The Extremely slow - JR 149 Restoration Thread

You'll have to wait for instalments! That's the fun of the thread.

This could be a long one.

Great project and looking forward to the before and after pictures.
I'm the same with the LS3/5a's - I was underwhelmed with what I heard - suppose we all have different ears !!

Nice job Andrew.

Pt 3 - Getting to the end... Well for one cab at least!

This little project is most enjoyable. I intend to fully refurbish one cabinet and then I'll post some pictures of the unrestored one. You should all see the difference then. Today has been all about using bits in the garage. Today I found some 6mm black EVA. The 149's had, originally 3 small felt or EVA feet on the underside of the XO housing. They usually fell off due to age or poor glue and its not that unusual to have some of the feet missing, mine certainly did. Well, after a quick 5 minutes on the pillar drill I had six new feet which are slightly more substantial and should offer the 149's a slightly more higher ground purchase so they don't get XO housings don't get scuffed when moving them. Supergluing them should stop them from falling off, unlike the originals!! I managed to find some clear gloss varnish so today I have varnished the top of one speaker cab and the underside rim. This is going to be a slow job as each coat of varnish take eight hours to cure. One complete coat of varnish for the speaker is going to take 24 hours due to the awkward nature of the speakers design. I've also polished and oiled the veneer, five coats in all. The clear varnish should hopefully give it a little more protection and a nice shiny finish. I've also spray painted the XO housing gloss black and it's matches the old colour of the 149's very faithfully, 5 coats of paint in all. The XO housing covers are now sitting in my listening room slowly curing. I'll wait 24 hours before I put any lacquer on these. Finally the XO screws and washers looked a little sorry for themselves with dirt and scratches. I wet/dry polished out the scratches, metal polished them and ultrasonically cleaned out 30-40 years worth of grime from the screw threads. They now look freshly lathed. Can't do much more tonight so it's curry time..

There's quite a decent thread over on PFM. The main take away is to leave the speaker stock standard. Well I'm not going to do that... nod nod wink wink.

Yep. The XO is ham shank! That's a bug clue for you.

Is this a second pair you've had? I remember you doing a pair elsewhere, but thought you'd finished them

Any movement on these??

Pt 5

Work has moved on quite a fair old bit since I last wrote. I have finished the second speaker cabinet. I stripped layers and layers of old varnish away to reveal a lovely walnut veneer. I'm not quite sure what the last owners had done to the veneer, maybe it was old cigarette smoke or an attempt using a wood colouring product but boy was it ugly. I lightly sanded the veneer down, polished it and then later added a single coat of strong gloss varnish. The veneer pops out and looks very good, I'm happy. Like always I ultrasonically clean and then polish all metal parts. The screws had calcium deposits and the XO aluminium locking nuts had paint and varnish on them. Everything now looks factory fresh. Extrinsically the stainless steel cabinets of the JR149 were pretty shabby and to an extent they still are. The production standards were pretty low when constructing these things. They just look like they were thrown together, glue just dried on the extrinsic surface of the cab, no care taken to remove it. The glue also holds the top and bottom of the speaker to the steel cabinet, so it's integral and fully removing it compromises the structural integrity of the speaker. DOH! The 149 does have two strips of Velcro glued onto the back of the cabinet in a similar way but this can be tidied up and this is what I have done. I stripped away all the glue and then reattached the velcro strips. This section of the cab looks presentable. Finally i gave both steel cabs a clean down with pure 100% alcohol, yep, they were filthy.

I've ordered some reticulated foam to make a couple of speaker "grills" but these will function more as dust covers rather than a functional part of the speaker when it's working. I've commissioned a pair of extrinsic XO's from Paul at RFC, we are still doing through the spec. The XO's are to be soldered into place at a later date. So far this is the only part of the 149's which is to be modded. I did speak with Paul and he suggested an additional layer of foam internally so yesterday was spent cutting and fitting an additional layer of foam into the speaker cabs. The intrinsic walls of the cab have already been damped by the employee's at Jim Rogers. I made four new speaker gasket from 3mm medium density EVA to replace the withered foam jobbies that currently resided behind the drive units. I also attached the gaskets onto the driver units to keep them in place. I now need to make a couple of JR logo's for the front of the XO holders and I have a couple of small jobs to do and then they are finished.

Phew!

Gotcha. No harm done!

Pt 6 - Foam accuracy.

I got a delivery of reticulated foam today so I decided to make the missing front foam covers. I've tried to keep the restoration as faithful as possible but I made an error today. The original foam covers sit flush beneath the top and bottom covers of the speakers, mine sit proud by 10mm, arrggghhhhh! So, now I know better. I should have done my homework! The speakers now look factory fresh, I've still a few small jobs to do like make a couple of new logo's and then rewire the new XO's when they arrive and then that's it. I'm sitting here now looking at the 149's safe in the knowledge I'll never sell them unless I really have to. They will now sit in my listening room along with the other 4 pairs of speakers and get played on an "as and when" fashion. They have been fun to restore. I'll now need to edit some photo's and post the history of the resto!

Yes, holds head in shame, forgot to do my homework!