Assembly Jig found inside a AR-4X

[Tom H.]

My son and I are working on a pair of AR-4X's.  We found this L-shaped piece of masonite(?) with a wood block glued to it inside under the insulation. It fits just around the between the cap and the edges of the cabinet. I figure it must have been a jig for installing the cap and forgotten about upon assembly. I hope it didn't buzz when the speaker was playing!

wo

[RoyC]

Thanks for posting. Insight into the hand-made nature of these earlier AR models is always interesting and appreciated.

On two occasions I've found remnants of paper shims in the voice coil gaps of AR-3 tweeters. Apologies to fellow geeks of the forum for not posting a photo or two...

Roy

 

[Tom H.]

On second thought, I think it probably aligned the crossover back board/assembly to the cabinet. I don't recall exactly how it was orientated in there when we found it. Looks like it might have fit better in the other lower corner as pictured.  I would imagine they pre assembled the crossover before it was installed in the cabinet. It's probably all chewed up from a wayward stapler shots.

[RoyC]

1 hour ago, Tom H. said:

On second thought, I think it probably aligned the crossover back board/assembly to the cabinet. I don't recall exactly how it was orientated in there when we found it. Looks like it might have fit better in the other lower corner as pictured.  I would imagine they pre assembled the crossover before it was installed in the cabinet. It's probably all chewed up from a wayward stapler shots.

I was thinking the same thing as I looked at your photos. Ha, based on decades of working inside these cabinets, it seems to me that some of the staplers were either having lots of fun with the gun, or just really bad shots.

[Reel Man]

We tend to treat these speakers as Holy Objects, when to the typical workers, it was another set they needed to finish up/get out. One of my AR3-a speakers has a few nails sticking out inside, because the board on one side was not symmetrical with the other side. Oops, well......the cloth will be glued on, anyway...

[lakecat]

On 8/15/2023 at 6:56 PM, RoyC said:

I was thinking the same thing as I looked at your photos. Ha, based on decades of working inside these cabinets, it seems to me that some of the staplers were either having lots of fun with the gun, or just really bad shots.

Or liquid lunches.....:)

[baffled_loudspeaker]

Two stories I can relate about a similar occurance at another New England speaker company I used to work for.

One tower speaker of a pair was designed with a power supply and amp in the base, the other was fully passive, and a proprietary connector connected them. However, this made the two speakers weigh very differently. One felt unnaturally light thus cheap. To fix that, the passive speaker was designed with a brick in the base. An engineering-spec brick. Revision notices had to be issued whenever the brick manufacturer changed formulations or went out of business, and the new one had to be re-weighed.

This company also had a longstanding rule of no food at your desk or workstation. The aboveboard story is that this was a carryover from when people did manual drafting, and it's expensive to redraft or copy an E-size plot due to food stains. The belowboard story is that, back in the day, someone had bought the very recognizable flagship product and a few weeks later it started to smell. They called customer service, complained, and CS thought they were confused, suggested it was their pet or likely something else in the house, and they hang up. The customer called back repeatedly over time. Finally, CS sends out a technician, this being the days of technician house visits. They open up the cabinet and find a rotting half-eaten sandwich.

[Tom H.]

Great stories, baffled Loudspeaker. I thought only white van speakers had bricks in them!

I wonder if the assembler on our AR-4x's went to sleep that night, wondering where that lost jig ended up that day.

[newandold]

On 9/12/2023 at 1:36 PM, Tom H. said:

Great stories, baffled Loudspeaker. I thought only white van speakers had bricks in them!

I wonder if the assembler on our AR-4x's went to sleep that night, wondering where that lost jig ended up that day.

Yep…… Not a stranger to little surprises lurking inside a sealed enclosure.

I had one with a rattle And when I opened it up to investigate, I found the entire crossover network, (normally glued to the rear of the cabinet,) had entirely come away. The rattle was not heard during operation, but only when the thing was moved around, as the crossover had fallen into the fiberglass…..so just sat there while it was running, and that was good.

 

Another speaker had a spare grommet laying inside the bottom of the cabinet.(The ones used to secure a grill frame to the exterior. ) I also discovered a small piece of particleboard, had broken off during the original assembly process so the assembler Resorted to a hollow wall anchor to fill the void rather than replacing the wood. It works perfectly, but too much of a task to restore, except by a pro.