What can I use to dope foam woofer surrounds?

chadbang

chadbang

Well-Known Member
The thin rubber surrounds for my Vifa drivers are no longer made. It was suggested by a technician that I use a foam surround and apply 3 layers of dope to stiffen the foam to a more rubber-like quality. Do you know what kind of dope I should use? Thanks!
 
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The "thin" rubber surrounds, on the Vifa drivers I have, are very supple, and not that far removed from foam, to my clumsy hands.

Somebody posted recently about rubber surrounds being available. Did you do a search, here, for a thread?

Either way, if all I could get was foam, I'd install those, and see where the driver was at, performance-wise.
 
I that's great advice. Thanks for the help, especially from another Snell owner who knows what I'm talking about. It certainly isn't the kind of rubber, say, found on my Spicas - or it wouldn't have degraded so badly. I'll only be at a loss because I just got the speakers and don't know their original sound -- I won't have a point of reference sonically.

Actually, I was the one who posted about the rubber surrounds, but they turned out to be too thick.
 
Try this stuff, you spray it on. A rubberized coating called "Good Bye Cracks" that remains very flexible. I used it to dope the fabric surrounds on my AR2ax with great success. I got it at Lowes. Check out posts #26 and #27 in this thread...
 
chadbang said:
I that's great advice. Thanks for the help, especially from another Snell owner who knows what I'm talking about. It certainly isn't the kind of rubber, say, found on my Spicas - or it wouldn't have degraded so badly. I'll only be at a loss because I just got the speakers and don't know their original sound -- I won't have a point of reference sonically.

Actually, I was the one who posted about the rubber surrounds, but they turned out to be too thick.
Click to expand...

The compliance of foam and rubber surrounds is roughly the same. The claimed advantage of rubber is it's similar compliance performance to foam but won't deterioriate over time - yeah, right!
I just repaired a pair of 4 inch Seas mids (originally had rubber surrounds which turned to tar) from a Snell AIII speaker using foam.
You don't need to add rubber on top of foam surrounds. It's a worthless exercise. Do so at the risk of stiffening it.

With regard to resealing fabric surrounds, Classic Speakers Pages had some posts recently in the AR area about using an automotive gasket sealer made by Permatex (see posts for specifics). It dries tacky and won't stiffen with age like PVA's (Aileen's/Orange County's, etc.) do. I know, I tested a KLH woofer after resealing it by doing an accelerated ageing test. 1/2 hr in my oven at 175 deg. F. No change in Fs.
 
I've used Aileene's Fabric Fusion (a flexible fabric adhesive).
It dries clear in 2-4 hours....and stays very flexible.
I've used it on KLH, Frazier, Oxford, R & A, DNH, Rola, Jensen, and other speakers to repair paper cone cracks & reseal surrounds, in both stereo and guitar speakers.

Steve
 
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