Speaker building and restoration is fun. I'm in my 70's and waiting for some caps to get here so that I can freshen up a pair of BIC Venturi's I built cabinets for back in the 80's.
I do this for a living and have to say you’ve done a cracking job and exactly as I’ve been doing it for over a decade now. You can use a power sander on the veneer but only with light pressure. You’re better applying the veneer a little sooner whilst the glue is slightly moist and be careful how long the iron is applied for as excess heat destroys the glue which might initially stick but can provide a poor bond and fail with too much heat. Use a wooden block to move out from the centre to edges, removing air bubbles and also taking the heat out of the glue causing it to grab. Great job overall👍
@@StagnantMizu yes, of course. With care, you can also use hot met (sparingly applied) for polyester fine weave for things like grille cloth edge fixings. Best of luck with your projects. Always sensible to try new methods/glues on a test sample first👍
I think this video was an awesome tutorial on speaker restoration! I also think the production / editing values are very high - something I know about from my career in film! It was fun to watch and learn from and VERY inspiring. I think Bill is a very multi-talented young man.
Nicely done. Exactly what I needed to see. I was mentally stuck on how to veneer the lip on the front. Your idea of shaving it off with a flush trim is money.
Nice work. I wish I could run a router that well. I've done laminate countertops and I'm going to try and attempt some receiver ends first before I try speakers. This will be my go-to vid. I didn't know wood glue could be used like that! I always use contact or spray glue. Both are NOT user friendly. One missed drop, and the project is over! Great vid!!
This was absolutely fantastic to watch. You orchestrated the video perfectly. So much so, that I will be trying to duplicate your handiwork with a couple of Bose 301 speakers whose vinyl had peeled away. I greatly appreciate all your links as I was greatly interested in the router offset base. Bravo for truly a great video. Ciao, Rocco
This is pusing me to do the same on my Cerwin Vega AT-12's, they're a bit busted on the back so I'll be repairing that. You my sir got a new subscriber.
He’s pretty damn handy with that router. I own one, but I’ve never learned how to use it properly. This video makes me think I need to start practicing!
Thank you for this video. I need to recover some mdf bookshelf speakers and this is the perfect guide for me. And I now have an excuse to buy more implements of destruction (router and heat gun).
I have some Klipsch La Scala's that need to be veneered. Apparently, from the seller, I rescued them from a college dorm/band practice space. Your video gave me the confidence to give it a shot. Thanks!
@@ProjectBilld I actually do have one question after finding the veneer I need. Is it normally expensive? It's almost $100 for a 4x8 sheet of white birch veneer and I need 3 sheets 😟
@@ProjectBilld that is true! And it'll increase the value when I put them up for sale. This was a project I wanted to take on and I also wanted to see what they sounded like 😉 thanks for your help!
One thing to consider when doing this is to replace the speaker grill fasteners with magnetic ones. They work better and give a cleaner look as they would sit behind the veneer.
Nice video, good job, much nicer now. With relatively little tools achieve great results. There’s something in me wanting to comment on missing a chance an easy sound quality upgrade as well, exchanging and adding components and dampening. But thats not the essence of the project, and anyone watching can fill that in themselves.
Nice video! Rarely do I see someone turn black speakers to brown. In my experience, it's way more common (and much easier) for people to turn their old brown laminated speakers to black or other color. Spray paint is the most popular option. A 2-tone paint job can also make the speakers look pretty impressive.
Seeing this speakers disassembled I can say those are some high quality speakers. Just the crossover itself is a work of art. and that inert baffle, internal bracing and damping. Joy to see. Great job on the veneering though. Educational.
Internal bracing is important on a lot of speakers but I don't think it is so important on tower speakers where the sides are very narrow. Simply would not make that much difference. Yes the drivers were cheap but perhaps they still sounded good. the first order crossovers only for the tweeters is typical for inexpensive speakers. inductors significantly increase production cost. If they were mine I would do a test with a calibrated microphone on the woofers then the tweeters and most likely build a second order crossover. I would not say that baffle is inert I am sure it was sized accordingly. This guy is a good craftsman and did a great job on this project. He never claimed to know a lot about crossovers. He preserved these speakers as a family heirloom. He can always upgrade the drivers and crossover later if needed.
