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Ideas on how to repair this Altec 19 butchery?

ricohman

ricohman

Adventure Rider
I have started to strip and sand the cabs on my 19's. The front of the cabs will be the biggest challenge. The original owner of these hacked a wider hole to bolt in a N801-8A crossover.
I have been throwing around a few ideas but either way the cabs won't be original.
I could graft in a piece of walnut veneer on the enlarged side, but it may not match and there would be nothing behind it. But since its not structural it shouldn't be a problem.
Or I could take a 1 inch walnut plank and cut it on the table saw to leave a 1/4 rise on the front of the cab and a 1 inch plug that would fit into the hole. This walnut plate could cover the entire mess and I could bolt the Z19 crossover to it or some original xo's should I ever find some.
Any ideas?
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Complete butchery:tears:
The hole is original as far as height is concerned but it is wider now.
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How about an aluminum plate with the L-pads from the crossovers mounted to it? Or as you said, a wood plate that matches and mounts the L-pads.
 
Tom Brennan said:
How about an aluminum plate with the L-pads from the crossovers mounted to it? Or as you said, a wood plate that matches and mounts the L-pads.
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I never gave any though to using anything but wood but maybe an alternate material wouldn't be such a bad choice?
I do have some dark anodized aluminum sheet. :scratch2:
 
Aluminum plate with the Z19 crossover built onto the back of it, would be nice. You'd see two L-pad controls from the front of each plate.

I'd just look around to find some knobs that looked as much like the original Model 19 crossover knobs as possible... that'd be cool.

Regards,
Gordon.
 
mounting plate

Two of these from parts express might work as well. Will be larger than existing hole.
 

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Just cover it with whatever you mount the z19 crossovers to and be done. Put the grill on and none will be the wiser.
 
Any ideas?
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Use Walnut so it matches the cabs.

The easy way is going to be as already suggested a few times, a face plate of some sort.

If you want to "restore" them to the extent that original networks or original style network chassis' could be used with all evidence of the hacking gone, i'd cut out true/square rectangles large enough to take out all screw holes and cut edges and then glue new ply or MDF back in place with an overlapping piece of 3/8 or 1/2 inch ply glued and clamped to the inside to add strength, then i'd re-veneer the entire lower front baffle. All said and done, it will give you baffles that appear as good as new with no outside evidence of any hacking or repair, but they probably won't sound any different than an aluminum plate with the L-pads mounted in it.

The only time which way you choose might matter is in reselling them.
 
Are the pieces that frame the baffle level with the baffle or is the baffle recessed? If you have a 32nd of an inch to work with there, I would plug the hole with correct thickness plywood and lay a new veneer sheet over the entire baffle. Then put the crossover wherever you want it.

If you have the ability to fabricate an aluminum plate, that would probably look pretty good. It would still look a little funky though, trying to cover the mess and still fit around the driver.
 
Dmannnnn said:
Are the pieces that frame the baffle level with the baffle or is the baffle recessed? If you have a 32nd of an inch to work with there, I would plug the hole with correct thickness plywood and lay a new veneer sheet over the entire baffle. Then put the crossover wherever you want it.

If you have the ability to fabricate an aluminum plate, that would probably look pretty good. It would still look a little funky though, trying to cover the mess and still fit around the driver.
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The veneer on the baffle is the same height as the front edges of the cabinet. But I am going to replace a few pieces of veneer on the front edges anyway.
The only problem is a tiny gap between the front edges and the baffle. I don't know why they built the cabinets this way but it would make applying new veneer a tough job.
 
I also think walnut trimmed wood would look unique here to fill the hole, then dtop in a couple of Z19 networks, some horn difraction foams, and then some HD carpet casters.

I also coated horns with some 1/2" dense foam to keep the woofer from ringing thru and made my connection posts bi-wirable. Came out very nice sounding!
DC
 
Just put a plug of wood into the slot and be done with it. It's an easy enough fix, and wouldn't be what I'd call a glaring error, particularly since it won't affect the sound, and you'll have the grilles on anyway.

