Infinity WTLC transformation

mjalazard

Well-Known Member
Greetings!
With the THE Show coming up in less that 1 month, I have had to get busy with the WTLC restoration:

The cabinets without the drivers:
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I wiped down all the black surfaces with mineral spirits:
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and glued the bonnets back together
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Primer on all the surfaces:
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And a good coat of Rustoleum Hammered spray paint...gotta mask those imperfections!
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It's not perfect, but much better than before.
Tomorrow, I'll re-finish the wood bases and work on the crossover.
If anyone has useful suggestions for cleaning the bonnet grill cloth, I'de appreciate it.
Thanks for looking!
Mike
 
I recently cleaned some black JBL grilles in a utility sink with a laundry detergent and hot water soak, a really good rinse, drain and sun drying and they look great now. They were stained and dusty before, now they look new. YMMV.
 
Did you get the glass tops with your WTLC's? They fit into the inset in the top of each grill and are a nice finishing touch. I put old Infinity advertising slogans from brochures under mine. If you don't have them, regular 1/4" plate glass with beveled edges should suffice.
 
No glass tops, no plastic, just particleboard. I put a few coats of the textured spray paint over the primer. I then on sprayed two coats of clear urethane. They're all drying in the cold Las Vegas sun.
Mike
 
Glass is suprisingly cheap. If you have a local shop that fixes/makes custom windows give them a call. Last year I needed to make some windows for doors on our class rooms at our church. The long skinny kind you see in school rooms. They charged me $95 for 4 custom cut tempered/fireproof glass pains which I thought was a bargain.
Jim
 
Here's round two:
New paint
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Original crossover:
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L Pad ready for cleaning:
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New binding posts, fuse holder, and cleaned L-pad with new dial:
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Walsh tweeter capacitor cluster:
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Completed crossover comparison:
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Before (left) and after polishing (right):
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Woodworkers best friends!
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Christmas in Las Vegas:
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We can get snow!
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More WTLC restoration pix soon!
Mike
 
Very nice pics, Mike!
Love the cacti lights:yes:.
What values did you use for the caps? I never was able to get a good printing visual off the caps on my WTLCs.
 
I'm using the crossover based upon the corrected schematic listed by Thundrmntn on 9/14
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=198106&highlight=INFINITY+WTLC
where a 6.8 uf cap is used in the midrange section.
The Walsh tweeter uses a Clarity 3uf ESA cap; Clarity 0.47 ESA cap and a Hovland 0.022 uf SuperCap.
The mids have a Clarity 6.8 uF cap and Hovland 0.01 uF Super Cap.
I have a Mills 8.2 resister across the potentiometer.
I am using silver hook up wire to the speakers, with a twisted double run for the woofers.
I hope it will sound as good as it looks!
Mike
I'll have the WTLC's in our NFS Audio Room 4001 at the Flamingo Hotel for the 2013 THE Show Jan 8-10th.
 

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Nice work ! That feed-n-wax is good stuff. There was a pair on CL awhile back and I kinda wish I would have bought them now.
 
Nice work!

If you want to try a texture black that doesn't have so much blotchiness to it use this....

http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=378

.....and you can get it at Harbor Freight and Lowes....maybe Home Depot but I haven't checked there. I think it may even hide the seams where the sides butt together.

- Michael

Interesting! I'm not familiar with this product.
I assume it gives a flat black surface. Are there any pre-application surface preparations required?
Can it be sprayed directly on the paint I've used without peeling of in 3-5 years?
Thanks for your advice!
Mike
 
Interesting! I'm not familiar with this product.
I assume it gives a flat black surface. Are there any pre-application surface preparations required?
Can it be sprayed directly on the paint I've used without peeling of in 3-5 years?
Thanks for your advice!
Mike

Since it is undercoating it's designed to be applied as a topcoat over existing finishes. Still, I'd go over the urethane clear coat you applied with some maroon scotch brite to create an anchor pattern for the undercoating to bite into. I'd wipe it with a fresh tack cloth after that and then apply a tack coat of the undercoating followed by a coverage top coat. It's a high solids coating so it has good coverage and I think with your existing finish you'll do fine with a single top coat. I'd say the finish is around 30-40 GU, which makes it a matte (so less gloss than satin but more gloss than flat). It's a very nice, even looking coating but that only applies to the "Professional" version. Rustoleum has another version of undercoating in a very similar can that is not the "Professional" version and it's not nearly as attractive.
 
