Dumpster Save!

[Tim Rinkerman]

Christmas is early around here...68091 The only things I know for sure besides one falling over, is that the surrounds are rock hard, the tweeters were added later, and all the wax seals are intact. I'll let you know more as I see what kind of shape the components are in...

[Mr. Widget]

Nice save! Congratulations!!

Widget

[Ed Zeppeli]

That's awesome! Great little project you have there now.

[Wagner]

Christmas is early around here...68091 The only things I know for sure besides one falling over, is that the surrounds are rock hard, the tweeters were added later, and all the wax seals are intact. I'll let you know more as I see what kind of shape the components are in...
Damn! (and grilles too?!)
Congratulations
Whose dumpster?
It'll all be perfect after a set of Rick Cobb surrounds.
I'm happy for you but will not lie, a bit jealous as well.

Thomas

[loach71]

Wonderful find!:applaud:

Please post pictures as your restoration project progresses.

[Tim Rinkerman]

Latest update..the 2405's and the 2420's passed the sweep tests, I bet the foam inside the 2420's is pretty disgusting, but as long as it stays out of the way, I think they are worth more with the seals intact. They are not the little stamped JBL wax plugs, but the original red paint is intact on the screws.
One box had been dropped and damaged and a bad attempt was taken to reglue it, but it was a long,long time ago. After a heavy cleaning,glueing,and clamping session, the damaged box is as good as new..the glue joints broke and looks like it protected the components from impact damage. I cleaned out the broken wood, filled the joints with glue, and clamped every angle I could. After a day of filling and block sanding, they are back to the condition they were in before they went into the JBL spray booth.
Here's the long and short of it. I already have a relatively nice pair of walnut 4333's which I have owned for 15 years. I don't need 2 pairs of big speakers, so one of these pairs will be for sale when I finish these. I am open to suggestions about keeping the value of the cabinet, but my plans are to, use a gearhead term, "resto mod" them. Relocate the 2405 to above the lens, like an L-300. I have a pair of acrylic phase plug 2405's. Fill the factory tweeter hole, and paint the front panel JBL blue, or matte black, again, like an L-300. Paint the backs semi-gloss black...(like the backs of my 4333's)...and cover the rest with walnut veneer. Replace the grill cloth with new issue JBL blue. Any comments,critiques,..suggestions?68137681386813968 140

[speakerdave]

Beautiful score. I can hear the screech of brakes.

Studio gray works for me, so I'd stay with that. Part of the brilliance of the JBL blue baffle is how it and the blue grille cloth sets off the walnut veneer, and you already have the black grilles. As for veneering in those cabinets, what would you do with the front edges?

I don't know what I would put in the cabinets, though. You don't say what crossovers are there, but that woofer and mid horn are a mismatch in any case by today's standards, so I don't think I'd try to make a speaker for me or to sell with those components.

The cabinets and grilles would be a great help for someone wanting to DIY an L300/4333, and all the parts could be well used in other projects, yours or someone else's. There may be a case here for parting out.

[Wagner]

IF you are going to sell your find, I think (my OPINION) you'd be best served finishing up the boxes and leaving them as built, factory tweeter holes and all, maybe even just re-painting them accurately and skipping the veneer

I just feel that you'll realize more for what you have scored in as original state as possible than you will by making the final decision and presenting them to the market as a finished system (with at least one option removed)

I have also seen a "mini-trend" with folks seeking out those original industrial painted cabinets

Leave them "restored" (well cleaned and tested) but original

Doing so will leave more options open to a potential buyer (and give you the flexibility to sell whole or part out)

Your plan sounds nice and would certainly return an impressive and beautiful result; but you have no way of knowing what the next guy may (or may not) want

My opinion

[badman]

Sweet score. I agree with Wagner- restore to stock rather than resto-mod. What a lucky guy!

[Tim Rinkerman]

Look what I found under the factory grey paint....I though one was walnut veneer, but it turned out to be mahogany plywood, the other a lighter lumber core plywood. The mahogany one is noticeably heavier, and has a harder surface.

[Triumph Don]

Sell the 4333's and make the dumpsters as cool as you can for the eyes and ears, enjoy for another 15 years!