REALLY good video! Take pictures of the wiring lol, excellent advice. Nice job matching grain and even steaming to hydrate and raise out the router bit denting. I like the wood glue/tack up idea over contact cement, more flexible realignment/open-time window. And, possibly even adhesion over your radius at the edge. Great video.
You did an amazing job, they look awesome! I also think the lighter veneer makes them look more modern. Black wood veneer was all the rage in 90s speakers.
It's always funny looking at back at what was in style in the past. Wondering what's in style today that people will wonder in 10 years why the heck did we ever like that?? My guess is gray wood floors
dont forget to mask up with mdf its toxic,great video im about to restore a bunch of speakers soon,make shure your capacitors are ok to they go bad over time....
How bad is the veneer peeling? If it's not bad you could use a glue shringe to inject wood glue underneath, wait for it to tack up some and then iron it like in the video
Great video. Congrats on a super refresh for those speakers. I'm about to do this with a new pair that I'm building. They 48x17x12 so a decent sized box. Going to do white oak for the veneer over the plywood. Anyway great video!
Wow, you really improved on the look of these! Would be quite easy to improve the sound of these too by building a crossover for it, upgrade it's internal wiring and treating the cabinet with some more dampening material. For something like this, some bitumen on the panels covered with rockwool would do quite well without costing a lot I'd say. For the crossover; No need to use expensive high end filmcaps for something like this. Just a simple 3 way LR2 network with some cheap NPE's and some inexpensive inductors would be a massive improvement in comparisson to a speaker that just uses two caps as a first order high pass filter. To decide on crossover frequency you just run a few sweeps in its current form and measure the drivers in REW. Don't get me wrong, it will never be a audiophile speaker, but good gains can be made with not too much effort and money I think.
Since the speaker doesn't have a proper midrange, but essentially two tweeters, the frequency response of them will never match properly. Not worth investing in a measurement set up for this. They will sound ok-ish, no matter what. Bass and treble is present anyhow, and they will never have good midrange or flat frequency response. Unless the tweeter cone driver is replaced by a larger midrange, which will need a sealed compartment behind it. Overall - too much work for someone who I guess is inexperienced in electrical and acoustical engineering and too much money to be spent. Adding some damping material is a good idea though.
I was looking through YT on how to veneer speakers, because I have some black speakers from the 90's and early 2000's, I was surprised to see a video on the exact speakers I have! I bought them in the early 2000's from Fry's, and they were cheap. However, they sound better than they should. They are worth veneering IMO, if not just for practice! I was surprised to see cast woofer frames. Now that I've seen inside these, I'd probably upgrade the wiring a bit (I think 16AWG would be plenty on these) and maybe consider a 12db crossover (maybe not, these are engineered this way, may not be an improvement). I use my Sony towers with lower power Pioneer SX-636 receiver, so it'd be cool to use walnut veneer and brownish/tan speaker grill cloth to match the SX.....
my friend you did a superb job of plating but I don't understand why you left the back of the speaker like that even if the back is not visible. in any case it is very clean work congratulations to you 🤝🏻
You made those speakers look nice! You might whant to change the capasitors becurse thay tent to fail with time and might pass on tje full signal to the tweeter wich will kill it
You quite right there, plus upgrading to higher quality over electrolytic. And even if film capacitor😊 being used. Can be sure the manf didn't buy the beer or best. Also some bracing added inside for resonances . So all in all, the veneer is nice but just a lipstick effort
Hi.. nice box restoring and result. I thought it is already good looking when you stripped off that ugly black thing. I would already be restoring actuall drivers (they could use some thin layer of glycerin on the rubber surround) and for the big bang upgrade for little to no money, the cheap crossover parts - just change the electrolytic capacitor to film capacitor of same value and you got yourself 2 levels up!
i have the smaller version of those, its those minus the lower woofer and port. im currently using another pair of speakers that are carpeted, i would like to have them re carpeted. thanks to cats.