I completed the Infinity WTLC's this morning:
The finished stands:
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Crossover gasket:
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Best for tight places:
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Clean bonnet fabric:
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Crossover installed (I'm a big fan of silicone caulk):
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Crossover plate:
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Front mid-range driver weighted down (it is recessed):
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Finished product:
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An extra cookie for those who know the name of the artist for the two pictures:
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I think they look sharp...critical listening tonight.
They will be featured along with the Yamaha CR 3020 receiver next week in our NFS Audio Room at the 2013 THE Show here in Las Vegas.
Time to clean the garage!:D
Mike
 
Very nice, excellent job! Interesting timing, I just finished hooking up the first WTLC I'm restoring for a quick listen.
 
Very nice, excellent job! Interesting timing, I just finished hooking up the first WTLC I'm restoring for a quick listen.
Hello Frank,
We'll have to compare notes. I had damaged one of the Midrange drivers. After an extensive search, I found these at Parts Express. They fit perfectly, have a built-in gasket, and sound terrific. I bought a pair for the rear mids. I am really tempted to use them in the front as well.
The original mids are brittle and fragile.
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=264-1052
Mike
 
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Hello Frank,
We'll have to compare notes. I had damaged one of the Midrange drivers. After an extensive search, I found these at Parts Express. They fit perfectly, have a built-in gasket, and sound terrific. I bought a pair for the rear mids. I am really tempted to use them in the front as well.
The original mids are brittle and fragile.
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=264-1052
Mike

Coastsider clued me in to how brittle and fragile they are. I guess I lucked out, so far. I originally bought these for the Walshes, only I discovered one was open. Since I always wanted a set of WTLC's I kept them anyway. Then I learned how to fix the Walshes and now I have a full set for the WTLC's, a full set of early silver ones for my 2000AXT's and a full spare set for the AXT's. I also have a pair of fried ones in the closet. At some point I'll have to open them up to see if I can make a spare set for the WTLC's.

After I pulled the woofers I measured DC resistance from the pot wiper, through the "midranges" to the common point on the fuse. Measured something like 3.7 ohms, IIRC. That's with the pair wired in parallel. Those Vifa drivers you used look like they'd work well, except they are rated 4 ohms. Do they offer an 8 ohm version? Also no idea how they compare efficiency-wise. I suppose the impedance would be in the 6 ohm rated range with the tweeters pot turned down, provided the efficiency works out. Seem like a good choice for the rears.

Mine still have the vinyl wrap on top, though it's bunged up a bit on the rear of one of them (the one I have working now), plus it shrank a little on that one. Today I took a Sharpie to the thin lines of MDF visible from the shrinkage. The vinyl is in great shape on the other one. The front tweeter arrived loose on that one. After seeing your post on gluing them in I glued it in today and weighted it down with a spool of speaker wire on top of a drinking glass. Both cabinets have a bottom corner veneer chip. Old English Dark Wood Scratch Cover stains the exposed MDF nearly the perfect color to hide the chips. The veneer looks pretty good with just a coat of Scott's Liquid Gold. The original bases only needed a cleaning and a couple small spots dabbed with the Sharpie to look good.

I've only played one Debbie Davies CD at low volume so far but the bass sounds pretty good with the bases turned for side exit on the bottom woofers and the speaker out in the room. So do female voices, piano and electric guitar. I have a Qb playing on the left channel for comparison. So far I'm pretty pleased.

The grilles still need glued back together. I still have one more woofer to refoam before I can try the other speaker. Since mine had the original yellow poly caps on both the "mids" and the Walsh, I left them - at least for now. The tweeters pot only took a couple twists to play clean.

So, what's your initial impression of yours? What were you using before?
 

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Hey mike. Nice job! what is 'our nfs room' who's your co, if you don't mind me asking?

I'm exceedingly curious as to how your walshes sound. Back in the nineties, I really liked the ohm w walsh sound, Never had a chance to hear infinitys take.

I'm local also.:))


jaz(scott)
 
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