Rescued a pair of Quartets

[Marvel]

Welcome to the forums. Those cleaned up very nicely. Unless you want to totally make them look superb (like the 240Z), I would leave the dust caps the way they are for now. They still do what they are supposed to do and are on the backs. I would also leave the crossovers for now and listen for a while before changing anything else out, to give you an idea what they are about. For some details on different finishes, you can check out this link:

 

This covers a lot of info on different models. You can either go with as close to authentic or whatever floats your boat.

 

Bruce

[Hardway1969]

13 hours ago, Peter P. said:

I wouldn't mess with the crossovers if there's no obvious damage to the capacitors if for nothing else, to keep the cost of your purchase and restoration down. The more you invest, the less of a bargain you got!

I will listen to them more over the weekend.  Maybe I can convince the wife to let me bring them in to the house so I can hook them up to my Denon 2ch receiver.  When hooked up to my Yamaha there was a noticeable absence of highs but plenty of mid range and bass.  If this rings true when hooked up to my Denon I will pull the tweeters out and take a look at them.  Progress will be slow on these as they are not an urgent project but I will certainly post a lot of "in progress" pictures and details.

[Peter P.]

11 hours ago, Hardway1969 said:

... there was a noticeable absence of highs but plenty of mid range and bass.  If this rings true when hooked up to my Denon I will pull the tweeters out and take a look at them...

In case you need some help, here's how I tested my Heresy tweeters:

 

Disconnect the speaker leads from the driver and measure the resistance across the tweeter's terminals. Should read close to whatever is stamped on the rear of the driver.

 

With the tweeter disconnected, clip your voltmeter leads across the tweeter leads and measure AC volts with some music playing at low level. The meter should display something under a volt, and vary rapidly with the music. You could try playing interstation FM white noise for a steadier reading. Increase the volume and the voltmeter reading should rise. If it does, the crossover is good.

[Hardway1969]

Its been a long time since my last post but I still have these speakers.  I have hung on to them with the goal of refinishing them so I can bring them in to the house and enjoy them.  They have seen one car be sold, two more come in, and a host of other small projects get attention.  Well now it is their turn as my '88 Mercedes Benz 560SEC is with my mechanic getting its air conditioning addressed.  Below are some pictures of their current state.  The blue/purple paint appears to be some sort of latex as it has a somewhat chalky finish to it.  The top has seen the brunt of abuse as you clearly see some prints left from a piece of equipment, mild water damage, and scratches.  I used some frog tape and bubble wrap I had to cover the front while I work on it.

[Hardway1969]

My plan has always been to go back to black as that is their original color.  Wanting to preserve as much of the veneer's grain as possible, I started with 400 grit sand paper on a good sized sanding block.  This was to help flatten the surfaces that were raised due to damage.  The blue paint literally came off looking like laser printer toner.  I was surprised how quickly the original black came off in some spots as well.Everything smoothed out very well so I was happy with the results of just an hour's worth of hand sanding.

[Hardway1969]

Before I started this project I read countless posts and articles on refinishing speakers like these back to satin black.  I am not truly "restoring" these speakers, just refreshing them enough to get permission from the wife to let them in to the house.  With that in mind I bought some satin black Rustoleum paint that others had reported good results with.  Starting with the just the bottom riser, I thinned it down 8 to 1 in hopes it would allow some of the grain to come through.  After the first pass, applying as thin a coat as possible, I could tell the paint was just standing on top of the grain so I wiped it off.  I thinned down to 10 to 1 and tried another pass and it had the same result so it was wiped off too.  I know I could buy some more expensive Benjamin Moore enamel that others have raved about but my question is, will that allow the grain to be seen?  I suspect the original black was sprayed on and that is why it is coming off so easily with mild sanding.  If this is true, should I look in to getting them sprayed professionally?  Another thought that has recently crossed my mind is, since the black is coming off so easy, I could possibly strip them and stain them a dark walnut color.  This would be color where any black that was stubborn would contrast with the stain and not stick out.  I welcome any thoughts you guys and girls have.  Thanks!

