D I Y Drive in Speakers

[Scudie]

Recently acquired a couple of car stereo speakers, by the look of them I would assume that they are from the late 70’s possibly early 80’s. I am guessing that they were meant to be fitted as accessory speakers to the rear parcel shelf of a car, that probably didn’t have either a radio or speakers.

Any way as they appear to be made of aluminium, an idea popped into my head, after seeing Sooners post’s of his Drive in speakers  I thought strip the speakers strip the paint and polish them up. I have a length of stainless tube from an old patio heater  that will do as a post, so all I have to do is find something to go on top of the tube to form a housing / lamp some how connect all the parts together hey presto diy drive in speaker set.

Busy doing other things at the moment but it’s a definitely maybe one day.Cheers Scudie

[Sooner]

Aluminum will polish nicely. Not sure about the grills. You may need to paint them.

[Scudie]

Have stripped one of the speakers, & started to remove the paint. Paint stripper had no affect nor did brake fluid, so ended up sanding it off.

was thinking of having a go at making some replacement speaker grills from sheet aluminium & cutting slots in it. ?

 

[Sooner]

Or drill holes in it?

[Klaatu]

Slots, but make a nice design, not only straight slots of same length.

[Scudie]

Will give the design some thought may be a deco inspired design.

Cheers Scudie

[Scudie]

Have had a little time to look at those speaker units, decided to make a replacement for the mesh, so far I have cut a couple of pieces of 8mm aluminium to match the shape of the speaker body.

Will now give the design of the speaker grill some thought.

Cheers  Scudie

[Scudie]

Well under the black paint finish they are aluminium, I am guessing they were cast & as they were deigned to have a painted finish it hadn’t mattered that the aluminium was quite rough, so getting any kind of shine on them involved quite a bit of polishing.

Any way one is nearly there now just the awkward parts around the screw holes to have another go at.

Do the the repacement grills go? Any suggestions?

Cheers

 

 

[Sooner]

Looks great! How did you cut the slots? They look perfect. Are you going to polish the front to match the rest?

[Scudie]

Machined the grills on a milling machine.

Will try polishing the new grills not sure if they clean up the same as it was aluminium plate not cast.  StI’ll got to find something to go on top of the post to house a Bluetooth receiver/ amp. Looking for a round dome lamp with a chrome / stainless steel base.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Scudie.

[Sooner]

Aluminum plate will polish up nicely.  Same as cast.

[Anonymous]

looks great !

[Author]

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