Taking Shape!

 Update on the speaker project.

My goal is to end up with a facsimile of this:

An actual Silvertone 1484 cabinet.

Bill and I managed to glue on the remaining vinyl covering last week.  He was kind enough to give me a handle he scavenged off a Cordovox tone generator unit. Here it is with the speaker baffle:

Baffle in box, y'all.

I took a shot at putting on the burlap I bought for the grill cloth, but...

Not done, but I wanted to see how it would look.

I found my crappy, old staple gun and some 1/4" staples that wouldn't fit!  I had a handful of 5/16" staples that would, so I took a stab at it.  The staples are sticking up too far and I don't have enough to finish the job properly.  I went to Harbor Freight this morning and picked up a new stapler that will  theoretically take the 1/4" staples (T50 Style).  I'll take another shot at it... later.

Bill's Build

 My friend, Bill, is the one with the tools and know-how for my "Fantasy Project."

Somehow this planted the seed in his noggin that blossomed into his own case of Silvertone Fever.  

The first step was to track down a vintage 1484 amplifier:

Amp delivered!

Amp unboxed

This was a raw chassis, with no tubes or even the case. He set about grabbing a schematic off the internet and going through the 50+ year old components. Capacitors and resistors were replaced along with the power cord, fuse holder and filter condenser.

No case? No problem!

Tricky front trim pieces were made.

Fitting the rough pieces together.

Now, what about the speaker cabinet? The 1484 originally had a twin-twelve set-up; that is is two 12" speakers.  My mother-in-law was happy to donate two vintage 10" speakers from her late husband's estate. Bill was so thrilled he actually sent her flowers!

Two of these RCA 400 speakers donated for the cause.

Look at that sweet 10"! Is it a Weber?

Time to layout that speaker cabinet, son!

The amp stores in the back of the cabinet, natch!

Then, to transplant the handles from the 10" speaker boxes onto the amp and speaker cabinets.

Boy, oh boy!  Much left to do: rout out the holes in the speaker baffle, cover the boxes with that sweet grey vinyl, stretch the speaker cloth and the like. But it's coming along pretty great, don't you think?

Covering the Cabinet

 Got together with my friend, Bill, in his workshop on Saturday to tackle the first phase of covering the cabinet.

We painstakingly measured and cut the two side panels, ensuring that the pieces were square and of equal size.

We marked the centerline on the vinyl and on the cabinet to make sure everything was positioned just so.

The fun started when it was time to brush on the contact adhesive!

With both pieces face-down on our work table, I brushed the adhesive on, using long strokes in one direction.  The back of the vinyl was rough and the gooey contact cement was difficult to spread.

My buddy applied glue to the second piece of covering.

I turned my back to look at the Silvertone 1484 amp project he was working on:

Silvertone 1484 Amplifier with schematics

He's also making a new box for the amp:

We'll cover that one next.

Suddenly I heard my pal howl that the panels were curling up like the dead sea scrolls! The gooey contact cement was getting all over the face of the vinyl.  I grabbed a chunk and, with great difficulty, unrolled it.  By the time I was done it looked like I was wearing contact cement catcher mitts on both hands. 

It took a while to clean off my hands and we broke for lunch.

In the end, we finally managed to get one of the four sides covered before I had to scoot back home:

Progress!

My speaker cloth should be delivered this week.  Could we be getting closer to finishing this project?

Dare to dream!

Speaker Cloth Ordered - Finally!

 I pretty much drove myself nuts trying to get an exact match for the original Silvertone speaker cloth.

I had to "settle" as they say.  

Here's what I've ordered:

Vintage Poly Burlap: Light Gold

I saw a YouTube video where a fellow used some fine weave burlap to replace a Silvertone grill, so there is historical precedent.

Will carve out some time this weekend to work on other aspects of this slow-moving project.