Speaker Gasker Material Question...

[rtate]

I'm rebuilding a pair of Dahlquist DQ10's
and would like yo know what the best gasket material is??
Any suggestions or opinions??

[Cal Weldon]

Will you ever need to remove the driver once it's mounted? That may help determine the gasket.

[rtate]

Hopefully not but you never know.....

[Cal Weldon]

I have used everything from rope caulk to foam gaskets to liquid sealers including urethane, butyl and silicone.

If you are front mounting, one of the ways I like is to wipe a film of oil on the flange part of the basket, place the speaker box on it's back, lay a bead of silicone in the flush mount rebate and put the driver in place. Give it a little twist as you lay the driver in to place to even the bead and line up the mounting holes. Remove any sealant that comes out the mounting holes in the basket. Leave the driver overnight to allow the silicone to set with only the weight of the driver compressing the silicone. You then have a custom gasket that only needs a little tightening once it has set. The oil is there as a bond breaker in case you decide to pull the driver. Just make sure you don't use too much silicone or the driver will be proud of the rebate and it will ooze out the sides.

[Cal Weldon]

If you do use too much silicone you can tighten the screws a bit to help sink the driver into the rebate, Just not too much or you will lose the gasket effect.

[BlueWizard]

What do you mean when you say 'rebuilding'?

And, what do you mean by gasket material?

Some speaker still have thick paper gaskets on the front, which were originally intended for rear mounting. I'm not sure why they have them when virtually no body rear mounts their speakers.

If you are intending to replace this gasket, things get tricky.

Now if you are front mounting speakers, and merely want a seal between the cabinet and the speaker frame, we are in a whole new ball park.

Things I've found -

-Sheets of thin cork meant to be made into gaskets for automotive applications. Actually pretty cheap.

Likely there are various other types of sheet automotive gasket material available that would work.

- At a carpet store I saw huge sheets of this thin rubber that is meant for underlayment cushion for various types of floors. It's not cheap by the foot, but remember it's about 12 feet wide.

- There are the equivalent cushion underlayments in a type of dense closed cell foam, that is extremely durable and available at most building supply and home improvement stores. Unfortunately, is is usually green.

- For smaller speakers, and for less than $1 per sheet, you can get 12" x 9" or 12" x 18" 2-mil thick dense closed cell foam craft sheets at hobby and fabric stores. I used these on my current speaker system rebuild. And it is available in a variety of colors. So, if by some weird chance, you wanted Red gaskets, you could have them. Simply cut to fit.

- Parts Express has foam tape, similar to weather stripping tape, that is specifically made for speaker gaskets.

In the previous build of my current speakers, I just screwed the metal speaker frame down to the wood cabinet, then laid a bead of silicone caulking around the back to create an air tight seal between the wood and the frame. Since it wasn't compressed, it was reasonably easy to remove the speakers for my current rebuild.

I considered felt, which is also available in thin peel-n-stick sheets at fabric and hobby stores, though when I suggested it here, people weren't too sure about the idea.

If I were going to use caulking today, it would be water-clean-up latex.

steve/bluewizard