AR90 restore project

[Mr. Weather]

I used some Testor's model paint to cover some small imperfections on the edges and corners and that worked exceedingly well.  The Danish oil seems 95% cured and the results are: 1) The color of the wood is amazing, an absolutely beautiful color that is truly walnut and not too red, not green, not yellow.  The original walnut has a beautiful luster and depth now.  The sheen is slightly uneven, although you have to look for it in the reflection of the lights.  Some areas have a less-than-semi-gloss look, and this seems to often relate to the underlying grain.    I think this may mellow out over time.  I will try some wax after a few more days. 

The photos show the veneer repair.  The repaired area at the bottom of the cabinet is highly obvious.  The grain and color do do not match, perhaps because the original wood is 40 years old and the replacement is not.  However the problem of chipped and peeling veneer is fixed.

The factory black fronts have some uneven areas.  I was able to remove or reduce the previous-owner black overpaint in all areas, and small dings in the original black paint are more hidden.

The black rear sides are good, but in a harsh light reflection there is still some uneven tone to the new black paint.

I failed to get a photo of the bottoms but they look great. They match and are super solid.

On the tops, you can see some remnants of the black paint in some of the slight gouges in the wood surface.  The positive way to look at these is they add character

The next step is to reinstall the drivers and give them a listen.  After that I need to get the new badges mounted on new mounting plates installed on the grills.  Then maybe I'll work on some thinner side grills.

We should have sunny weather this weekend and I may put together some before and after photos.

[DavidR]

15 minutes ago, Mr. Weather said:

The next step is to reinstall the drivers and give them a listen.

The best is yet to come !

Nice work.

[Mr. Weather]

I was able to get reproduction AR90 badges but these are just thin metal plates with no mounting hardware.  That's the tricky part.  Until I can find some original badges with their mounting bits, my home made parts will have to do:

I cut a couple of .75 x 1.5 inch pieces from a piece of 18 gauge steel sheet, and welded a couple of large finishing nails to the plates.  I cut off part of the nails and ground the ends back to dull points.  I got a wine cork, cut it in half, and shaved each half down to a smaller cylinder.  Then I drilled a very thin hole in each cork.  Cork goes in back of speaker grill.  Metal plate sticks in front.  AR90 badges stick to plates.  Done.  Astoundingly, it all worked the first time. 

I waxed the walnut veneer and man, it's glassy smooth and looks amazing.  I had to paint rusty the tweeter screw heads in 2 batches.  That worked OK.  I washed and dried the side grills.  Long story short, everything is back together and they sound fantastic!

[Mr. Weather]

I made a pair of new side grills as a test that actually turned out pretty well.  The primary design goals were to use the existing mounting holes and make a wooden frame as strong, slim, and compact as reasonably possible while not interfering with the operation of the woofer.

I used cabinet grade pine boards left over from another project. I ripped them down to 3/8" thick and used half lap joints at the corners.  The joints were glued. The real trick here is that the original mounting peg holes are not totally symmetrical:  The holes near the front of the cabinet are spaced closer together than the the rear ones.  The mounting locations have to be done in a mirror image for the grill on other side of the cabinet.

I rounded the corners which of course does not match the aesthetic of the original grills or the cabinet design in general.  The more compact size of these grills allows more of the walnut veneer to be seen and that of course exposes another difference of these which is that I did not repaint original black around the woofers.

Yes, this is all perhaps blasphemy because it deviates from the original design of these. I really don't like the original side grills.  To me, these new grills look more correct and far less awkward than the original bulky design.

[Aadams]

I like it.  They are more visually balanced.  Have you tried putting the backs of the speakers against the baseboard?  I think they are designed to be within 2 inches of the wall.  Do you have an AR90 Manual?  Page 8.

[Mr. Weather]

13 minutes ago, Aadams said:

I like it.  They are more visually balanced.  Have you tried putting the backs of the speakers against the baseboard?  I think they are designed to be within 2 inches of the wall.  Do you have an AR90 Manual?  Page 8.

Thanks.  Yes I need to push this one back to the wall.  I had been sliding it around while fitting the new grills and didn't get it quite right. Fortunately the room allows these speakers to go right up to the wall baseboard.

 

[DavidR]

I attached a pdf of the owner's manual.

Nice solution with the side panels.

AR90 Owners manual.pdf

[Mr. Weather]

I finiished up the second set of new side grills.  I put slightly more fit and finish into these, although they're the same size and will look the same from the visible side.  I will keep the original grills in safe place and attach a label to them so in a decade I know what the heck they are.

The last thing I want to do on this project is haul the speakers outside again and photgraph them on a sunny day in the same place as when I got them on day 1.  Between my time and the weather, I haven't been able to catch the sun yet but I'm in Houston so we're about to start our 8 month tropical summer which includes mostly sunny days.

[blanddawg625]

On 1/13/2023 at 10:35 AM, Mr. Weather said:

 

Fortuntely, my foam inserts are intact.  They seem perhaps *slightly* stiff, but are generally still foamy and intact. One has an indent on each side.

Inspection with a flashlight does confirm that the side veneer does cover the whole side, even the factory black.  I can see the veneer grain texture under the black paint.  So that's correct compared to yours.  I like the idea of having the whole side as natural wood with no paint.  That could be an option because it may be impossible to strip *only* the paint that was applied by a previous owner without removing the factor black around the woofers.

AR may have switched badges over the years.  I found one photo showing "AR90" badges.  Maybe they ran out of these and used generic "AR" badges on some units.

I have a roll of "speaker gasketing" tape, 3/8" wide by about 1/8" thick.  I used it on my Goodman EE4410s after removing the factory black sealant/goo/tar that had turned hard and brittle.  So that seems light the right thing for these ARs.

 

 

Where did you get this picture? This is a picture from a pair of AR90s that I am buying on Ebay right now.

[Mr. Weather]

5 hours ago, blanddawg625 said:

Where did you get this picture? This is a picture from a pair of AR90s that I am buying on Ebay right now.

I looked through several pages of AR90 images in a duckduckgo.com image search and that was one.