Does anyone know the original colour of 2397 ?

[Richard Long]

Does anyone know the original colour of 2397 ? I want to recolour my horns. How is the best way to deinstall the Brandbutton ? Has anyone made experience to take apart the horn, because it´s not easy to recolour the complete horn in one piece.

[Mike Caldwell]

Hello

All of the original 2397 horns I have seen were semi gloss gray, same shade of gray as other JBL items from that time. You could try to remove the name badge with a heat gun to soften the glue holding it on. As for complete horn disassembly that could be risky since the horn is made of wood and held together with glue and nails. The horn throat can easily be removed with the four bolts.

[grumpy]

...if the foil/decal proves difficult to remove, I have seen more than one 2397
repainted, where that portion was simply masked off prior to painting. Done
well, this looks nice.

[speakerdave]

It's actually made of particle board, which, as Mike says, is very unlikely to survive diassembly. You could paint inside it with a sponge brush taped to a stir stick or something like that.

That gray paint. I wonder if that started with WWII surplus like some other things that went into creating the hi fi industry in the forties and fifties.

[pos]

...if the foil/decal proves difficult to remove, I have seen more than one 2397
repainted, where that portion was simply masked off prior to painting. Done
well, this looks nice.

Member cooky1257 used this method:
http://audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=199950&postcount=22

[Richard Long]

thanks for the priming and sanding ideas, but the following fotos shows what i understand in repainting, foto 1 shows the original horn (my old fostex h325) bevor my friend worked on it and the "after" version:

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd158/RichardLong1/Bild026.jpg
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd158/RichardLong1/Bild030.jpg
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd158/RichardLong1/Bild016.jpg

no i want to have my 2397´s, one pair in this "mirror effect-paint" and the other in original colour in perfect look :blink:

[10 Watt Street]

Former member Steve Gonzales did an excellent job painting a pair of 2397 Smith horns a nice metallic blue.

[Richard Long]

i found steve only as guest in the board. do you know how i can get information about his work on the 2397´s ?

[hjames]

i found steve only as guest in the board. do you know how i can get information about his work on the 2397´s ?

I believe he still frequents Audiokarma.com
see this thread with the blue horns
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=92018

[Richard Long]

see this thread with the blue horns

thank you

[jerry_rig]

After experimenting with several brands, I found that a spay enamel paint from Five Star, labeled "Battleship Grey" (#6330) did the best job of matching the original color on my 2397s. There is a slight bluish hue to it. Others may know of something better.