I have those too! My dad bought those to be the rear surround speakers in his system a long time ago. I haven't restored those. Will likely end up using them in the shop
I don't know. My instinct is that it's a bad idea and you might damage the vinyl adhesive when applying the veneer. Probably would work ok if you used a peel and stick veneer, but I've never worked with that type so again, not sure.
Speaker building and restoration is fun. I'm in my 70's and waiting for some caps to get here so that I can freshen up a pair of BIC Venturi's I built cabinets for back in the 80's.
I pretty much never comment on videos but this was exquisite. Detailed, informative and paced perfectly.
Thank you!
You're welcome! Appreciate the comment
Why doesn’t this have more views? I never thought of dressing up items like this with veneer but the idea really opens a realm of possibilities
Published the video earlier today so you're one of the first to see it!
I do this for a living and have to say you’ve done a cracking job and exactly as I’ve been doing it for over a decade now. You can use a power sander on the veneer but only with light pressure. You’re better applying the veneer a little sooner whilst the glue is slightly moist and be careful how long the iron is applied for as excess heat destroys the glue which might initially stick but can provide a poor bond and fail with too much heat. Use a wooden block to move out from the centre to edges, removing air bubbles and also taking the heat out of the glue causing it to grab. Great job overall👍
Thanks for the tips! Stuff like that is super helpful
can i use b7000 for the cloth glue?
@@StagnantMizu yes, of course. With care, you can also use hot met (sparingly applied) for polyester fine weave for things like grille cloth edge fixings. Best of luck with your projects. Always sensible to try new methods/glues on a test sample first👍
I've never attempted this side of speaker repair but I can honestly say that this video really gives me the confidence to try!
My toxic trade is that I think I can do this on my own LOL
I believe in you
Honestly, really underrated speakers
I certainly agree! They sound much better than I'd expect given the cheap internals
The average folk can’t do this , LOL! Amazing job! Safe to say you’re a craftsman!
I think this video was an awesome tutorial on speaker restoration! I also think the production / editing values are very high - something I know about from my career in film! It was fun to watch and learn from and VERY inspiring. I think Bill is a very multi-talented young man.
Thanks Ari for the kind words!
Now upgrade the crossover and add new wire inside 🙋♂🙋♂
You did an excellent job and an even better run through. Thanks subscribed
Dude.... I'm so proud of you. That was excellent, excellent work.
Thank you! Appreciate the compliment
Nice job! I especially appreciate the fix for router roller guide scars.
I was pretty proud of being able to fix those!
Nicely done. Exactly what I needed to see. I was mentally stuck on how to veneer the lip on the front. Your idea of shaving it off with a flush trim is money.
Awesome! Glad the video could help
When it comes to subscription you had me at "Hey there, i'm Bill". Totally made my day. Cheers!
Nice work. I wish I could run a router that well. I've done laminate countertops and I'm going to try and attempt some receiver ends first before I try speakers. This will be my go-to vid. I didn't know wood glue could be used like that! I always use contact or spray glue. Both are NOT user friendly. One missed drop, and the project is over! Great vid!!
Thanks! I had no interest in messing with contact cement so I looked for an easier method, it's holding up perfectly so far
The best restoration video I’ve seen so far
This was absolutely fantastic to watch. You orchestrated the video perfectly. So much so, that I will be trying to duplicate your handiwork with a couple of Bose 301 speakers whose vinyl had peeled away. I greatly appreciate all your links as I was greatly interested in the router offset base. Bravo for truly a great video. Ciao, Rocco
Awesome! Let me know if you have any questions when you're working on your speakers
This is pusing me to do the same on my Cerwin Vega AT-12's, they're a bit busted on the back so I'll be repairing that. You my sir got a new subscriber.
Great job veneers are awesome Maybe later you should upgrade the drivers and crossovers
Thanks! Down the line at some point I'd like to do that
He’s pretty damn handy with that router. I own one, but I’ve never learned how to use it properly. This video makes me think I need to start practicing!
Great video. I wish everyone was good at explaining important steps
Thanks!
Those cheap Sonys look like a million bucks now! Great job!
