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Philco 15DX restoration

Bob, I'm watching you! Icon_wtf Keep posting details and photos as to how you proceed. This process always scared me. Especially setting the depth of the voice coil, centering and gluing the voice coil to the cone. Call me a wimp.

Jerry

A friend in need is a pest!  Bill Slee ca 1970.

I think the reconing will be comparatively easy with this speaker. I'll keep the voice coil attached to the original spider with a little of the old cone. The mounting screw keeps it centered at the correct depth. All I'll do is trim the new cone to fit and glue it the remains of the old one. That's my plan anyway.

I wonder if it's OK to glue the new surround directly to the metal frame or should I use some sort of fiberboard ring between them like the original did ? Perhaps I should have ordered a gasket from Mat Electronics too. I didn't notice they had them until today Icon_sad
[Image: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8360/84279...9a7a_z.jpg]

Bob, I'm dumb on this stuff but I would think with the spider attached with the voice coil in place (I don't see that in the picture) that would determine if you needed any fiber ring around the speaker frame to adjust height of the cone. I always wondered if the replacing of the screw to hold the spider down in place was accurate enough to properly center the voice coil. That screw hole must be very close to the size of the screw going through it to not allow any adjustment. Just thinking about why I'm afraid to do it! No little tiny spacers required when tightening down the spider?
Still watching and enjoying. Thanks.

Jerry

A friend in need is a pest!  Bill Slee ca 1970.

I think that would depend on the total depth of the new speaker cone verses the old, if it's deeper then the old cone then it may be wise to add a ring under it as a spacer just to bring it out a bit. On most of the speakers I have taken apart the cardboard gasket material was glued on top of the edge of the cone. Take your time figuring this out, I think you will need to shim the voice coil just to make sure everything lines up when it goes together. Normally the form for the voice coil sticks above the center of the cone about 1/16 of a inch or more, in this case they also have the spider glued in place above that, so I would remove the spider and voice coil from the old cone, provided the hole in the new cone is the right size, shim between the voice coil and the pole piece with the coil sticking out the right depth, glue the voice coil to the cone. Then take the shims out, put the spider in, re-install the shims though the slots in the spider, put the center screw back in the center of the spider, then glue the spider to the cone, then after that has dried glue the cone to the frame. Don't take this literally because I may have missed something.
Regards
Arran

Hi Bob
I think I have a globe 80 and a globe 42 I will look to see if I still have them if you are still interested.
Joe

Joe Bratcher near Louisville, KY

I'm slowly making progress on the speakers. After removing the rust, I used rusty metal primer and Bondo spot glazing to fill in the rust pits. Once that dried, I did a little sanding, masking, and painted them dark gray.

I've tried enough metallic paints to know than none of them really look like the real thing so I figured dark gray would look nicer.
[Image: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8491/84351...0195_c.jpg]

[Image: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8377/84708...87f9_c.jpg]

Hey Bob, the job on those speaker frames look great! I'm a little worried about the test fitting of the new cone and how the surround of the cone sticks up so high. I hope the hole in your sound board is big enough that it doesn't hit that foam part and perhaps push the cone/voice coil down or put undue pressure on the assembly. Again, never done one of these but I'm learning from your pictures.
Jerry

A friend in need is a pest!  Bill Slee ca 1970.

If I decide to use that cone and the surround touches the speaker board, I'll need to add some spacers. For now though I'm just going to re-install the original cone and see how it works.

Some people like to use antique nickel spray paint, not quite as bright as the silver and aluminum spray paints. I've also seen zinc spray paint in the stores but have never tried it, that may be closest to what these speaker frames used to look like.
As for the surround/hinge, replacing the cardboard gasket should act at least part way as a spacer.
Regards
Arran

Here's a piece I sprayed with nickel for another project for a comparison. That's the second can you see in the photo above. As you say, it is less bright than other metallics I have tried, but I decided I liked the gray better. Easy enough to do a light nickle coat over the gray if I change my mind.
[Image: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8111/84758...ce50_z.jpg]

The smaller speaker only had a thin cardboard gasket under the cone originally and sat about 1/8" deep in the frame.
[Image: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8188/83988...d4ef_z.jpg]

Just a quick update. I want to put another coat of paint on the speakers. dark steel metallic paint this time, but the weather hasn't been cooperating!

What brand of paint is the dark steel metallic?

--
Ron Ramirez
Ferdinand IN

Rustoleum and I found it at Menards. The little sample stripe on the can looks like raw steel, but I've never tried it before so I'd better do a test first. If I don't like the way it looks, I think I'll do with nickel as Arran suggested earlier. I decided I didn't like the look of the gray paint after all Icon_wink

[Image: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8522/85865...71af_z.jpg]

I'm quite interested in how the dark steel paint turns out for you. I never had good luck with Rustoleum paints in the past, but maybe it's time to try them again if the color is a good one?

--
Ron Ramirez
Ferdinand IN




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