jdplant

I just used rags for the stain. For the poly I used a foam brush. At 98 cents each it was a lot easier than dealing with cleaning bristle brushes:) The foam does add lots of little bubbles but I found as long as the poly didn't dry too fast the bubbles went away. Adding a little mineral spirits really helped with that part.

Thanks. I already pulled the cane grill off the frames:) It is probably in good enough condition to clean up and use again but I just don't care for the style. I'll keep it for now but probably will just end up selling it if someone wants it. I went with the black fabric from Bob Crites. I really really like the way it looks but man it is hard to work with. I got one looking perfect but the other I'll probably re-do again at some point in the future.

Thanks all. There wasn't any coating on the speakers before, just some coloring from the oil he rubbed on them. I used a palm sander and used I think 150 grit down to what looked like bare wood. Then I stained twice using Minwax Dark Walnut (leaving it on as long as possible each time). Then 1 coat satin poly, sanded with 350 grit (just using a sanding block), another coat of poly and sanded with 400 grit. I actually did 4+ total coats of poly because I either found runs or bubbles that were driving me crazy. Finally thinned the poly with a little mineral spirits and the final coat when on butter smooth.

I painted the backs flat black but left the original tags alone. The previous owner got a lot of oil on them so they are discolored and the writing on one of them is hard to read. I still wanted to leave them alone.

Here they are all done with sanding and painting.

I also sanded and re-sprayed the motorboards with flat black. I have to say the worst part of this project was removing the sticky crap from the factor velcro! I ended up going with the strong stuff (3M adhesive remover). Goo gone and the like wouldn't make a dent in that stuff. Per Bob Crites' recommendation I also replaced the midrange horn gaskets. The old ones were brittle and kinda came apart when I removed them. I also re-capped the crossovers but for some reason didn't take a picture of that.

So the first order of business for me was to refinish them. I read a lot of folks saying not to stain the raw birch but I wanted a darker color and needed these speakers to be "wife friendly" so I went with dark walnut minwax and satin poly. I don't have any sanded pics but I sanded as much as possible while trying not to go through the top layer of birch. Pics of the guts on the table and right after the first coat of poly. I'm really happy with the way the stained birch came out!

So my first post here. I've always been interested in vintage electronics but never had money or opportunity to grab anything good. I finally got lucky and snatched up a pair of one owner, amazing condition Cornwall I from craigslist as soon as they went up for $800. I have never done anything like this and have never stained or worked with wood at all. It was a super fun project! A few questions for you all. What is the best way to clean off the woofers? They have some dust and stuff on them but not sure the safest way to clean them. Also, I've read a lot of threads on replacing grill cloth. I have some OEM black cloth that I am going to use but am afraid to screw it up since that 3M 77 stuff pretty much bonds immediately. Any tips on gluing the grill cloth? They were raw birch with cane grills. The previous owner had rubbed oil on them about 30 years ago but they were really yellow/tan in color when I picked them up. The grills have seen better days but otherwise the speakers are in perfect working order.