ryanm84

The cabinets were rotated to do two surfaces at one time. The walnut edge banding was super easy to apply with an iron and a small sheet of tin foil. I worked about 6 or so inches at a time to ensure that the inner edge of band was flush with the inner edge. I blacked out the inner edge all the way around where the grilles sit. I didn't want to mess around trying to veneer that little strip. Again, surface flooded with golden oak to get the same finish everywhere.

I worked out my finish on some practice pieces prior to attempting anything on the cabinets. One coat of golden oak followed by medium walnut to add some darker color. I'm soaking the surface with the golden oak Watco oil. It was allowed to sit for about 10-15 minutes before the excess was wiped off.

I purchased a 25 foot roll of walnut edge banding that is applied with an iron. For insurance, I've put down a light coat of contact cement on the front edge to hedge my bets. First thing tomorrow morning I will begin applying the edge on the front of the speakers. The bases will be put back on and everything lightly sanded prior to finishing. I've got my oil choices made (Watco oak and medium walnut). I'm not sure that I want or will put any other finish on beyond the oil. More pics of the nearly finished product will be posted soon.

After I moved, most of my stuff is in storage or almost certainly not at arms length. So in this case, I'm using the cabinets own weight, a piece of 3/4 inch ply, and 2 cases of water to press the last 2 surfaces together overnight for curing. Yankee ingenuity is what I call it.

I have a lot of tools for various woodworking projects that I do. I found that I needed a pretty small number of them for this project. A brand new knife and replacement blades did all the initial cutting of the veneer. A router with a flush bit to do all the final trimming once the cement had cured. 2 quarts of contact cement, a pack of fabric rollers and a few cheap disposable paint pans. I use foam sanding blocks on the edges and surface (fine grit) to knock down any edges that the router lifted as it cut and to gently sand the surface. The veneer isn't that thick and it is pretty smooth right from the supplier. No one wants rough surfaces after going through all the steps to take these beat up 30 year old cabinets and turn them into something really nice.

The home stretch. Last surface to veneer. I started on the bottoms to try to perfect the process. The grain doesn't match on the bottom but for obvious reasons, I'm not that worried. I used contact cement for this project. The veneer was paper backed. I used two coats of contact cement letting them dry for approximately 30 minutes between first and second coat. I then placed wax paper on each surface and slowly worked my way down each surface. Middle first working out to the edges to ensure that any bubbles were taken out. Use a veneer scraper. A J roller isn't going to work. The scraper burnishes the veneer slightly but it does the trick to get bubbles out and ensure you get great contact between speaker and veneer.

I carefully measured the cabinets to pre-cut the veneer. After splitting down the length, the side, top and side were cut so that the grain matched as the eye rolls over the visible surfaces. I numbered each sheet to keep them in the correct order and kept each stack separated. Again, this should have led to a matched set!

I have ordered all my veneer off an eBay seller and this 4x10 roll didn't disappoint. It has a lot of figure and character. Splitting it right down the middle should have led to a matched pair of speakers. More on this later.

You can find these on eBay from time to time. Pretty cool.

As someone who is also working on refurb, I think those cabs look great. And I think the addition of those grills will really set the whole appearance off without affecting sound in an appreciable way. Nice job!

Seems like 8 ohm to me. http://www.klipsch.com/forte-floorstanding-speaker/details#specs

No because the surface of the board is covered in contact cement. The folding of the material over the back is cosmetic. If that makes sense. You are relying on the entire grille board surface area covered in cement to do all the work.

I bought some rollers to move these things around the garage while I work on them. I strongly suggest them for anyone that has these large Heritage speakers to work with. This pic also shows the amount of prep work that can go into something like this.

Because I'm waiting for my new sheet of walnut veneer, the only other thing that I could do was to install the new Bob Crites Type B crossovers. I have messed around with some Watco medium walnut oil. It was much darker than I wanted. So I grabbed a light oak oil from Watco too. I tried a couple different applications but find that if I apply the light oak first followed by the medium walnut, the finish is much closer to what I want. So everything will get oiled at the same time so that it all has a consistent hue. More to follow and a final wrap coming soon.

I'll skip the pictorial, but applying a liberal amount of contact cement, pressing quite firmly on the board, and then applying clamp or weight to the board and fabric gives a good result. Folding over again applying some pressure (I used a hammer and small block of wood) to ensure the folded material is in contact with the cement on the board means you get a nice tight fold. I re-applied my Klipsch badges and these are ready to go. The corners are tight and fit wonderfully in their home.

Projects of any size require planning. This is no exception. The picture below is my version of the fabric stretcher that several others have used here. It helped make sure that the lines on the fabric were straight and lined up where they needed to. This is my stretched fabric before setting my boards.

The grilles didn't look bad, but they had been dropped or something so that the board material itself was broken along the bottom corners and someone along the way had applied Velcro on top of the grille fabric so that every time they removed the grilles, the fabric wanted to pull off. If you are considering re-doing your grilles, do a search on this site to find the best set of instructions. My old grilles provided a template for proper sizing and routing of horn/woofer openings. Gotta paint em black on all sides to seal. This part was pretty easy. The next ones take some planning and patience.

Both bottoms have been veneered and trimmed. I made a mistake when ordering my veneer. I accidentally ordered a 48x96" sheet. You need a couple more inches than 96 to finish Cornwalls, so I'll be waiting a couple days until my 120" sheet comes in. Oh well, I still have grilles to do.

Of course, the risers were also beat up a bit. I could have made a new set, bought some from Bob Crites, or even bought some thin walnut stock and refaced. I actually started veneering these first to work out the whole process. I trim with a flush trim bit, a very sharp razor knife, straightedge, and a fine grit sanding block.

I decided to go with walnut veneer rather than cherry. I have built some other cherry pieces and even with a finish, cherry will get red over time. Sunlight has that effect. I am using paper backed veneer and contact cement. I tested the bottom first to ensure that trimming with my router wouldn't tear out the veneer. Some non-backed veneer can do that when routed. Once down, this is not coming up.

Dings, scratches, and compromised plywood received filler. Then the entire surface was sanded as the previous owner had varnished the cabinets after staining them brown.

All the components have been taken out and sit safely awaiting installation after some TLC. Motorboards were painted black.

My Cornwalls had typical issues for a 30 year old set of speakers. The sounded great. As I said to my wife last night, they'll stir your drink for you. But I couldn't let the looks not match the sound. This gives you an idea of the scars that came with the boxes.

I've got several pics of in progress work. Grilles ready to be covered. Veneer on one riser (testing trimming with a router) as I work out that process. Backs off and sanded. New type B xovers installed. Motor board painted black. If I could just find enough time to finish!!

I wish I had a friend to give me a killer set of speakers! []