Those are gorgeous speaks, and a wood plug won't detract from that at all. :)
 
Many good ideas. A friend of mine came over and looked at this mess and stated that he would just build another set of cabinets (damned carpenters!) as these don't look very well put together? So we pulled one apart and aside from the one cut in the front we found the cabinets very solid. To good to throw away.
So I have decided to splice in a veneer graft over the enlarged portion of the hole and extend that to the side. If the match is good then I will build some block backing. I have to veneer the front edges as the veneer is damaged on a few places.
I decided this after I could see the blind nuts for the xo are still mostly intact.
If this doesn't work out then I will use the solid oak plug/plate as he figured it would take many passes through the planer to get the 1 inch plank down to size and then cutting a hole for the crossover would be difficult with the thin wood.
From the inside.
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Since I am stripping the varathane having the cabs apart will make the job easier.
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I have stripped one cab and began patching the veneered edge. The results were very poor as the veneer I bought was walnut, but I believe these may be oak. Can anyone tell the difference?
 
They're definitely Walnut, NOT Oak, they are two very distinctly different woods. The exact variety of Walnut, and the colors used in the original finishing may be a bit harder to nail down. You also need to consider bleaching/darkening that has occurred over the last 30+ years.

If this doesn't work out then I will use the solid oak plug/plate
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Unnecessary overkill IMO. The cabinets are built from 3/4 inch MDF, that's what i'd plug the hole with, keeping it flush with the inside of the baffle so that a reinforcing plate(larger than the current cutout) can be used to cleat the plug to the baffle to ensure strength after the proper crossover opening is cut out. You'll need to remove the old T-nuts and reinstall them in the "cleat".

The front side of the plug will be recessed by the thickness of the veneer on both sides, i'd fill it with fiber free bondo and sand it level, and then re-veneer the front of the baffle. I find the majority of veneer "repairs" nearly as offensive as the blemish it's trying to fix. If the front edge banding has very many issues, it's just as easy to replace that in it's entirety as well, it's 4 corners to miter and some straight edges to sand flush.

Just my .02 y'all understand.........................
 
If they were mine, I would carefully make a template for a router slightly bigger and symmetrical to the crossover and route about 1/4" deep and 1" larger than the crossover in all directions, and then cut a wood panel to fit and mount the XO to that.
 
bowtie427ss said:
Use Walnut so it matches the cabs.

The easy way is going to be as already suggested a few times, a face plate of some sort.

If you want to "restore" them to the extent that original networks or original style network chassis' could be used with all evidence of the hacking gone, i'd cut out true/square rectangles large enough to take out all screw holes and cut edges and then glue new ply or MDF back in place with an overlapping piece of 3/8 or 1/2 inch ply glued and clamped to the inside to add strength, then i'd re-veneer the entire lower front baffle. All said and done, it will give you baffles that appear as good as new with no outside evidence of any hacking or repair, but they probably won't sound any different than an aluminum plate with the L-pads mounted in it.

The only time which way you choose might matter is in reselling them.
Click to expand...

I'd second this approach. Especially if you're going to re-veneer some other areas on the front. You'll end up with something with a bunch of patches.

Cut the existing hole nice and square, properly fit a plug, then re-veneer the entire thing. It will look good as new, and will probably take less time than trying to make individual patches look good.

My .02,

bs
 
The idea of applying veneer seemed daunting but seeing how easy it goes on makes that less of an issue.
I went to a wood store yesterday and looked at a variety of walnut veneers. Some of the older veneers had turned orange and red with age and some had turned very dark.
I bought some redish orange pieces to try and match the edging and I will see how that goes. No luck on finding a large piece thats aged in the right color. The fellow at the wood shop told me its impossible to tell what color changes will occur in any piece of walnut.
I have been working nights so I have no time to work on the speakers.
I will post some picks of my hacking soon.
 
The veneer patching on the edges is going well and not all that difficult.
But that hole.........
I spent a few minutes and tacked in a veneer graft. I oiled the corner of the cab with Danish oil, no tint. I can darken or lighten the patch with stain but the real problem is the old walnut has turned reddish orange and the new material is grey. I don't want to wait a few years but I did manage to find one small piece of older veneer that may be enough to do both cabinets.
I need to support the back of the veneer patch and it hasn't had any stain applied or finish but I think its looks reasonable.
The 1/4 walnut ply is positioned were the factory crossover plate would be. I wish I had a factory xo plate for fitting so I am just guessing using the mounting holes for size.
But what do you think? Let the critique begin.

At 4 feet it looks decent.
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At 2 feet its noticable, but not eye catching.
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At 1 foot I'll start yelling "get away from those speakers!"......
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