LSi15 Panel Mod

Chipotle

I had some LSi15 speakers with Cherry side panels that sounded great but the finish didn’t go too well with the Walnut paneling on the wall of my Family Room. After reading Nick’s project where he replaced the side panels on his LSi9s, I decided to give it a try.

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The left channel speaker with the original Cherry side panel.


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In order to remove the side panels, I used a heavy duty Husky brand paint scraper that I purchased from Home Depot. I went all around the edge of the panel to loosen the glue as much as I could before lifting it off.


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Here are the backs of two of the panels that were removed from the speakers. I had purchased the two speakers separately as open box items and they were from two different production runs with different gluing methods used. The panel in the left picture was from the left speaker and those panels came off much easier and cleaner than the panels on the right speaker. If you look at the picture on the right you can see that the some of the MDF board peeled off of the panel and stayed on the speaker. I had to scrape off the remaining MDF pieces. Each panel also had eight dowel pins to align the panels and keep them from moving once they were glued.


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I used an old piece of Plexiglas as a template to drill the holes for the dowel pins in the backs of the new Walnut panels. Even though it doesn’t look so good the template worked very well and the panels all lined up properly.



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Of course the hard part of this project was making the panels from ¾ inch Walnut stock. Lucky for me, I have a brother who does woodworking as a hobby and he has the skill and tools needed to make them. Without his help, I would not have even attemted replacing the panels.


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Here are the finished speakers back in their place.

McLoki

Looks sweet - great job. Did you happen to take a pic of the speaker once you removed the panels? Are they gloss black all the way down with the panels stuck over the gloss or are they only gloss where you see?

Michael

nikolas812

WOW!!!

I never expected anyone to attempt this. You did an amazing job!

Its some very hard work. But well worth it in the end.


Looks like I might have started something.......:D


Cheers


Nick

SlowcarIX

very nice mod! i will definately copy if i still had my 15s

Kex

That's a hell of a first post at Club Polk, Chipotle! Well done, and welcome!

danz1906

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MADGSF

Wow, heck of a first post welcome to the club.

Those look great! Makes me wish Polk would update the LSi's by using new panel colors.

Chipotle

Thank you all for the kind words. It turned out to be more work than I had planned. I didn't know it had the dowel pins in it and removing the panels from the first speaker was a pain. The second speaker was very easy to remove probably because the glue was not as strong and I learned some terchniques on the first one that I used on the second one. On the first panel removal I was using several tools (chisels, screw drivers, paint scrapers). By the time I did the other 3 panels I used only the Huffy paint scraper because it worked the best.

Michael - No, the speakers do not have a glossy surface on the whole side; just along the edges. That was a surprise to me because I had read a thread a while ago where someone had removed the panels on an LSi15 and they were all glossy surface. Maybe those were early production models. Here are some pictures of the speaker surface after the panel was removed on the second speaker. I didn't start taking pictures until I had completed the 1st speaker so I don't have a picture of the MDF that tore off of the panel and stuck to the side of the speaker.

Dan


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McLoki

Very interesting. The 1st version of LSi used a "wrap" type gloss that was on the entire speaker. The newer versions are a paint/clear coat similar to a car finish.

Click on the LSi7's link in my sig to see what the original versions looked like under the wood panels...

You did a great job and the speakers look fantastic, but that does cement the idea that if you want a pair of gloss black LSi's - you need to get an pair of the Gen-1's. (only change was the gloss used and the colors of the panels - (same color, but different finish)

Thanks for sharing and Welcome to club polk...

Michael

Hawkeye

Nice job and welcome to the club.

Sherardp

they look freaking awesome in Walnut. Excellent job and write up. Sweet.

polkatese

Excellent job for sure! I bet it would add an extra couple hundreds on its resale value.

audiobliss

Wow, your brother/you did a great job on the new walnut panels and the finish. Great job on replacing them and the write-up, too.

They look beautiful!!

mmadden28

Indeed - absolutely beautiful. I feel really weird saying this but I got wood looking at your wood. :eek:;):D

Welcome to Club Polk

Kex

mmadden28 wrote: »

... I feel really weird saying this but I got wood looking at your wood. ...

:eek: Dude! Too much information!

mmadden28

Kex wrote: »

:eek: Dude! Too much information!

.
.

Face

Excellent job, they look fantastic!

sbpolk

A guy could make some money doing custom sides for LSis....

I would pay for the sides we've got now, but top to bottom. I love the black wood finish, it would just be awesome if it extended the whole way, like the Focal 826Vs.

Hmmm.... I'd pay $300 for new sides that meet the above criteria! Anyone?

sbpolk

Forgot to say, too.... THEY LOOK AMAZING! Great job!

Chipotle

Thanks again for all of your comments. I found the link to the post showing LSi15s with the glossy sides. The post was from early in 2005. Those speakers had double back tape holding the panels on and they did not have the dowel pins. They look like they would be much easier to remove than the newer ones with the glue.
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27613

Today 10:20 PM
sbpolk A guy could make some money doing custom sides for LSis....