[Emile]

13 minutes ago, Hardway1969 said:

my '88 Mercedes Benz 560SEC

Awesome ... had an "89 ... bought it new and had it for 15 years ... best car ever  

[Hardway1969]

Yeah, its a cool car.  It was somewhat neglected when I bought it in January.  Have spent quite a bit of money and a whole lot of time getting things right on it.  At times, it has fought me for every inch of progress.  Thank goodness it is pretty... I would have given up a long time ago if it wasn't.

[Peter P.]

ANY PAINT will hide the grain. You want to STAIN them using a product such as Minwax stain. I would recommend you try this on the INSIDE perimeter of the risers or on the back surface, first. That will give you a better idea of how the stain interacts with the existing "painted" finish. It doesn't look painted to me because I can see the grain too clearly. After stain, you can apply a finish which provides the level of shine you want such as tung oil, furniture wax, etc. .

 

Know that stains will penetrate the wood and not sand out easily, if at all. You may want to experiment on scrap wood first.

 

Oh; and posting pictures of the finished speakers is mandatory!

[moray james]

you want to use a paint stripper with a lot of methylene chloride in it and chemically remove as much paint as possible as opposed to sanding off the paint/wood veneer.The chemical strip will get most of the paint out of the grain which is what you want so the grain will show when you repaint. Good luck. Do this outside as these chemicals are bad especially if you have known heart issues so please be safe.

[314carpenter]

[Hardway1969]

I continue to work on the single Quartet, always keeping in mind I have the other waiting for me that is in the exact same shape.  I put a 220 sanding disc on my Makita random orbital sander to see if I could get the bulk of the black paint off the front riser.  It was heaviest on the ends and was careful not to let the sander catch the edge.  Unfortunately I was not careful enough and ended up sanding some of the veneer away at the very bottom. 

[Hardway1969]

Since I did not want to take a chance of sanding anymore veneer off I bought some Citri Stripper and did two rounds of it.  I let the first round sit for about an hour and scrapped it off while it was still gooey.  It definitely pulled a good bit of the black paint off but there was still a lot left behind.

[Hardway1969]

So applied another coat of Citri Strip.  Since it indicated the working time was 30mins - 24 hours I figured I would let it go overnight and see how it did.  The initial results were promising but quickly turned to disappointment as the edges of the veneer were now lifting. As I scraped the top a piece of veneer came out and an edge peeled up.  FUDGE!  The pictures below are after a wipe down with warm water to pull as much of the dried up CS off as I could.

[Hardway1969]

The veneer on the side risers has lifted in the middle and on the verge of splitting as well as the top. The pictures below is some of the worst damage but not all.  At this point staining them is out of the question.  I am going to let everything dry for the rest of the day and research options to possible salvage the veneer.  The sides have faired well but this project is not going to plan.  If I can repair the veneer enough I will look in to 314carpenter's suggestion of the lacquer black.  I welcome any suggestions and feedback.

[Peter P.]

Chemical strippers can penetrate the veneer and do unknown things to the adhesive, as you found out.

 

After the first attempt with the stripper, what was left was any black finish that was BELOW the surface. I think had you left it at that point you would have been fine applying your black refinish of choice.

 

I think your only choice now is to abandon the thought of a finish which allows the grain to show through; there's too much damage without going through the expense of replacing the veneer. You need to glue down any lifted veneer, apply wood putty over any missing spots, and spray paint them. Duratex is a popular finish mentioned on this forum, or you could try any of the special finishes offered by Rustoleum such as their Stone or Hammered finishes. The random patterns these finishes create will hide some of the imperfections. As a bonus, you may get to choose a color which may have more Wife Acceptance Factor with regard to the room they'll be placed in.

 

Practice on scrap wood before you go to town on the speakers. And here's a tip regarding that paint-It MUST dry for 72 hours before you attempt to sand it, if sanding is part of your plan. If you sand and recoat too soon, the new paint will cause the underlying layer to crack and spiderweb.

