rtomas

You can see two of my four Fortes here: http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/105834.aspx

I did the "restore painted speakers" thing. Lots of work. This thread explains the process I used and might give you some insights into what it might take: http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/105834.aspx

I don't have any of his CDs but I've enjoyed his work with David Sanborn from back in what, the late 70's? His remake of the Deniece Williams song "Free" with Corrine Bailey Ray is an excellent tune.

In my case, bits of black paint down in the grain of the walnut veneer would look somewhat natural since the walnut grain is itself naturally darker in color. In your case, I'd say it depends on what kind of wood you have and what the natural colorations are for that wood. It could be that you wouldn't need to get every last bit of paint out of the grain.

I probably spent the better part of a year on the Fortes. Of course, I only worked on them intermittently at best as I coach youth baseball in addition to my fulltime job. But don't give up. They will be that much more enjoyable to listen to (and look at) knowing that you refinished them yourself.

Thanks for the tip. I had thought about using lacquer thinner but thought it might be too harsh. In any case, I don't plan on doing this again. []

Ok, I believe I have replicated here the entire thread that I posted on AudioKarma. It's in a new thread called "Klipsch Fortes Restored - The Complete Thread". You can get to it here: http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/105834.aspx By the way, I was able to "jimmy" things to get multiple pictures into each of the three parts (original post and two replies). That was very labor intensive and involved loading each picture as an attachment, posting my edit, right-clicking and selecting "Properties" on the attachment link to get the URL of the picture, and then re-editing the post/reply in HTML mode to past the URL into the text. We'll see if the picture files stick around or if some garbage collection mechanics detects those files are not referenced as an attachment by any posts and decides to "clean them up".

PART 3 - The Final Result In general, I'm happy with how the speakers turned out. I think the finish on the veneer might have turned out a little nicer if I didn't have the issue with the tung oil, though. Nonetheless, they look pretty good. I vacuumed off the grills and then soaked them in a bath tub full of water and Woolite. (Plastic grill frames make this possible!) I then glued a new emblem onto the grill that was missing one. I had ordered a new emblem directly from Klipsch. The pictures below show what the speakers now look like: The cabinets looks darker in person that in these photos. Also, in the picture showing the tops of the speakers, you can barely make out that water stain on the front-most speaker. But it seems more noticeable in the picture than in person. I don't think anyone would notice it unless I pointed it out. By the way, I already owned another pair of "minty" walnut Fortes so this is my second pair and yes, I love how they sound. Would I take on another project like this? I think not.

PART 2 - The Process Since the driver boards needed no work, I decided not to pull the drivers and to instead just mask them off. Then I got to work stripping the paint using a chemical stripper. Note that I positioned the cabinets so that there would be no stripper running down the driver boards. Even though they were masked off, I wasn't sure what the stripper might do to the masking. In the picture below, you can see that the top of the cabinet has been stripped and the side is in the process of being stripped. Note also the water stain on the top of the cabinet that was hiding under the paint. [N] The stripping process removed 99.9% of the paint. But there remained small bits of paint down in the grain of the wood. You can see that in the picture below: Removing this last little bit of paint would prove to be the most labor-intensive part of the whole process. It took .1% of the time to remove 99.9% of the paint and it took 99.9% of the time to remove .1% of the paint. Here's a picture of one of the cabinets with the grain partially cleaned out: I don't know why the stripper didn't raise these bits of paint down in the grain. I have never done this before and only knew what I had read on the Internet. Anyway, the process I used was to wet the cabinet with mineral spirits using a steel wool pad and then scrubbing with the grain using a fine-bristle brass brush. You might think that the metal bristles would scratch up the wood veneer but they did not. Here's the "tools of the trade" I used: The scrubbing process involved multiple passes over each side. And I never really got all of the paint out of the grain. If you look closely at the partially "scrubbed" cabinet a couple pictures back, you'll see there are still some tiny bits of paint. It seemed that the law of diminishing returns had kicked in. It would take a ton more effort to get that last bit of paint out of the grain. So, I decided I would try applying a coat of stain to color the paint. This worked marginally at best after 3 coats of stain. After applying the stain, the cabinets looks pretty good except they looked a little "dry" in places. So I headed down to my local Woodworker's Source store to learn about different types of finishes. Based on their descriptions and my desires, I selected a Tung oil. The person I talked to at the store recommended applying the oil and letting it sit for 2-3 days to soak in. After that, I could wipe off what was left. BIG MISTAKE! Upon the 2nd day, I noticed the oil had soaked in in some areas and appeared to still remain wet in other areas. I touched what looked like a wet area only to find out the oil had hardened like a varnish. Furthermore, the wood veneer felt almost waxy and I didn't like that. What to do? I decided I could either re-strip the cabinets or sand them down. Having had my fill of stripping and wanting to get this project done faster, I decided to sand. Then I applied another coat of stain and called it good. The stain was an oil based stain so I guess, in effect, I did apply more oil. I didn't take any pictures of this part of the process. Note that I did have to repaint the black inset of the bases as well as touch up around the edges of the front and rear driver boards. The paint that Klipsch uses for this is hard to find and only available in large quantities so I wasn't able to use the exact same paint that Klipsch used. But the brand they use is Valspar and I discovered that Valspar black satin spray paint from Lowe's is a pretty good match.

Since some folks don't have access to AudioKarma where I originally posted this, I am duplicating it here. Enjoy! PART 1 - The Beginning A while back I purchased a pair of Fortes for $250. This was a smoking deal except for one thing. The cabinets had been painted white and one of the emblems was missing. But the driver boards and drivers were in great shape. The grills were also in good shape. Here's what they looked like: You can see in that last picture above that these Fortes have a walnut veneer. All I gotta' do is strip some paint to expose it. Right? Surely it can't be that tough. (And don't call me Shirley.)

Sorry. I just assumed everyone would at least have read access to look at posts on AK. I've not posted pictures here before. And there are quite a few of them. But I'll see what I can do.

Chris, Thanks. Yeah, I've been thinking about that - both with my original pair of Fortes and now with this restored pair. I had gotten a price from Crites for a cap kit. But I'm still trying to guage what the difference might be between replacing just the caps and replacing the entire crossovers. I was laid off a few months ago and this won't be happening until I'm bringing in an income. [] How would you characterize the difference between a cap replacement and an entire crossover replacement? Roger

For anyone that's interested in this sort of thing, I just posted a thread in the Klipsch forum over on AudioKarma about my restoration of some Klipsh Forte speakers that had been painted white. [:'(] You can get to it here: [url=http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=169402"]here[/url].

Thanks for the replies.

Ok, so I'm finally at the point where I need the paint for my Forte project. The Valspar website told me that I could find Valspar paint at my local Frazee and Dunn Edwards stores. After going to both, I've learned that the black lacquer isn't carried locally, it's pretty pricey and possibly only available in gallons, and lacquer must be sprayed - not brushed. I really just need to do some touch up. Before I stripped the paint off the Fortes, I masked off the fronts and backs so the only areas I need to touch up are a 3/16" strip around the outer edge of the backs, the inside edge of the front inset (where the side of the grills touch), and the inset on the bases. I'm thinking for what I need that I might be able to use a black semi-gloss from Home Depot as opposed to ordering #40 sheen black lacquer primer and #40 sheen clear in quantities larger than I need. Anyone have any suggestions?