I would pay for the sides we've got now, but top to bottom. I love the black wood finish, it would just be awesome if it extended the whole way, like the Focal 826Vs.

Hmmm.... I'd pay $300 for new sides that meet the above criteria! Anyone?

sbpolk ,
I don't know if you could make money doing custom sides for LSis. My brother has a woodshop with a couple of table saws, a planer, a large drum sander, a router table and every thing else we needed to do the job. Even with all of the right tools, it took us about 6 hours to make the 4 panels. There was a learning curve so it could probably be done in half that time after you have done a few. I put on 3 coats of satin finish polyurethane and that took 2 more hours of work over a couple of days.
My wife thought I was crazy when I started tearing apart the speakers and puting in the amount of work we did, but she did like the way they turned out.

nikolas812

Chipotle wrote: »

Thanks again for all of your comments. I found the link to the post showing LSi15s with the glossy sides. The post was from early in 2005. Those speakers had double back tape holding the panels on and they did not have the dowel pins. They look like they would be much easier to remove than the newer ones with the glue.
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27613

Today 10:20 PM
sbpolk A guy could make some money doing custom sides for LSis....

I would pay for the sides we've got now, but top to bottom. I love the black wood finish, it would just be awesome if it extended the whole way, like the Focal 826Vs.

Hmmm.... I'd pay $300 for new sides that meet the above criteria! Anyone?

sbpolk ,
I don't know if you could make money doing custom sides for LSis. My brother has a woodshop with a couple of table saws, a planer, a large drum sander, a router table and every thing else we needed to do the job. Even with all of the right tools, it took us about 6 hours to make the 4 panels. There was a learning curve so it could probably be done in half that time after you have done a few. I put on 3 coats of satin finish polyurethane and that took 2 more hours of work over a couple of days.
My wife thought I was crazy when I started tearing apart the speakers and puting in the amount of work we did, but she did like the way they turned out.

I tell ya man. It really is hard tedious work tearing them side panels off.

I applaud you for trying it.....

Well done.



Nick

zingo

That looks awesome!

ben62670

Looks sweet! Nice job:)

Polksaladanni

You are a true artisian. Those look great! with the darker/brown wood!!

The OE Cherry? looks almost orange in the pic.

P

Chipotle

Today 04:41 PM
Polksaladanni You are a true artisian. Those look great! with the darker/brown wood!!

The OE Cherry? looks almost orange in the pic.

P

Thank you Polksaladanni. The original picture didn't have the correct white balance or something. The cherry has an orange tint to it but not as much as in that photo. Here is another picture where the color matches the actual panel. The cherry is a nice finish but not a good match for our room.

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ben62670

I still say sweet. Do the XO's, and you are way up on the speaker food chain;)

brettw22

I think the main thing I would suggest to those looking to do this is to use a plastic/nylon scraper to hammer through the glue. THe metal can/will scratch the **** ouf of your speaker (granted, it's not full black glossed, but still does damage).

Congrats on the result.......I just wish the LSI line was a wider cabinet. Personal opinion thing........

Chipotle

Yesterday 09:52 PM
ben62670
I still say sweet. Do the XO's, and you are way up on the speaker food chain

Funny you should mention the crossovers. I received the parts I ordered from Sonic Craft today. I am waiting for the rest of the parts from partsconnexion.com so that I can start the mod.

Yesterday 11:45 PM
brettw22
I think the main thing I would suggest to those looking to do this is to use a plastic/nylon scraper to hammer through the glue. THe metal can/will scratch the **** ouf of your speaker (granted, it's not full black glossed, but still does damage).

The metal scraper does scratch the surface of the speaker. I did not care about the area under the panels since that would be covered anyway. The areas that I was most concerned about were the top and front edges that would be most visible, so I did them last. I started on the back and bottom edges and tried to loosen the panels from those sides before doing the front and the top. A plastic scraper would have less risk of scratching. I tried to use one but it is a very tight gap and I could not work it in by hand and the plastic scraper I had was not sturdy enough to hammer on.
There is the risk of damaging the speaker cabinet and I was willing to take that risk figuring that some small scratches would look less objectionable than the way cherry finish looked against the walnut wall.

Polksaladanni

Still like the walnut. Still looks orangie.

Love the brownish/purple tint.

Enjoy!

brettw22

While I get your intent, I can't say that I've actually known someone to try and match their paneling........haha..........

I agree with you though.........in ANY room, that weird cherry hue is gross.........what you and your brother did looks fantastic and very well done.

debussyj

Chipolte, Kudos to you! What a great job! I recently had to do a similar thing to my LSI15's. I have an original release pair and one of my panels split, so the kind folks at Polk sent me two new pairs of wood panels for replacement. Pulling off the old panels was a B**** and interestingly enough I had complete piano black gloss finish all the way to the bottom of the speakers. I even toyed with the idea of just leaving the wood panels off, but instead I used some nice layers of velcro tape. Now my panels are velcroed to the speakers and should I run into the same problem, I'll just pull them off and put new ones on. Your brother did an awesome job with the wood work of the panels. They're the real deal and you can't beat it. DJ:)