I love how they turned out
well done. old is gold if maintained like this.
Beautiful job they came out awesome great job
Thanks!
Very nice. Helping a friend refinish some Klipsch and you’ve got a great example to follow!
Awesome! Glad the video was helpful
Thank you for this video. I need to recover some mdf bookshelf speakers and this is the perfect guide for me. And I now have an excuse to buy more implements of destruction (router and heat gun).
I have some Klipsch La Scala's that need to be veneered. Apparently, from the seller, I rescued them from a college dorm/band practice space. Your video gave me the confidence to give it a shot. Thanks!
That's an awesome find! Let me know if you have any questions
@@ProjectBilld I actually do have one question after finding the veneer I need. Is it normally expensive? It's almost $100 for a 4x8 sheet of white birch veneer and I need 3 sheets 😟
That seems like a pretty reasonable cost to me. Definitely not cheap but when you consider the cost of those speakers it hurts a little less
@@ProjectBilld that is true! And it'll increase the value when I put them up for sale. This was a project I wanted to take on and I also wanted to see what they sounded like 😉 thanks for your help!
Fantastic finish, looks much better than the original!
Thank you! It was a fun project
One thing to consider when doing this is to replace the speaker grill fasteners with magnetic ones. They work better and give a cleaner look as they would sit behind the veneer.
That's a good tip, thanks!
Definitely look better without the speaker grill cloth! Awesome job!
Thanks! I'm sure eventually where there are small children running around here I'll have to put them back on haha but for now, no grills!
Nice video, good job, much nicer now.
With relatively little tools achieve great results.
There’s something in me wanting to comment on missing a chance an easy sound quality upgrade as well, exchanging and adding components and dampening. But thats not the essence of the project, and anyone watching can fill that in themselves.
Amazing job - so well edited and a professional outcome.
Thanks!
Great job !! Kept my interest too ... They turned out fantastic looking
Thanks!
That was a really well done make over. Nice touch with the painters tape too. Thanks for sharing :0)
Great job. You're a patient guy.
Thanks! Didn't used to be. I've learned what it takes to get the results I want
I did this with JBL 4312b's. The new oak veneer ended up looking better than anything from the factory.
Well done. A follow vid could include building a 2nd or 3rd order xover and adding some internal bracing or batting to improve the sound.
Thanks! That's definitely a possibility at some point
they look like the good radio shack ones in the day
Damn!! What a good job!
Thanks!
Beautiful work..I’m starting the same project soon!..Thank you sir!
You're welcome! Good luck with your speaker restoration
Those look amazing! Such a well laid out video with good instructions.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the video
Vary well done I will try this Bill thanks for doing this I appreciate it Ray
You're welcome!
Great Job and video
Thanks!
Great job, only thing i would have done different is do top, bottom, and both sides in one continuous strip,use heat and steam to bend
Thanks! And that's a good idea worth trying, I'll look into it next time I have to veneer over a corner
Thanks for the video, nice explanation about applying the new grill cloth
You're welcome!
Awesome im going to do some speakers that are super rare but are in need of a restoration you inspired bro thanks
Love to hear that. Good luck restoring your speakers! Let me know if you have any questions
Молодец, красиво получилось👍
Nice work.
Thanks!
Nice video! Rarely do I see someone turn black speakers to brown. In my experience, it's way more common (and much easier) for people to turn their old brown laminated speakers to black or other color. Spray paint is the most popular option. A 2-tone paint job can also make the speakers look pretty impressive.
Yeah, a lot of those brown laminated speakers haven't aged well at all. I think the walnut veneer is pretty timeless
Great job. Really enjoyed this video. Thank you!
Appreciate it!
Seeing this speakers disassembled I can say those are some high quality speakers. Just the crossover itself is a work of art. and that inert baffle, internal bracing and damping. Joy to see. Great job on the veneering though. Educational.
