Monitor 5B's given a refurb & upgrade w/pics

geoff727

Hi everyone. Here is a pair of Monitor 5's I just finished working on for a good friend I work with. He wanted something inexpensive that sounded and performed fairly well. I said, "I think I might have the ticket for you". So we found these that night on ebay. Here's what they looked like when they arrived (all the drivers were in, BTW).

geoff727

And here's something that always bothered me a little bit, the "mistolerances".

geoff727

Here's a few pictures in process. I filled in all of the gaps between the black melamine front panel and the veneered edge bevels, so it's much more of 'finished' look now. Crossovers, binding posts....all the standard stuff.

geoff727

Here's what they look like now. The veneer is maple. The drivers have new mounting hardware, all stainless w/ T-nuts.

geoff727

Reclothed grilles, redone grille badges, binding post cups with new hardware, a lustery finish, and veneered/finished back edges.

leroyjr1

Nice job!!!!

Was the veneer process hard?

geoff727

And a few more, plus the basic cables I assembled for my friend for his new music system.

Hope you all enjoy!

Geoff

geoff727

Two more...

You'll probably notice that many of the holes on The PCB are re-drilled to move things around enough to enable a nice, strong, stable, mounting to the new components.

WastelandWand'r

Geoff,
Beautiful work. Looks like a brand new set, and I know that you took your time and did it right.
Are those t-nuts very difficult/pain in the **** to set in the MDF?
Nathan

geoff727

Leroy....yes, they're a little time consuming. 20 separate pieces of veneer on each cabinet (front, bevel, side, back edge, inside back edge x 4 on each cabinet).

Nathan...great to hear from you! I've been wondering if you still had the 2B's & 2.3tl's. After I sold all my Polk's off last year, several months later I really started missing them (even though my current system is technically superior in all areas). So, I recently sprang for some RTA 15tl's and just yesterday for some beautiful Monitor 10 Series 2's. The workshop will be busy, that's all I can say. And, I plan to pick up KC's (kcoc321) 7C's as well. I'm hopeless.

A T-nut can be a little tricky to line up perfectly in the particle board (it's not MDF, which is much finer). Usually I have to insert a long screw into it and tap it into place while keeping the screw straight up and down.

Take care,
Geoff

danger boy

Geoff, those mon 5's look great.. your work is nothing less than top notch. your friend will be so happy with those. collector items if you ask me.

geoff727

FWIW, I actually had a "punch-list" of 28 separate items for these. Including, repairing a separating seam on one of the bottom corners. I had to remove a bottom bevel, and part of one of the side bevels to get in there, clean thngs out, and re-set the joint.

geoff727

danger boy wrote: »

Geoff, those mon 5's look great.. your work is nothing less than top notch. your friend will be so happy with those. collector items if you ask me.

Thanks Al! I still need lots of practice w/ veneer, though. I'm thinking about doing the Mon 10's in ebony or cocobolo.

WastelandWand'r

Geoff,
Thanks for the heads up. Yep, still have them, they are in the same shape as when you and I wrapped them up. Sitting in my nephews house, waiting.
Glad to hear that you have been unable to completely escape the lure that is vintage Polk.
I have wanted to put my ears on a set of 15's, let me know what you think.
Nathan

geoff727

WastelandWand'r wrote: »

Geoff,
Thanks for the heads up. Yep, still have them, they are in the same shape as when you and I wrapped them up. Sitting in my nephews house, waiting.
Glad to hear that you have been unable to completely escape the lure that is vintage Polk.
I have wanted to put my ears on a set of 15's, let me know what you think.
Nathan

I'm glad you still have them. I don't miss the 2.3tl's, but I sometims think about the -2B's. I think they have real potential. If I were to ever get another SDA, that would probably be it.

These 15's have bad tweeters, and a few cabinet dings. That's the kind of buy I like to make....just enough problems that the seller is willing to let them go cheap! It'll be a long time before I get to them. I have two other Infinity's (same ones you saw tucked away in the corner) that are mid-project and I really need to take the next year and get those things done.

Now if i can just hold on at my job, I'll be doing fine! :rolleyes:

geoff727

This is the difference in the look with the production gaps finished off. It's just one of those nice touches, I think.

kcoc321

Those look great Geoff, but then I would have expected nothing less, given the previous projects I have seen.

jimbo1421

Very nice veneer job, Geoff. How did you remove the vinyl?

Jim

geoff727

jimbo1421 wrote: »

Very nice veneer job, Geoff. How did you remove the vinyl?

Jim

Very simple. A heat gun and some type of scraper.

Toolfan66

Geoff,

Those look fantastic!!! Very nice work. Looks like you took your time and did all things right.

Beautiful bro just Beautiful...

Larry.

w_coyote

Hi Geoff, Nice job. I was wondering what you filled the gaps with and how hard was this to do. I'm going to do some 1B's and noticed they have the same gaps that you had and have been trying to figure out how and what to fill them with. Thanks in advance for your help

domflane

Nice work Geoff, those look fantastic. I wish my Monitor 5's looked like that.

Conradicles

Beautiful and thanks for the pictures. Maybe this will inspire some to do the veneer on their vintage Polks.

Again, great job!

geoff727

Thanks for the compliments, everyone!

w_coyote wrote: »

Hi Geoff, Nice job. I was wondering what you filled the gaps with and how hard was this to do. I'm going to do some 1B's and noticed they have the same gaps that you had and have been trying to figure out how and what to fill them with. Thanks in advance for your help

It's not difficult, you just have to go slow and use care that you don't accidentally do any damage to the black melamine. For a lot of the gaps, you can run a thin strip of veneer into the gap. Once the glue is dry on it, you just level it off with the front bevel face and veneer over the top. Some gaps are really big (wider than the thickness of veneer), so you can run the veneer strip into it with a liberal amount of glue, and use LOTS of tiny wedges to kep that strip planted firmly against the melamined surface. For these thick gaps, you have to do this to prevent the wood glue from sucking that small veneer strip back away from the melamined surface as the glue dries and shrinks in size. Other gaps are really thin and are best filled with wood putty, carefully sanded, given a hair of black paint, and veneered over.

Basically, whatever creative method you can come up with is what works!
Probably a thousand different ways would work fine.

Geoff

skrol

Geoff
They look fantastic. How do they sound?

I see that you lined the entire interior with Sonicbarrier, or something like it. How was the original Daycron batting placed? Did it fill the entire cabinet?
Stan

geoff727

skrol wrote: »

I see that you lined the entire interior with Sonicbarrier, or something like it. How was the original Daycron batting placed? Did it fill the entire cabinet?

Yes, the lining is Sonic Barrier. After about 2 hours of listening last night, I actually decided to remove half of the original polyfill. I had first reassembled them with the original polyfill rolls. But, having to pack it in there fairly tightly, I felt that it started to dig into the bass response a bit; I had the impression of passing the point of increasing the 'apparent enclosure volume' to definitely decreasing it. That's not based on any measurements, just a subjective impression. Anyway, the remaining half of the polyfill, I just lightly bundled and spread out within the enclosure. I'm a bit more satisfied with the bass end now.

geoff727

The 5B's getting the run-through and new components broken in. Sure is nice to listen to music through these again. Everything else is pushed off to the side for the time being.

Des Moines

Amazing work, Geoff!! It is great to see vintage Polks transformed into 21st century collector speakers. Thanks for posting your pics!

geoff727

Forgot these two pictures of the tops, one with a flash and one with normal light.

kcoc321

Hey, like your new rack and are those new subs too

halo71

Geoff, phenominal work there!