Careful planning for cutting the expensive veneer.
SOLD 1.20.04
This is my re-veneering project on a pair of Klipsch Klipschorn speakers.
These originally came in birch veneer, unfinished from the factory. Someone put a very ugly greenish brown stain and a quick coat of polyurethane on them. The top of one had damage from a potted plant. They had a few dings here and there, but nothing too serious. All in all a very nice old set, but in need of some care.
I love refinishing speakers, and re-veneering is my favorite. For this project I chose a beautiful rosewood veneer. Rosewood has very nice grain patterns and a deep red/brown/black color that is very distinctive. Definately exotic. Klipsch used to offer rosewood as an option, it was quite expensive but very beautiful. So I'm proud to be upgrading this set to a very rare status.
I always have projects in the works that will be for sale,
you may email me for more detailed information or to ask questions:
gregroberts@adelphia.net
Careful planning for cutting the expensive veneer.
Rosewood veneer in 4 x 8 sheets.
Disassembly. Shows the K-55-V midrange drivers with
soldered connections and the K-400 metal horn.
Putting the first piece of veneer on one of the tops of the
top horn sections.
More pieces of the top horn sections and tools of the trade.
The crossovers in these are the original "AA". I would
recommend an upgrade to ALK crossovers.
Click here to go to ALK Engineering.
Sorry about the quality of these pictures, I took them at night
in my garage. These speakers have the K-55-V midrange
drivers.
The midrange drivers have the soldered connections.
The tweeters are the K-77.
One of the crossovers.
Midrange driver, K-400 metal horn, and the tweeter mounted on the
top horn section motorboard. Note the black grill cloth.
I've been delayed while moving to a new shop. I finally
have things set up now and I'll be getting back to work in the evenings
and weekends. I am positively giddy about the space I have
now in this shop, it's absolutely perfect for what I'm doing.
This is the main room where I built two large tables and installed
some cabinets.
The tree came with the shop! This room is 20' x 24'.
I've got a second room that is closed off from the first that I call my
clean room. There I can do my photographing, store equipment to
be sold, and I have built a packing table for packing equipment for
worldwide shipping!
I even have my own private bathroom!
Before re-veneering, I always check out every square inch of the surface
to make sure there are no problems. I found a loose spot in
the veneer on the front of one of the Khorns, and some digging turned
up this huge void in the plywood. I'll be filling this with resin
and sanding it smooth.
Here's another repair to a loose veneer edge. There are often
a lot of little chips, loose pieces of veneer or scratches that need repair.
Who the heck is that?
Hey Jeff, you didn't want midrange horns anyway, right?
Midrange is so over-rated! : )
I used Watco Danish Teak oil as a finish, this is just one coat
in this picture. This stuff works great. I'll be adding
a couple more coats to add sheen to the finish.
Here they are with the tops assembled.
There's at least 4 coats of oil on them at this stage.
These have the Alnico drivers and type AA crossover.
All I have left now is to put the trim on the bottom and the logos
on the horn sections. I found some real nice rosewood to make
the trim for the front-bottom of the bass bins.
I was missing a logo when I got these speakers, but a friend sent me
a pair of replicas. I used a
gold-leaf pen made by Krylon to put the gold color on. They
came out o.k., but not as nice as the originals.
I had to get creative in glueing the front trim pieces on.
Here are the finished speakers.
If you'd like to see more of my work, please click here,
Zebrawood Heresy Project.
This is a re-veneer project that I did for Gary Powers ("garymd" on the
Klipsch Forum)
Gary has offered to be a reference for my work,
so if you'd like to contact him, please click here
Gary Powers.