Internal bracing is important on a lot of speakers but I don't think it is so important on tower speakers where the sides are very narrow. Simply would not make that much difference. Yes the drivers were cheap but perhaps they still sounded good. the first order crossovers only for the tweeters is typical for inexpensive speakers. inductors significantly increase production cost. If they were mine I would do a test with a calibrated microphone on the woofers then the tweeters and most likely build a second order crossover. I would not say that baffle is inert I am sure it was sized accordingly. This guy is a good craftsman and did a great job on this project. He never claimed to know a lot about crossovers. He preserved these speakers as a family heirloom. He can always upgrade the drivers and crossover later if needed.
Not really, very cheap wood used.
REALLY good video! Take pictures of the wiring lol, excellent advice. Nice job matching grain and even steaming to hydrate and raise out the router bit denting. I like the wood glue/tack up idea over contact cement, more flexible realignment/open-time window. And, possibly even adhesion over your radius at the edge. Great video.
Can't begin to count how many times I've started a project without taking pictures and the forgotten how it went back together when I got to the end
You did an amazing job, they look awesome! I also think the lighter veneer makes them look more modern. Black wood veneer was all the rage in 90s speakers.
It's always funny looking at back at what was in style in the past. Wondering what's in style today that people will wonder in 10 years why the heck did we ever like that?? My guess is gray wood floors
I have no use for this information as far as I know, but I was transfixed regardless. I think I could do this too!
That's awesome! I think it's a pretty approachable project, not too many tools needed which is nice
Great video!!!
Thanks!
dont forget to mask up with mdf its toxic,great video im about to restore a bunch of speakers soon,make shure your capacitors are ok to they go bad over time....
I do need to do a better job wearing a dust mask! Particularly with mdf
This is so good to to learn, if you don’t mind some DYI.
Wow nice Job
Thanks!
My little brother had these speakers back in the mid 2000s
Haha probably the cheapest decent tower speakers one could buy in the early 2000s
@@ProjectBilld Yeah, these and KLH lol
I have almost the exact same speakers with the exact same issue. I’ll mail em to ya! 😆
Send em over! Though you may not get them back 😁
Great job! It looks really great! Congratulations!
Thanks!
I still have these ...and it's siblings... awesome sound for the price ...I spray paint my smaller ones....😅😅😅😅
Yes I have the smaller siblings too! They'll eventually be used in the shop
Good Job Bro👍
Thanks!
Nice project, lovely results, lessons learned! :)
Thanks!
They look really cheap speakers though.
Nice. Job
Great for the eyes but you should have put crossover network for the ears
And beautiful work!!
Nice job!
Thanks!
Well done
Thanks!
Excellent piece of work.
Thanks! I'm really happy with how they turned out
Great video, very detailed. They look awesome! I just bought a pair of vintage Sansui speakers and want to refinish them. The old veneer is peeling.
How bad is the veneer peeling? If it's not bad you could use a glue shringe to inject wood glue underneath, wait for it to tack up some and then iron it like in the video
Great video. Congrats on a super refresh for those speakers. I'm about to do this with a new pair that I'm building. They 48x17x12 so a decent sized box. Going to do white oak for the veneer over the plywood. Anyway great video!
You're welcome! I bet those speakers are going to be awesome
Wow, you really improved on the look of these!
Would be quite easy to improve the sound of these too by building a crossover for it, upgrade it's internal wiring and treating the cabinet with some more dampening material. For something like this, some bitumen on the panels covered with rockwool would do quite well without costing a lot I'd say.
For the crossover; No need to use expensive high end filmcaps for something like this. Just a simple 3 way LR2 network with some cheap NPE's and some inexpensive inductors would be a massive improvement in comparisson to a speaker that just uses two caps as a first order high pass filter.
To decide on crossover frequency you just run a few sweeps in its current form and measure the drivers in REW.
Don't get me wrong, it will never be a audiophile speaker, but good gains can be made with not too much effort and money I think.
Thanks for the info! I'll definitely be revisiting this comment if I decide to do any internal work to the speakers
Since the speaker doesn't have a proper midrange, but essentially two tweeters, the frequency response of them will never match properly. Not worth investing in a measurement set up for this. They will sound ok-ish, no matter what. Bass and treble is present anyhow, and they will never have good midrange or flat frequency response. Unless the tweeter cone driver is replaced by a larger midrange, which will need a sealed compartment behind it. Overall - too much work for someone who I guess is inexperienced in electrical and acoustical engineering and too much money to be spent.
