JBL L100T Metallurgy

[svollmer]

Hi All,

My younger son and I are fixing up his pair of JBL 100T’s. So, now both of my sons have L100T’s. My younger son wanted to move away from the traditional walnut finish and have something a little more “orange.”'

I know it sounds gross, but we found a maker of water-based wood stains and put on three coats of translucent orange stain and two coats of Howard’s Feed N Wax. I’ll post some pictures soon, but all I can say is “WOW!” The speakers still show the nice wood grain, but they are now a deep amber color and look very rich.

We’re going to have Huntley Audio recover the grills in the old JBL orange fabric as soon as I finish fixing the frames (if you have one or two that you don’t need, let me know!).We have the fabric and it looks great with the new tone of the walnut.

As a final touch, we thought it would be nice to tint the silver aluminum “JBL” on the badge a faux gold color, like you used to see on some Conrad Johnson amps and a bunch of other aluminum items.I’ve searched and have not been able to find anything on anodizing them gold.We painted them black, sanded the letters and box around the letters fresh and let them sit in orange food coloring overnight and there was no change.

Does anyone have any ideas how we can accomplish this other than purchasing new plastic ones of ebay that are gold?

Thanks!

[svollmer]

Here's the gold color we're striving to get: http://www.conradjohnson.com/It_just_sounds_right/gatpre.html

Here's the badge we have:

http://thumbs3.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/m_8pnvpxAcHdEol_9Ds7OKA.jpg

[hjames]

When I worked as a machinist summers after High School (40+ years ago),
there was a process called iridite that would embue aluminum with a bronzie gold color.
They used it to dress-up and protect aluminum chassis in electronic equipment.

I found this link showing the color -

http://www.aft-corp.com/chemicalfilm

http://drwzpk38qkpfb.cloudfront.net/www.aft-corp.com/uploaded/images/chemical-film-1.png

According to one page I read, it can be brushed on or dipped - not as technical or messy as plating.




Here's the gold color we're striving to get: http://www.conradjohnson.com/It_just_sounds_right/gatpre.html

Here's the badge we have:

http://thumbs3.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/m_8pnvpxAcHdEol_9Ds7OKA.jpg

[svollmer]

Thanks Heather. I'll give them a call and see what they can do.

If anyone has other ideas, please post them.

Many thanks!

[Don C]

Alodine is a treatment that gives a nice color on almininum. It looks like gold, tending just a bit towards orange. It's expensive though.

[svollmer]

Thanks for the lead Don. I'll do some research on it. If I'm successful, I'll post pictures.

[svollmer]

Here's a Youtube video of the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7FX85Q838Q

[BMWCCA]

Interesting process.

Are the JBL badges aluminum, or pot-metal? :dont-know:

[hjames]

Interesting process.

Are the JBL badges aluminum, or pot-metal? :dont-know:
Dunno - I have a couple and just checked -
all I can say is they are def non-ferrous - no response to a Magnet.

[BMWCCA]

They seem a bit heavy to be aluminum. :dont-know:

Now where did I put my aluminum magnet?

[svollmer]

Good point Phil! I don't know if they're aluminum; I was assuming they were. But they certainly look like they could be pot metal. Maybe the Alodine process would work on either. :dont-know:

I've tracked down one vendor and will see what they say.

[Don C]

That's an awful video. He dips his hands right into his chemicals. Gloves are not meant to protect you from this kind of behavior. No wonder he disabled comments. I'd have had to restrain myself from slapping him at that point. Get some tongs dammit! Then he rinses his chemicals down his driveway, probably into a storm drain. I'd have wanted to slap him again, but what the government would do is worse.

[honkytonkwillie]

How about gold leaf? Not sure how that's applied or how well it sticks to different materials. Maybe it's easy.

[svollmer]

That's an awful video. He dips his hands right into his chemicals. Gloves are not meant to protect you from this kind of behavior. No wonder he disabled comments. I'd have had to restrain myself from slapping him at that point. Get some tongs dammit! Then he rinses his chemicals down his driveway, probably into a storm drain. I'd have wanted to slap him again, but what the government would do is worse.

That' very true. I didn't like him rinsing the stuff off on the drive, but I didn't think about it going through the gloves. I don't have tongs, but I'd use some old pliers or wire to dip the parts with.

Sorry; I was just focusing on the results of the process.

[svollmer]

How about gold leaf? Not sure how that's applied or how well it sticks to different materials. Maybe it's easy.

That's a great suggestion too! I'll look into that; I like the idea of not having to purchase an amount of chemicals that I'll never use. Thanks!