[Wagner]

Sometimes (occasionally) if a veneered cabinet didn't quite meet up to QC standards, it was reassigned industrial duty (and finish)
They'd run them back through and paint them up as "industrials"
Don't know about JBL's practice, but was a fairly common occurrence with Klipsch
Might be why you have what you have (how close are the serial #s, if they have them?)
Interesting discovery
Very nice find and equally nice project
Happy to see you've repaired the broken box
With careful prep you could use stain to achieve a nice match
I've pulled it off with Birch plywood boxes that were miles apart as far as a match
Minwax Sedona Red is an excellent base color to start with and from there you can brown a wood out as needed to get a match with a darker/browner piece
Look closely for filler repairs if you do decide to give pigment a try; much easier to deal with before a stain or dye is applied
Good luck with whatever you do

My go to base coat for getting things to match that don't match!:
https://www.google.com/search?q=minwax+sedona+red&biw=1344&bih=740&tbm=isch&imgil=p6HkKUh9MjE4xM%253A%253BRv-_V2ycgLAUhM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.theak forum.net%25252Fforums%25252F75-refinishing-discussion%25252F105322-russian-red-concerning-use-minwax-sedona-red.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=p6HkKUh9MjE4xM%253A%252CRv-_V2ycgLAUhM%252C_&usg=__X3dq1y1vXAGPXf0O9r-B7O0xJQs%3D&ved=0CEIQyjdqFQoTCOyFrbqkj8kCFYgriAodgkgCBQ&ei=dNRGVuz7EIjXoASCkYko#imgrc=_&usg=__X3dq1y1vXAGPXf0O9r-B7O0xJQs%3D

Thomas

[Krunchy]

Wow!!! what a great score. Congratulations Tim. A lot of good suggestions I guess it will really come down to what you want to finally do with them ie: keep, sell or do some funky project, that'll probably dictate what direction you take.
YOu're doing a very nice job in repairing the damage so whatever you do will come out minty in the end.

enjoy!

(and keep the pictures coming)

[Tim Rinkerman]

Thanks for the interest and suggestions, guys..here's a couple pic's before they got dis-mantled. I did some minor surgery on one of the 2215's..it had a a very minor rub point in its travel, so I had to soak the spider off of the frame and go inside and hope the voice coil wasn't junk. Luckily, it wasn't..just a very tiny bit of debris got stuck to the outside of the voice coil. I carefully picked it off with an X-acto knife and checked for clean movement in the gap. That worked out perfectly, so surgery no.2 separated the dome from the voice coil to allow me to get shims into the gap to reassemble the speaker properly. The 2215 seems to have a tighter gap than other JBL's I have worked on, but all is well now. I have taken everybody's suggestions into account about restoring these, and as much as I want to respect the originality of them, back in the day, the gray finish was the "utility" finish...meaning that you cared more about how they sounded as opposed to how they looked, or, you were going to put them in your own surroundings, and finish them to match. I have gone through 4 rounds of filling,sanding, and blocking to get them back to square and to just shoot them with gray paint just doesn't sit well with me. I am going ahead with plans to cover the sides,top,bottom, and front edges with walnut veneer, the back in semi gloss black, and the front baffle JBL blue, IF I can get an exact match of the color. The grills, although completely intact, are somewhat aged looking. The black grill cloth looks kind of threadbare for its age, if anybody wants it, let me know, it's going to get replaced with JBL blue. I'll get more pictures up when the woofers come out of ICU.....
Interesting point about passing Q.C...back in the day, many Fender guitars went out with solid colors painted over sunburst. Legend has it that they all got sunburst finishes, but the ones that had imperfections in the grain that looked bad with a transparent finish got painted over with solid colors.

[Wagner]

Thanks for the interest and suggestions, guys..here's a couple pic's before they got dis-mantled. I did some minor surgery on one of the 2215's..it had a a very minor rub point in its travel, so I had to soak the spider off of the frame and go inside and hope the voice coil wasn't junk. Luckily, it wasn't..just a very tiny bit of debris got stuck to the outside of the voice coil. I carefully picked it off with an X-acto knife and checked for clean movement in the gap. That worked out perfectly, so surgery no.2 separated the dome from the voice coil to allow me to get shims into the gap to reassemble the speaker properly. The 2215 seems to have a tighter gap than other JBL's I have worked on, but all is well now. I have taken everybody's suggestions into account about restoring these, and as much as I want to respect the originality of them, back in the day, the gray finish was the "utility" finish...meaning that you cared more about how they sounded as opposed to how they looked, or, you were going to put them in your own surroundings, and finish them to match. I have gone through 4 rounds of filling,sanding, and blocking to get them back to square and to just shoot them with gray paint just doesn't sit well with me. I am going ahead with plans to cover the sides,top,bottom, and front edges with walnut veneer, the back in semi gloss black, and the front baffle JBL blue, IF I can get an exact match of the color. The grills, although completely intact, are somewhat aged looking. The black grill cloth looks kind of threadbare for its age, if anybody wants it, let me know, it's going to get replaced with JBL blue. I'll get more pictures up when the woofers come out of ICU.....
So you were able to remove the cone entirely, and intact?
Very good!
What did you do to address the Lansalloy?
That's very very cool that you could (if you did) attach the new surround(s) with the cone out of the basket!

