Restoring a set of Forte's

[NCSUForte]

Hello everyone, this is my first post.

I purchased a pair of Fortes from a pawn shop last december as a birthday present. The speakers sound fine and the oak veneer is in a 5 out of 10 condition (peeling on the bases, watermarks, scratches); I'm guessing they were stored in a garage. I would have liked to already start this project, but I am a college student and the Forte's were simply too big for my on-campus accommodations. I was just curious to hear some opinions on what path I should take in restoring them. I will post some pictures in the future when I am home.

I will say that I am considering replacing the diaphragms, capacitors,as well as sanding down/replacing the veneer.

Thank You Everyone

[gagelle]

For the internals, you can't go wrong with Crites: http://www.critesspeakers.com/

[chisoxpurdue]

I second crites for internals. For the exterior, it is all depending on what you want to do. I would clean them up a bit to see how bad the scratches are and stuff like that. If you are good with veneer, that is always a good route.

[NCSUForte]

Thank you,

I was aware of crites and planning on using them as well. I was also curious to see if anyone had any soldering tips, etc. I'm afraid the veneer is shot and they best solution is probably to just probably replace it. Both of my parents work at furniture companies and they have been pushing me to just let them have someone build new boxes out of solid walnut. I will probably take them up on having some new bases built, but try to keep the boxes intact.

I am going to do some research on veneers to see how difficult the process is.

Again, thank you for your help and opinions

[moray james]

I guess that if you can get solid walnut cabinets for free or very cheap why not? If you have to pay for it you would be better served to build with a double 5/8" birch ply baffle and make the rest from 5/8" birch ply with a 1/2 layer of MDF brace and stiffen inside well and then veneer the ouside with what ever you like. The ply/mdf material will be far stronger and better damped than a solid walnut cabinet. Just adjust for the volume of your braces and stiffening and you can drop your speakers into the new cabinets and they will work perfectly. buils them tall enought to get the bottom of the tweeter horn at about35.5 inches off the ground and you will have excellent stage and image qualities with the tweeter at ear height (when seated). Good luck and best regards Moray James.

[DavidF]

Custom cabinets have the advantage of a different look and getting away from a big box appearance. You should follow the internal volume and the baffle width of the original and the relative positioning of the drivers.

I have a pair of Heresy models that were originally black-painted veneer with moisture damage and split corners. Sounds like you are mostly dealing with surface issues. Once the corners were squared I sanded down the existing veneer to provide a proper gluing surface and also show up any adhesion problems. The original veneer was very tough and well installed. I refaced them with new veneer. Taped off the veneered side, bottom and top, and repainted the front and back panels. Took my time and spent a few weekends on the project but it turned out very nice.

[NCSUForte]

I appreciate everyone's input,

I am going to keep the boxes and replace the veneer.

David, did you just rough up the veneer or did you sand it down along with the adhesive?

I have been reading and there seems to be two popular veneer types, paper-backed and non. The paper-back is suppose to be more user-friendly, but I didn't know if anyone had any experience with either.

Is there anywere good to buy veneer? I would like to see it before I buy it, but that may be out of my control. I know a home depot or lowes would not have it.

I am getting excited now, if I only I didn't have all these finals to worry about...

[runninshine]

I appreciate everyone's input,

I am going to keep the boxes and replace the veneer.

David, did you just rough up the veneer or did you sand it down along with the adhesive?

I have been reading and there seems to be two popular veneer types, paper-backed and non. The paper-back is suppose to be more user-friendly, but I didn't know if anyone had any experience with either.

Is there anywere good to buy veneer? I would like to see it before I buy it, but that may be out of my control. I know a home depot or lowes would not have it.

I am getting excited now, if I only I didn't have all these finals to worry about...

Try woodcraft.com or google it. There are a few restoration threads on this site with great pictures. Good luck with your speakers!

[angusruler]

check out "volti audio."

http://www.voltiaudio.com/index.shtml

greg shows a lot of his veneer work, and offers a lot of VERY helpful tips.

[DavidF]

I had to bondo some of the corners to square them off. I then used a 100 grit with an orbital sander to take down the grain of the veneer. Some areas the sanding went well down into the veneer but that did not concern me. I then stapled multiple sheets of sandpaper to a length of 2x4 longer than the longest dimension of the enclosure and used that to take out the high sections and get a good flat surface corner to corner. I used two coats of filler/primer and sanded down after each application. This was to fill in the grain of the wood a bit.

Take good care to remove sanding dust from the surface before gluing up the veneer.

Paper backed veneer is easier to use, especially for large areas but I generally have used non-papered thinner stock. Harder to work with but I like the look of the edges better with the thinner material. The edges are the trickiest part when using cross cuts to the veneer grain. I like to use tape or a spare piece of veneer as a spacer to the cross cut saw to leave the cut piece a bit long. I then very-gently sand that down with a wood block and sandpaper. Avoids tears in the grain but takes much longer.