Repairing Leak Sandwich speaker drivers

[jives11]

Hi, I picked up a pair of Leak 2020 speakers last night from a local recycle scheme. they are fairly tatty, but the drivers seem mostly OK. However on closer inspection the polystyrene cone on one has a small crack in it, which is visible from both sides. Is it possible to glue the crack back together ? if so what adhesive is safe to use with these unique drivers ?

[jives11]

here is the speaker from the other side, sorry for the poor pictures

BTW these are not the alnico versions of either the tweeters or the woofers

[stoolpigeon]

I have built up models from polystyrene foam using PVA wood glue. I believe you can also use 2 part epoxy which would be better for filling the crack.

In any case I would test it out on an inconspicuous part of the cone.

sp

[sreten]

Hi,

Smooth down the crack and use pva wood glue down the crack.
If there is a significant gap use a small single layer of tissue paper
applied from the back and apply the pva wood glue from the front.

I do not recommend using two part epoxy. PVA is easier / neater.

/sreten.

[Ouroboros]

I can't see from the pictures if the damage is to the cone or to the latex-coated fabric used as the roll surround.

If the worst comes to the worst I have a pair a Leak 2020 bass units in good condition. They are no use to me, so if you can't mend yours I can send them to you for the post of the P&P.

[Ouroboros]

I meant to write 'for the COST of the P&P'

[jives11]

Many thanks. The hole appears to be just in the cone skin and not in the rubber seal. I will definitely try the PVA glue route. PVA is one of those wonder products like WD40 and Windolene that seem to have a multitude of uses.

I know that polystyrene adhesive will actually melt expanded polystyrene, my son uses this method to create scenery for his warhammer figures. It's dramatic, like when the 'Alien' blood hits the deck in that film, so not a good idea on my driver !

[jives11]

Well I fixed one of the bass drivers with PVA as suggested. Also the fabric cover on the tweeter had a tear which I also used PVA to fix. I removed the grille frames and after trying various techniques to get various layers of brown grime off , I resorted to putting them through the dishwasher which bought them up a treat. The boxes were in a bit of a sorry state with lots of scratches and had been used as plant stands so had lots of water stains. I resorted to Briwax and a scotch pad, which darkens them but also hides the scratches .

As you can see one of the grilles has had some artistic additions at some point, which no kind of cleaning seems to remove. Some shoe polish sorted it , and it's only visible in the flash, not in daylight.


So ... after this bit of fun I put them back together and wired them up to a T-amp in my kids den room. This then gets inputs from a DVD player, satellite box and a Nintendo wii.

I was completely unprepared for how good they sound, these babies really sing their hearts out. The treble is rolled off, but no bad thing IMHO. the bass is very impressive and that's with them just say 3 feet apart on the floor. They image way above the tops of the speakers. I can't say they are the most accurate of speakers but they have no unpleasantness and many really good features. I also cannot get over how little the drivers move. I could make out no movement from the bass units even during loud bass passages.

Their style is about as 70's kitsch as you can get, but I'm really enjoying them. "Knight of Cydonia" from Guitar hero on the Wii sounded superb