About three years ago I bought a pair of JBL speaker cabinets from the 50's/60's. They're referred to as the "C36” cabinet, also the "Viscount." This was in the JBL catalog from the fifties up to 1969 (then last year in ’70 as the “S36”)The cabinets could be bought with different speaker loads/combinations. For you Mid Century Modern aficionados, the design is attributed to Alvin Lustig, with a strong resemblance to George Nelson's work (the legs especially resemble the legs from Nelson's "thin edge" line.) The previous owner had painted them white. The woofers were dead; and the tweeters, crossovers and legs had been stripped and sold. I stripped the white latex paint off to reveal the walnut veneer, and after that they sat. I slowly gathered the missing parts...I got the crossovers off epay..rebuilt those...had to settle for reproduction legs, as the originals have gotten pretty pricey...had the woofers re-coned by Sundance Speakers...wheeled n' dealed to get me a pair of the 075 bullet tweeters...
I finally bit the bullet and started work on the cabinets that I had begun nearly three years ago. I sanded them down. I patched the beat up edges, corners, and scratches with either Bondo or epoxy putty stick. I used a high vinyl solids lacquer based sealer. I filled the grain to get the surface super smooth. I used "toned" lacquer to adjust the color of the walnut, and ended up rubbing out the finish up to #0000 wool.
The speaker setup is very efficient, I think the D130 is about 100db 1w 1m with the 075 110db 1 w 1m... it gets pretty loud with my 10w PP EL84 amp. These speakers and my Klipsch Heresies are gonna have to tide me over until I build cabs for my JELabs 32/414 project...
I finally bit the bullet and started work on the cabinets that I had begun nearly three years ago. I sanded them down. I patched the beat up edges, corners, and scratches with either Bondo or epoxy putty stick. I used a high vinyl solids lacquer based sealer. I filled the grain to get the surface super smooth. I used "toned" lacquer to adjust the color of the walnut, and ended up rubbing out the finish up to #0000 wool.
The speaker setup is very efficient, I think the D130 is about 100db 1w 1m with the 075 110db 1 w 1m... it gets pretty loud with my 10w PP EL84 amp. These speakers and my Klipsch Heresies are gonna have to tide me over until I build cabs for my JELabs 32/414 project...