Recover your own grills

[Steve Gonzales]

Hi LHS Members,

First off, A heartfelt THANK YOU to every Man or Woman that has EVER served in the Military for Our Freedom ! :applaud:

This is my technique to recover your worn-out grills. It is quite involved, but once you calm down and use common sense and some ordinary tools, it is alot quicker than clamping and waiting. I discovered this method on my own. I asked questions that seemed to have the same answer, "Contact cement and clamps, wait, wait ,wait!" So after some experimenting, I developed an alternative to this. It works for me and I hope you find it useful to you. I will say that although I am showing pictures, it is up to you to find out and put your own "twist" on the method. The most difficult part is the corners, you must do a bit of material manipulation to achieve a good result. This involves doing a "test stretch" a few times to get the proper 45 degree mitre cut. The trick is to get the material to meet at the 45 AND get the resulting "dogear" waste to "begin" ABOVE the vertical thickness of the frame. In otherwords, the material that wraps around from the front to back must have coverage on the corner, yet, after you clip the waste "dogear", it must leave the corner covered. Here is a shot of the tools.

[Steve Gonzales]

Lay your grill face down and orient your cloth accordingly

[Steve Gonzales]

Cut your cloth about 2-3 inches bigger than your grillframe. this amount will vary with different grills like L300-"3-D" types.

[Steve Gonzales]

This is how I begin: I have my hotglue gun ready to go and also a small length of wood to "press" the material down after I lay a 6" bead of glue at a time. I use a relatively narrow bead and I lay it down about 3/8" from the edge to prevent "roll-over" bulge when the bead is squashed with the block of wood in a pressing action. Hold the block on the material for about 10 seconds and move to the next 6" section. I also don't start at the exact 45 degree point, but about 3/8" from that point, the reason will become evident later

[Steve Gonzales]

Here is what I mean about the block of wood being used as a press

[Steve Gonzales]

Once you get a section done, continue in kind, the glue is pretty strong after a few seconds so don't worry too much about it coming loose, just be careful.

[Steve Gonzales]

Like so..

[Steve Gonzales]

Remember to leave a 3/8" space from the true 45 degree point. Once you've got the first end done, do the other end next in the same fashion BUT, give the material a light stretch to get most of the slack out of it. DO NOT pull very hard, just enough to get it taunt and straight. It will seem that your material is not tight enough once you've got both ends done- DON"T WORRY- it will come together once you get the sides done. The trick is to do the alignment/ light- pre-stretch and then lay a 6" bead of glue and then pull the cloth taunt slightly, THEN use the block to press it flat.

[Steve Gonzales]

Here is the other end after the first 6" pass.

[Steve Gonzales]

I do what are the top and bottoms of the grill first like this.

[Steve Gonzales]

Once I get the two ends done and BEFORE the sides are done, I get the first corner done. This is done by taking your time and test stretching the material. Since you've got the ends partially glued down, start by test stretching that end corner of the material. Remember the 3/8" you left unglued? Now you will see why. You need that piece where the 45 degree mitre will be, left unglued ,so you can stretch the material over some. this takes some manipulation and patience. You have to see where and how much to pull on the material to overcome the wrinkles and folds. If you look at the Factory JBL corners, you will see that the weave is distorted a bit in the corners. That is because they had to stretch and pull the material to conform to the corner. Once you find this position, glue and press. Once you've got the this first half of the 45 done, trim it to a perfect 45 (the waste). This is to get a clear picture of where the opposite part of the 45 will meet it. Do the same stretch and manipulation to it and glue and press

[Steve Gonzales]

See how the second part of the 45 degree cut is pre-stretched to see how far and which direction to pull is done?

[Steve Gonzales]

I use these curved scissors to be able to get the ends set flat for a good trim

[Steve Gonzales]

This is what I mean. See how the corner is covered and the "dogear" waste that is to be trimmed is above the corner?

[Steve Gonzales]

This is the resulting look.

[Steve Gonzales]

This is what you get when you take your time to manipulate the material so that the "dogear" waste is stretched and can be trimmed ABOVE the wrapped corners

[Steve Gonzales]

For the remaining sides,I then use the same method of 6 inch sections at a time to get to the other end, EXCEPT, I STOP 6 inches BEFORE reaching the other end, THEN do the 45 degree mitred corner, AND THEN do the last 6" of that side. The Final side is done in the SAME sequence EXCEPT this is when you'll have to stretch the final side taunt and glue and press. Don't over stretch!. It doesn't take a lot of pulling to get a good result, light to medium, you'll see, if you pull too hard, you will DISTORT the frame and it won't fit (ask me how I know!). I can only give you the mechanics of the process, you will have to "get a feel" for the material and how it stretches.

[Steve Gonzales]

To trim the waste off, I use an Olfa knife and my handy block of wood as a straight edge, you know what to do.;)

[Steve Gonzales]

This is a completed grill after trimming the waste. If you have a grill that has an emblem that attaches without benefit of an actual hole in the grillframe itself, take a piece of paper with a clean 90 degree corner and tape it to the 90 degree corner of the grill, locate the original hole and punch the hole in it before you tear off the old cloth, and then to reattach the emblem, tape the template you made, then push a pencil point through it to locate the emblem after you've recovered the grill.

[Steve Gonzales]

See how taunt the cloth is?, it didn't take a come-along to stretch it and you don't need one either!. ;) . Visualize what you're doing before hand. Think. Say to yourself, "I'm just stretching some cloth over a frame". I hope this gives you a clear idea of how it's done.

[Steve Gonzales]

Finished product. Looking good in JBL Monitor Blue!!. Hey if you need more than this thread provides, send me a PM, I'll be glad to help. Thanks for looking, Steve G;)

BTW, it took 30 minutes to complete this!!! DONE. It took alot longer to post this new thread!

[Ian Mackenzie]

Steve ,

Thanks for the explanation.

I have the cloth but no actual grills so I am looking for a picture from anyone who owns 4343 or 4345s so I can glean how they were made.

Any pictures much appreciated

Ian

[boputnam]

:useless:


I believe there were Links here, to an offsite website. This is what happens when those Links expire or access is changed. POS.

Post pictures, people.

And Ian - I'll post some pics with dimensions of the 4345 grills. Gimme a little bit to get it done...

[Ian Mackenzie]

:useless:


I believe there were Links here, to an offsite website. This is what happens when those Links expire or access is changed. POS.

Post pictures, people.

And Ian - I'll post some pics with dimensions of the 4345 grills. Gimme a little bit to get it done...

Thanks mate.

regards

Ian

[Tom Loizeaux]

I think Steve thought he was posting photos with his dialogue. Maybe someone call help him get the photos up.

Tom