Adding some damping material is a good idea though.
I was looking through YT on how to veneer speakers, because I have some black speakers from the 90's and early 2000's, I was surprised to see a video on the exact speakers I have! I bought them in the early 2000's from Fry's, and they were cheap. However, they sound better than they should. They are worth veneering IMO, if not just for practice! I was surprised to see cast woofer frames. Now that I've seen inside these, I'd probably upgrade the wiring a bit (I think 16AWG would be plenty on these) and maybe consider a 12db crossover (maybe not, these are engineered this way, may not be an improvement). I use my Sony towers with lower power Pioneer SX-636 receiver, so it'd be cool to use walnut veneer and brownish/tan speaker grill cloth to match the SX.....
Sounds like you've found your next project haha
I repaired and restored my 43 year old 📢 loudspeakers.
I couldn’t help noticing. No real crossover board?
Nevertheless. Really great share!!
Larry
Nope! Maybe one day I'll do something about it but they sound great to me already so I don't know what I'm missing
Excellent job! Well done
Thanks!
Are you sure this was your first restoration?? You did a great job.
First time doing a speaker restoration and using wood veneer. And thanks!
Perfect!!
my friend you did a superb job of plating but I don't understand why you left the back of the speaker like that even if the back is not visible. in any case it is very clean work congratulations to you 🤝🏻
Thanks! Guess I didn't really see the point since it's not visible. More work/cost and now I have a reminder of what it looked like before
Awesome build my friend
Thanks!
You made those speakers look nice! You might whant to change the capasitors becurse thay tent to fail with time and might pass on tje full signal to the tweeter wich will kill it
Good call. Likely going to be redoing the wiring and crossovers entirely in the future
You quite right there, plus upgrading to higher quality over electrolytic. And even if film capacitor😊 being used. Can be sure the manf didn't buy the beer or best. Also some bracing added inside for resonances . So all in all, the veneer is nice but just a lipstick effort
Hi.. nice box restoring and result. I thought it is already good looking when you stripped off that ugly black thing. I would already be restoring actuall drivers (they could use some thin layer of glycerin on the rubber surround) and for the big bang upgrade for little to no money, the cheap crossover parts - just change the electrolytic capacitor to film capacitor of same value and you got yourself 2 levels up!
Thanks for the tips!
Yes, I like them better without the grills too.
Great job! shame they have yellow cones as it doesn't go with it at all, would look amazing if they were black but the wood finish looks fantastic!
Thanks! I don't mind the yellow cones, but I do think black would look really nice
Damn good video. Thank you.
You're welcome!
Excellent! Thank you for the great video
You're welcome!
Very impressive!!
Thanks!
amazing work
Thanks!
would b7000 work as adhesive? for the cloth
Really nice job 👍
Thanks!
i have the smaller version of those, its those minus the lower woofer and port. im currently using another pair of speakers that are carpeted, i would like to have them re carpeted. thanks to cats.
I have those too! My dad bought those to be the rear surround speakers in his system a long time ago. I haven't restored those. Will likely end up using them in the shop
maaaaaan. That looks so good. Can I send my speakers to you for veneering?
Only if you want me to keep them 😁
I have a similar set of Sony speakers. The plastic baskets seem to get brittle and break. I've had to repair them multiple times
Nice work!
Thanks!
...a very good job....
Thanks!
Have you considered crossovers for the speakers? I added a crossovers in mine
Maybe someday. I've got so many other projects to work on!
If the vynl wrap is in like new condition is it possible to apply the veneer on top ? Without taking it off.
I don't know. My instinct is that it's a bad idea and you might damage the vinyl adhesive when applying the veneer. Probably would work ok if you used a peel and stick veneer, but I've never worked with that type so again, not sure.
ALSO HE COULD DELIVER PROPER BAND PASS. THOSE CONDICS ON THOSE WIRES IT'S SAD. OTHERWISE VERY NICE RESTORATION JOB DONE WITH VENEER.
Awsome job
Thanks!