C38 Restoration with Pics

[John Y.]

Anybody have any thoughts on what the grill cloth would have been for these.

Any ideas would help.

Thanks, Gary

Gary,
Your enclosures are absolutely grand!! I like the grill cloth that you used on this project. Would you give the details on where you got that material? Thanks.
John Y.

[Harvey Gerst]

Anybody have any thoughts on what the grill cloth would have been for these.

Any ideas would help.

Thanks, Gary

We used a brown plasticky grille cloth with a reddish thread running thru it. There were a few shipped with the goat hair grille cloth material we used on the C39. That goat hair material ran about $9 a yard back then, as I recall.

[Mr. Widget]

Thanks for that tidbit of info Harvey... Goat Hair huh??? Pretty wild.

Gary,

Excellent work! They do look awesome... good luck on that last leg. You really got that vintage walnut color... what type and color of stain was used?


Widget

[capo72]

Very nice! i'm going to be tackling an identical project in the next couple of months. Thanx for the inspiration. BTW what was used to finish the new veneer?


Jeremy

[ejfud]

Thanks guys, but this was my brothers doing this time. He does wonderful work. He has no comptuer but wanted to share with the board his JBL love.

The grill cloth was actually what was hiding behind the wicker grill someone had attached. It was ugly, but a little K2R(?) foam cleaner made them look as good as new.

I think the stain color that was used on the bare veneer was a golden oak stain, folowed by coats of med walnut Watco oil, but I'll double check with him on this.

They look even better in person.

I see to many of these great old cabinets getting trashed for eBay sales. It's nice to see a refurb once in a while.

Gary

[Harvey Gerst]

Thanks for that tidbit of info Harvey... Goat Hair huh??? Pretty wild.

Widget

Yup, and at those prices, you didn't wanna make any mistakes when cutting the stuff.

Also, the more I think about it, the standard JBL grille material was kind of a reddish plastic (like a dark maroon color), with a gold strand running thru it.

[Audiobeer]

Very very nice! Beautiful job! We''ll keep an eye open for the missing leg!

[ejfud]

The stain combo was 2 coats of Varathane light walnut #236 followed natural several coats of Watco natural oil.

This combo really makes the black walnut of today look like the walnut of old.

Gary

[UreiCollector]

VERY nice work! There is a lot of talent on this site!

[Mr. Widget]

The stain combo was 2 coats of Varathane light walnut #236 followed natural several coats of Watco natural oil.

This combo really makes the black walnut of today look like the walnut of old.

Gary

Thanks Gary, I'll give that a shot on a vintage project down the road.


Widget

[Baron030]

For the benefit of anyone interested in duplicating the look of ejfud’s original white goat hair grill cloth.

Here is a source for a similar looking product:
http://www.wendellfabrics.com/mellotone/decorator.html

I am sure that Wendell’s fabrics are not made of goat hair. But, the #DA5002 looks very close to ejfud’s photos. They sell it in a 54” width and there is a 2 yard minimum order. And I would strongly recommend contacting them for some free samples, before possibly ordering anything. My only experience with this company was ordering 4 sq. yards of grill cloth for one of my own DIY projects. And I was very pleased with their product.

Baron030

[Harvey Gerst]

For the benefit of anyone interested in duplicating the look of ejfud’s original white goat hair grill cloth.

Here is a source for a similar looking product:
http://www.wendellfabrics.com/mellotone/decorator.html

I am sure that Wendell’s fabrics are not made of goat hair. But, the #DA5002 looks very close to ejfud’s photos. They sell it in a 54” width and there is a 2 yard minimum order. And I would strongly recommend contacting them for some free samples, before possibly ordering anything. My only experience with this company was ordering 4 sq. yards of grill cloth for one of my own DIY projects. And I was very pleased with their product.

Baron030

Nope that ain't it, but the regular grille cloth we used on everything else is there:

http://www.wendellfabrics.com/grille2.html

In the bottom left corner, is sample: AF5115-21, and that was JBL's standard grill cloth.

[Baron030]

Thanks, Harvey for setting me straight, on genuine JBL grill cloth.
It's really great to find a reliable source for all this vintage stuff.
I will always be looking forward to reading your posts.

Baron030

[JohnK]

The goat hair cloth is very special looking. It has an artistic uneven rough weave & whiskers of hair worked in here and there. It is clearly a product of the period and probably impossible to find anymore. It is the best looking speaker cloth I have ever seen.


Regarding Harvey's comments about the use of this cloth, very
unfortunately, the C39 Harlan speaker that I own doesn't have this cloth, it has an ivory white plastic cloth with paint drizzled on it like a Pollock painting or something. It's original, I've seen pictures of others like it in the literature. The goat cloth would look much better I think.

[BMWCCA]

Did your brother re-veneer the C38s right over the old veneer? And what was that filler he used before applying the veneer? Thanks. Just a thought...

And also, if Harvey is still looking and might know: I have two C37 cabinets and two C35's. These are all from the monaural period and hence are not matched pairs except by accident. One of the C35's is made of plywood and the other is MDF/particle board. The C37 is particle board. I have no reason to believe either is home-built but I've been wrong before! I got to thinking about it because in researching Heather's old 4320 cabinets I noted that JBL literature from that time waxed poetic on the virtues of plywood over MDF. Any idea if they were made both ways at different times, or (what a memory!) when they quit making plywood home cabinets and went to compressed fiber?

Oddly enough, one C37 was bought used in 1971 and already had black grille cloth on the slide-out panel. I had to change the other over from the beige cloth to match, but I'm pretty sure the one that came black was originally built that way. I don't believe I saved the old cloth.

Thanks.