Thought I'd share a story about my restoration/fix-up of my recently acquired KLH Model 5 speakers.
First off, I want to be clear that I have little to no experience with wood restoration, paint, speaker repair, etc. This was a learning experience and an, at times, painful one!
So, as some of you may recall, I was able to purchase a pair of KLH 5s locally for a low negotiated price of $130. Part of the reason these went so inexpensively is that they had been painted black at some point in their life. It was not a good paint job either. The grill backs are original but the fabric was cheap black stuff.
Initially, I was going to live with their condition and sound but, after some chatting here and through personal messages, I was convinced that I should recap them. I ended up opening them up myself and took out the crossovers. I then shipped them off to a fellow AKer (Spark1) who has experience and knowledge. In retrospect, this was a very wise decision on my part. I think I could have ended up botching this part of the restore badly. Steve ended up doing the job perfectly.
While the cabs were sitting without their woofers in place, I decided "what the hell, I'm gonna strip off that awful black paint! How hard could it be? Shouldn't take too long!"
Three days later...
I won't go into all the details so as not to bore you all to death but I will say it was a slow, MESSY, frustrating, sore back-causing, wife annoying, 3 trips to the hardware store, and did I say messy, job. After about 3 hours into starting on the first speaker, I found myself wishing for a time machine so I could go back in time and stop myself from doing this. I would say, "Trust me! Black isn't that bad!"
But, I was in it and there was no turning back so I finished it. It's not perfect but it looks a million percent better than when I got them.
Other stuff I did:
Picked up the sticky tape surround gasket from Parts Express and replaced the old stuff with the new gasket around the woofers.
Resealed the surrounds with the Vintage AR goop.
Re-covered the speaker grills with, what I think is a low thread count, nice fabric. The color is much lighter than original but I really like that look. Bad news is, I think they may not be acoustically transparent and it's likely I'll replace the fabric with something more acoustically appropriate (assuming I can't source out the originals which are pretty much unobtanium).
Also, one big headache on the first speaker was, when I got the crossovers back, I replaced the first one and foolishly put EVERYTHING back together (stuffing, screws, switch knobs) before I tested it. When I plugged it in, disaster. It was badly distorted and my amp shut down into safety mode. Long story short, after opening it up again, I discovered I had inadvertently placed the separating washer on the lead connecting to the metal backplate on the wrong side of one of the screws. So, it was shorting out on the plate. Got that fixed and everything works great now.
I checked the cork inside the cabs and it had been replaced with putty. Looked like they were still fully intact so I didn't mess with them. I'm still unsure if the I'm getting a great seal so I've ordered another dose of Vintage AR sealer. RoyC suggested a third coat would be fine if I'm still not seeing a "slow return" on the speaker push test. Pretty sure the new gaskets I put into place are getting a good seal.
So, thanks for reading this long post. That's actually the short version of my one and a half week torture gauntlet. But, I posted a few pictures of before and after. Pretty happy with everything now with the exception of the speaker grill cloth. I also didn't do such a great job on applying them so I'll be more careful and buy the right glue in a few weeks when I figure out what to put on them.
Thanks for all the advice I received! Feel free to ask questions. I'm sure some here can learn from my mistakes and, sometimes, stupidity!
First off, I want to be clear that I have little to no experience with wood restoration, paint, speaker repair, etc. This was a learning experience and an, at times, painful one!
So, as some of you may recall, I was able to purchase a pair of KLH 5s locally for a low negotiated price of $130. Part of the reason these went so inexpensively is that they had been painted black at some point in their life. It was not a good paint job either. The grill backs are original but the fabric was cheap black stuff.
Initially, I was going to live with their condition and sound but, after some chatting here and through personal messages, I was convinced that I should recap them. I ended up opening them up myself and took out the crossovers. I then shipped them off to a fellow AKer (Spark1) who has experience and knowledge. In retrospect, this was a very wise decision on my part. I think I could have ended up botching this part of the restore badly. Steve ended up doing the job perfectly.
While the cabs were sitting without their woofers in place, I decided "what the hell, I'm gonna strip off that awful black paint! How hard could it be? Shouldn't take too long!"
Three days later...
I won't go into all the details so as not to bore you all to death but I will say it was a slow, MESSY, frustrating, sore back-causing, wife annoying, 3 trips to the hardware store, and did I say messy, job. After about 3 hours into starting on the first speaker, I found myself wishing for a time machine so I could go back in time and stop myself from doing this. I would say, "Trust me! Black isn't that bad!"
But, I was in it and there was no turning back so I finished it. It's not perfect but it looks a million percent better than when I got them.
Other stuff I did:
Picked up the sticky tape surround gasket from Parts Express and replaced the old stuff with the new gasket around the woofers.
Resealed the surrounds with the Vintage AR goop.
Re-covered the speaker grills with, what I think is a low thread count, nice fabric. The color is much lighter than original but I really like that look. Bad news is, I think they may not be acoustically transparent and it's likely I'll replace the fabric with something more acoustically appropriate (assuming I can't source out the originals which are pretty much unobtanium).
Also, one big headache on the first speaker was, when I got the crossovers back, I replaced the first one and foolishly put EVERYTHING back together (stuffing, screws, switch knobs) before I tested it. When I plugged it in, disaster. It was badly distorted and my amp shut down into safety mode. Long story short, after opening it up again, I discovered I had inadvertently placed the separating washer on the lead connecting to the metal backplate on the wrong side of one of the screws. So, it was shorting out on the plate. Got that fixed and everything works great now.
I checked the cork inside the cabs and it had been replaced with putty. Looked like they were still fully intact so I didn't mess with them. I'm still unsure if the I'm getting a great seal so I've ordered another dose of Vintage AR sealer. RoyC suggested a third coat would be fine if I'm still not seeing a "slow return" on the speaker push test. Pretty sure the new gaskets I put into place are getting a good seal.
So, thanks for reading this long post. That's actually the short version of my one and a half week torture gauntlet. But, I posted a few pictures of before and after. Pretty happy with everything now with the exception of the speaker grill cloth. I also didn't do such a great job on applying them so I'll be more careful and buy the right glue in a few weeks when I figure out what to put on them.
Thanks for all the advice I received! Feel free to ask questions. I'm sure some here can learn from my mistakes and, sometimes, stupidity!
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