[mech986]

There's another pair of 4333/4320 clones that look somewhat like your goal will be in this thread:

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?37547-FS-JBL-4333B-quot-Clone-quot

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=68176&stc=1&d=1447345769


http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=68175&stc=1&d=1447345724

[Tim Rinkerman]

Yea, I could have kept sanding and grinding till all the nicks were gone, but I took the restorative route...it takes a little more time and patience to restore a corner than to just round it off. The grill cloth looks nice, and the blue looks good, but the inside surfaces would have looked better woodgrain.
The woofers survived all the surgeries....I only completely removed the cone from one...the other moved cleanly through its travel, I wasn't going to take it apart if I didn't have to, the other one took hours of soaking with lacquer thinner and Q-tips to release the spider.
I realized I have a pair of 2" horns and a pile of 2446 drivers...I am going to see if they sound better than the 2420's...if they do, there will be a pair of un-opened 2420's with horns for sale...
I will be on the road this week, so I'll get more pictures up after the walnut starts getting stuck on....

[Wagner]

Very nice work
What was the trash you found in the gap; could you tell?
Thomas

[Tim Rinkerman]

A teenie,tiny,human hair size,1/4" long piece of maybe glue? Cooked onto the outside of the voice coil. The voice coil former looked like it got hot at some point, some dis-coloration on it, but the voice coil itself has no rub,burn, or impact marks on it anywhere. The cone is dis-colored around the voice coil as well...you can see it in the pics. I was thinking........I don't know.....there's no vent's in this series of magnets....we'll see!

[Tim Rinkerman]

I called a cabinet meeting..

[grumpy]

With that nice finish, I think the 4333s are the chairmen of the "board" :duck:

[Tim Rinkerman]

A few new pictures...they are covered in walnut now....finish sanding and oiling as you read this....

[Challenger604]

A few new pictures...they are covered in walnut now....finish sanding and oiling as you read this....

Hi there!
I can recommend Danish Oil if I may!
compare the Tung Oil, the Danish oil gets hard after few weeks...

Cheers!
C

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?11166-4355-Monitor-Plans/page3

[Tim Rinkerman]

Thanks for the recommendation, but...this is one coat of teak oil rubbed in with 0000 steel wool...

[Challenger604]

Thanks for the recommendation, but...this is one coat of teak oil rubbed in with 0000 steel wool...

Nice! Very nice!

[Tim Rinkerman]

Getting there....

[Challenger604]

STUNNING!!
Bravo!

[Tim Rinkerman]

So far, so good! The crossover situation isn't quite as nice as the 4333's, but all the drivers sound happy, and quite the same side to side..(stereo separation compromised for photographic impact). The slots have been bead blasted and clear coated, the front insides are flat black, the rears are semi-gloss black. The grills are still in rehab....before I jump to new grill cloth, I'm experimenting with trimming all the loose fuzz and threads from them, and giving them a dusting of black paint to restore their color and density...they couldn't be any worse, believe me...

[Tim Rinkerman]

Sure, I could have left them grey........

[speakerdave]

. . . . There may be a case here for parting out.

. . . Or, not.:applaud:

[Mr. Widget]

Very nice! Congratulations.



Widget

[tjm001]

Great job!

Tom

[Challenger604]

Sure, I could have left them grey........

Nope!

[Tim Rinkerman]

They finally have a new home. Yay!

[Audiobeer]

Love the work, fantastic!

[Flodstroem]

Sure, I could have left them grey........

I dont think you could........ :D

Very nice restoration, indeed ;)

Btw, regarding the re-foaming of the old LE15, what technique did you use for to remove the old Lansaloy from the cones? And was there a "step" (recessed in the outer rim) for the thick Lansaloy like the one in the picture posted here? If yours was identical to my LE15, what is the best idea for to get the new foam surrounds to fit in the rim, a scissor to cut away some of the outer part of the foam surround?

75699