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'79 Heresy I HBR brought back to life


zeagan

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So I picked up a pair of H1's a few weeks ago that were in "well loved" condition. I assume they were in a garage or a workshop of some kind. Pretty banged up, corners were all dinged, missing some chunks of veneer and a few screw holes from where it looks like they were mounted to a rafter or something. That said, drivers were all intact and original and when I cracked them open they looked as if no one had ever unscrewed the back (except for when one of the K-22s was replaced with an "R" equivalent). Caps tested within spec and the crossovers were immaculate. 

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First step was to get a few funds flowing, since I had all of the parts laying around to make a pair of Type E crossovers I spent an afternoon doing that and sold the originals to recoup some costs that were going to come in the form of veneer and finish. I had a 14awg 2.4mH air core inductor with similar DCR to the original iron core unit (0.36 ohms if I'm not mistaken), some film caps and a crites autoformer. Also had some magnet wire kicking around so it has jumpers you can pick the crossover up by just as a fun thing. 

 

 

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Next up, grilles. The originals were tired and one had a sizeable rip in it. Also one of the original badges was missing. Luckily I had just enough fabric I had picked up from Crites a few years ago to cover the original frames and ordered a pair of reproduction badges. They're not period correct but I just like the laser logo the most so went with those. Used spray adhesive from gorilla glue and a lighter on the corners to keep everything nice and tight with no fraying. Very happy with how they turned out. 

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With the crossovers and the grilles done it was time to actually do some work, the first few days were just lots of sanding, lots of bondo, and lots more sanding to create as close to "square" as possible for the veneer to attach to. In the meantime the original Type E's sold which made for enough dollars to buy the sheets of veneer, two 24" x 96" rolls of white oak paper backed veneer were ordered from Lee Valley and came in a few days (I'm in Canada, our veneer options are limited)

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Now for the stressful part, I have never applied a veneer to anything and like to fling myself into new projects. So I used lepage gel based contact cement as I had read it spreads more evenly with less likelihood of causing orange peel. Managed to only misplace one sheet on one side and it was just off enough it was fixed with a tiny sliver of off cut. Overall the process went well and like bondo, would happily never smell contact cement again, god bless a big open garage door.  Next up, edge banding (was not a fan of this step)

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Edge banding is a nightmare and I'm not great at it and I should have just cut strips of the veneer and used the contact cement instead of the matching iron-on white oak I got from Lee Valley. That said, I eventually got it done, the miter joints look relatively good and then I spent a ton of time with wood fill and sanding to get them as square as possible. 

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Part of this project was also to throw some risers on. I had some off cuts of maple laying around so after a quick google about approximate sizes and angles of Heresy risers I sketched out some dimensions and made a few sketchy cuts on the table saw to put these together. Felt weird spray painting maple black but when you've got scrap you use scrap.

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Risers painted I then did three coats of water based polyurethane on the bottoms. Water based as I wanted to keep the white colour of the white oak and didn't want the finish to cause or accelerate any yellowing. With the finish on I then screwed on the risers which made the rest of the finish work a lot nicer to deal with. 

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Risers on, light at the end of the tunnel, I tend applied three coats of poly to the rest of the bodies, with light sanding with 400 grit between coats just to keep things nice and smooth. 

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Another goal of this project was to open the possibility of making "super heresy" mods to these at some point and even though I've done tons to the original enclosures already it felt weird to potentially cut a whole in the original back panel. So I made a pair quickly out of 3/4" ply and applied the same veneer to it. I ripped off the idea for brass countersunk washers from some old Harbeths that I restored last year and made a terminal plate out of a piece of vinyl flooring I spray painted black (necessity is the mother of invention)

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Parts all done, all finished and time to put the drivers back inside. I had some 10awg OFC speaker cable that was obnoxious overkill for this application but why not. Crimped and soldered with heat shrink to tidy up the spades and soldered to the tweeter and woofer (push pins on the mid). Also applied a barrier of weather stripping to each the box and the rear panel to help even out the surfaces when tightened and keep them sealed (for now? ports?)

 

 

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I am in awe of the woodworking/finish restoration. The only thing I ever succeed in by attempting such is making it worse, save for maybe giving the oiled cabs a BLO treatment. Any resto work I do, I have to hire people to do the work for me - crossovers, grill cloths, and so forth such that I am in the area of "assembly". I would like to do this to my Cornwalls that I am redoing for my theater, but as I say, I'll screw it up.

 

Which is what impresses me the most about these threads - some people seem to do this like breathing, whereas I view it as "Flying Wallendas" sort of stuff.

 

 

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