Trick to refoaming woofers.

gogofast

gogofast

Addicted Member
i honestly don't know if anyone has suggested this before....but i think it's awsome, so i'll say it. i just finished refoaming my JBL L36 woofers, and it was my very first time refoaming. when i got to a point where i had to glue the outter part of the surround to the metal rim of the driver and also glue the plastic gasket over it, i realized that no matter how strong the glue were, it will not easily stick to the metal. since i wasn't prepared for this i had no clue on how to deal with it. i didn't have any thing to hold them down. after awhile, my brain said, "why not put the woofer back on the cabinet backward (front part of the metal rim touching the cabinet) and screw it tight?". well, i did, and this moring, i saw what seems to be a professionally refoamed woofers.
 
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Actually the glue will stick to the metal perfectly well, but you are right, it does help to have the gasket under pressure, and your method, as long as nothing shifts as you are mounting the woofer to the cabinet, will work well. Simply placing the woofers backwards in an upward facing cabinet or placing two woofers face to face will accomplish the same thing more easily -- gravity will provide the pressure that you are getting from the screws. But congratulations on a successful first refoaming. But be careful -- its satisfying enough that you may find yourself buying speakers simply because they need refoaming.
 
Nat said:
.....that you may find yourself buying speakers simply because they need refoaming.
Click to expand...

and before you know it you have 6 Advent woofers needing new surrounds...but it's all fun!
 
cheap refoam kit source?

do you guys know anyone who sells refoam kits for cheaper than $21? unless i find someone who does, i won't be able to become an addict....or is that like saying "crack cocaine is too expensive so i'll become clean"?
 
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There is a place here in Vancouver called Main Electronics
(http://www.mainelectronics.com) that sells surrounds
for an incredible price of $2.99 (canadian) a piece for a 10"...
So it will be about $5.00 USD a set... I'm not sure how much they charge for shipping, but I don't think it would be to much...They also have turntable belts for something like $8.00...
This place is golden, I buy all my stuff there.
In fact I finally re-foamed a set of passive radiators in my new Mirage towers today and it cost me the whole 6.00 dollars...
I suggest you give them a try.
Kris
 
Crap, i gotta stop collecting these refoamble speakers... my house is beginning to look like a woofer graveyard.
 
Main Electronics is good, but the selection is pretty limited and it seems to me they have a thirty dollar minimum order. On the other hand, I got surrounds, glue and dust caps for five sets of speakers for under $50.00.
 
Nat said:
Actually the glue will stick to the metal perfectly well, but you are right, it does help to have the gasket under pressure, and your method, as long as nothing shifts as you are mounting the woofer to the cabinet, will work well. Simply placing the woofers backwards in an upward facing cabinet or placing two woofers face to face will accomplish the same thing more easily -- gravity will provide the pressure that you are getting from the screws. But congratulations on a successful first refoaming. But be careful -- its satisfying enough that you may find yourself buying speakers simply because they need refoaming.
Click to expand...

There are a few strategies to hold down the foam while the glue sets.

Binder clips around the perimeter.

A kitchen bowl of just the right size. Warning - the wife may not like her wedding gift being used for this.

Apply the glue to the frame and foam then wait five minutes. By then it will be quite tacky and will stick to the frame.

As for buying rotted speakers just to save them from the landfill, I'm guilty of that. Last week at the local thrift, they had a half-price sale on electronics so instead of paying half price for a pair of BIC Venturis (accordian surround FWIW), I snagged an ancient pair of Madisound DT-1 Phantoms (Philips tweeter & 8" woffer in a small dual ported cab).

As for my Advent count, I'm only up to seven drivers if you include my DQ-10s. Surrounds just arrived from GordonW so hopefully next week the count will be zero.
 
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When I goto glueing the foam to the metal, I use a special craft store glue "thick" and use an accelerator(while small clamps -chip clips- hold everything properly), and seems to work great.
I wouldn't use it on the foam to cone part tho, it is too, so to say, hard to use..lol
For that, I use the glue included in the kit.
 
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