just time consuming (and cold outside)..and I also have new idea's on the old filters.

.....and if this not enough.... Also have a Pioneer SX490 in need of better Speakers connectors, A Sony SQR 6650 that needs a lot of love and dust and nicotine removal...as well as supply recap... in one word....a restore..
And last but not least my friend in Spain has send his Sansui on its way to me for some repairs...and still have to Finnish my vintage gear shelving...

So please keep the good ideas flowing! how to restore the Interaudio model IA 3000 Grills
I really appreciate your idea's what ever they are..

 

[kirk57]

@kirk57 Hello mr. Van der Aa Also from the Netherlands?

At one time. My family came to the US around the turn of the last century.

 

[VintageDutch]

AHa.. so you are 3th to 5th generation descender Dutch?... No hard feelings just kidding..