Altec 3 series II Woofer/WANTED

[gyusher]

I either need to recone or replace my Altec 3 series II 10in woofer. The one I have works but was "wrinkled" before I was able to refoam it. I used glue and water to paint the cone to stiffen it up but we all know thats not the answer. Cabinets are MINT and they are fine sounding small speakers for my heated garage. . . . Anyone know of one for sale? I have surrounds for one that needs it so I could use a woofer with a decent cone that needs refoamed.
If I reconed it I should do both so they look right. .

[GordonW]

If you can't rustle up a woofer somewhere, get hold of me (PM or email) and I'll check on getting a recone kit for that woofer through work. There are no factory kits for those that I've been able to find, but we were able to get a very decent aftermarket kit for a Model 9 12" woofer not long ago, from a company we deal with a lot, at work. I'd expect them to have something for the Model 3 10" as well... just need to check to make sure.

The kit for the Model 9 was pretty darn faithful... same type of gray-color, pulped-paper cone, same large-roll flat-inner-edge foam surround, identical dimension voice coil to the original, appropriate stiffness and dimension spider. Worked just fine...

BTW: The place I work for, charges about $75 per driver, all included, for a recone like this, generally. The only thing that might change that, is if the parts are more expensive than usual. Can't remember how much the parts for the Model 9 were, but I'm expecting them to have been not terribly more than "no-name" woofer parts...

Regards,
Gordon.

[gyusher]

With a recone kit is this something I could do? I have never reconed a speaker but I am very handy and learn fast. I never refoamed a woofer untill this year and now I have done around 50. . . .Not a difficult thing to do. . . . .

[GordonW]

I'm not saying it's impossible... but it's another league, from refoaming a driver. The alignments are rather critical, as well as taking care to NOT get glue where it doesn't belong.

That being said, if you can make up the right shims to hold the voice coil straight in the magnet gap (photo film has been said to be good for this, I use something more specialized personally so I've not tried it), then you could probably do the job.

For glue, to bond voice coils to cones and spiders and spiders to baskets, I use accelerated cyanoacrylate superglue, as available from places like Wood Finishers Supply and others. It's the stuff, available in thin, medium and thick compositions (I only use the thicker stuff, it doesn't "run away" like the thin stuff, which can readily get in places it doesn't belong and FSK up the whole business), with the accompanying spray bottle of accelerator, which instantly hardens up even relatively big pools of glue. No clamping required. A local PA speaker reconer uses this stuff to bond EV, Eminence, JBL (aftermarket kits) and other big bass drivers, and has never had a glue failure, even with voice coils melted and cones actually catching on fire. Tough stuff.

However, realistically... the clearances in the Altec Model 9 drivers were VERY tight... and were even moderately difficult for ME (who has reconed quite a number of "picky" drivers) to get right, needing a lot of careful fitting and even more careful glueing. In fact, I had to do a bit of "preloading" of the spider with the surround alignment on one when gluing the surround, to get the woofer to achieve full un-impeded travel- otherwise, it was going to scrape! This was just from slight "shifting" from the glue bonding up! I dunno if the Model 3 10" is any "looser", but I'd expect not. If it were something like an EPI or Advent driver with lots of tolerance in the coil/gap, then I'd say go for it... just in this case, it's easy to get a buzzer/scrubber if it's not done EXACTLY right...

Regards,
Gordon.

[gyusher]

Thanks, I will have it done whan it gets done. . .reconing was very easy on these guys, seemed like plenty of clearance as I used all three full size shims. . .But I dont think I want to tackle anything more, I already have a messy job. Knowing the driver would need reconed I hurried thru the refoaming because I didnt even know if the drivers worked. After I finished the job and fired up these little guys I was surprised at just how good they sound. The cabinets are mint and they sound good enough to do the job right. Just the right size for my 9x9 office. . . .