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So some time last year I asked about repairing the foam surrounds of the Sony APM-33 speakers and thought I would share the process.
I bought the surrounds from a Polish company listing on Ebay. Pricing was very steep considering something similar from the Netherlands was nearly 10x less...
Ordered the parts and it took around 2 months to arrive (most of that time was sitting in the ether in SA customs
). It would still be sitting there if not for international tracking locating it before the PO themselves could!
This is how the APM-33's looked initially. Relatively good condition except for the woofer surrounds. Because of the square design, there were only a handful of places I could find with those surrounds:
First step was to remove the plastic ring covering the surrounds. They were glued in so needed a few plastic pry tools:
Plastic rings removed
In case you wondered what the square drive looked like from the side:
Now the tedious process begins. With the woofers out I tried to cut some wood supports to hold them in place while removing the remains of the old foam/gasket. This took ages to scrape off.
After taking forever I eventually got the foam and gasket off. Something that also helped the process along was Bostik GluGo. Remember to use in a well ventilated area. Does have a great lemon scent though...
Products which didn't work included thinners, benzyne, rubbing alcohol. Also didn't smell as great.
Cleaned up the plastic surround. DO NOT use rubbing alcohol here as it removes paint.
Now to glue the surrounds. The package it came with included glue but I used some beads glue instead. I used some cardboard to keep the foam pressed to the woofer while it was drying. The wooden pieces underneath the woofers were replaced by layered cardboard. Much better to work with and just as string for this job.
Continued...
I bought the surrounds from a Polish company listing on Ebay. Pricing was very steep considering something similar from the Netherlands was nearly 10x less...
Ordered the parts and it took around 2 months to arrive (most of that time was sitting in the ether in SA customs
). It would still be sitting there if not for international tracking locating it before the PO themselves could!This is how the APM-33's looked initially. Relatively good condition except for the woofer surrounds. Because of the square design, there were only a handful of places I could find with those surrounds:
First step was to remove the plastic ring covering the surrounds. They were glued in so needed a few plastic pry tools:
Plastic rings removed
In case you wondered what the square drive looked like from the side:
Now the tedious process begins. With the woofers out I tried to cut some wood supports to hold them in place while removing the remains of the old foam/gasket. This took ages to scrape off.
After taking forever I eventually got the foam and gasket off. Something that also helped the process along was Bostik GluGo. Remember to use in a well ventilated area. Does have a great lemon scent though...
Products which didn't work included thinners, benzyne, rubbing alcohol. Also didn't smell as great.
Cleaned up the plastic surround. DO NOT use rubbing alcohol here as it removes paint.
Now to glue the surrounds. The package it came with included glue but I used some beads glue instead. I used some cardboard to keep the foam pressed to the woofer while it was drying. The wooden pieces underneath the woofers were replaced by layered cardboard. Much better to work with and just as string for this job.
Continued...