[JohnKuthe]

On 12/1/2016 at 10:06 AM, Hardway1969 said:

I found a very unloved pair of Quartets at one of the Goodwill's I frequent on Tuesday 11/29 for $20.  They need a serious cleaning but all of the drivers and radiators work.  They sounded much better than I expected.  I am going to investigate the condition of the crossover as the highs sound a bit dull. According to the price tag they were put out on Sunday 11/27.  I am sure the less than desirable purple stain and sheer weight of 52 pounds made a lot of people simply walk by them or give up once they attempted to move them. Getting them in my small sports car was definitely a challenge but worth it in the end.  Despite the hideous color the cabinets are in pretty good shape with no major physical damage to the veneer.  I have already been researching what it would take to restore the cabinets as well as the upgrades from Bob Crites.  The serial numbers are non-sequential and are very far apart from each other. The tag indicates the original finish as BLK 19.  I am fond of the natural walnut finish but since these are supposed to be black I will return them to their original color.  I will also try to pull the cones of the rear radiators back out using a shop-vac and brush attachment.  Hopefully with some patience it will return to its original form.

 

A few questions.  What is the best cleaner and type of wrag to get the mold off the woofer?  I don't want to do any damage to it or leave a lot of lint behind.  How much power do these really need to sound right?  At the moment, just for testing I have a Yamaha 2ch RX-595 40wpc receiver hooked up to them but I feel its under powered for these.  I have a larger Denon 2ch DRA-685 rated at 100wpc.  Do I need more than that?

Wow!!! A pair of functional Klipsch speakers for $20? I LOVE Goodwill's prices! CHEAP!!

Excellent find! Have fun cleaning them up and making them yours!

John Kuthe...

[kink56]

You know they are going to sound a little veiled with that blue bubble wrap over the drivers. 🤓

[001]

On 12/6/2016 at 9:18 PM, ZEUS121996 said:

The passive woofer isn't pushed in, the dust cap on it is. Dust caps from PE are about $1.59 each when I looked the other day. You can't push the dust cap out because you can't get at it.Use a exacto knife and carefully cut the old cap off and glue the new one in place.

15" Passive woofers aren't easy to find replacements for and a recone on a 15" passive from The Speaker Exchange in Tampa was about $75 round trip to Chicago. EACH!!

 

Mark

 

quartets dont use 15" passives, they are 12", same as the forte 1.  as for the dust caps, you dont need to cut the old ones out, you can just glue new correct size ones over the tops, can barely see a little higher edge around the cap if you really look for it, once installed you cant really tell.  makes it a lot easier than trying to remove the old caps, which will still leave the glued down edge of the old cap, so in the end its basically the same thing as just glueing over the old cap.  simply speakers sells dust caps that are identical to the klipsch caps.

 

im just now seeing this thread... thats unfortunate that the veeneer lifted from the stripper, i would have suggested against using a stripper on thin veneer like this for this reason.  if you want to try & save the lifted areas you can try getting some wood glue in there & glue it down, then paint them black with the duplicolor paint shown above.  also the amount of paint used on these speakers would have shown the majority of the wood grain just like from the factory.  if you brushed on some thick enamel it would have hidden most of it but still shown the grain.  a couple light to medium coats of a spray on paint is all thats needed.

 

i would test the tweeters to verify they work, you can do this easily by just playing some music through the speakers & putting your hand or a piece of cardboard over the mid & putting your ear to the tweet, if its playing sound smoothly with no crackling or strange sounds its most likely fine.  or test with a ohms meter to verify its within spec, i forget what they should be but i recall mine tested right around 8.7 ohms. 

 

as for the caps, you can just replace the caps on the board if you have basic soldering skills, dont need to buy complete x-overs.  also dont need to buy expensive brand caps, any decent cap for a couple bucks a piece will sound excellent & 99% of people cant tell the diffence between a dayton or solen cap vs a sonicap etc.  the improvement in sound is mainly from replacing the old CHEAP caps klipsch used with new better quality poly caps.  also thing to consider is if you're doing this yourself, the sonicaps are HUGE & make it difficult to position on the stock boards, yes it can be done with some creativity & adding lengths to the leads on the caps, but the smaller dayton type caps are about the same size as the stock caps & fit right into place. 

 

best of luck on the restoration!