Vintage Speaker Restoration

[jpdonato]

I’m currently restoring a 1940’s Northern Electric radio and the original speaker is rather… unuseable. While many online stores advertize speaker reconing, usually they get "spare parts" for the speaker (tough for a 70-year-old speaker) or actually repair the "tear" in the paper cone. Well as the picture shows, the cone is basically completely ripped out. I know I can attempt to connect a new speaker that taps into the existing wiring, but what about repairing this one, or getting it repaired, without the shop removing the existing transformer/coil etc.?

Download speaker (forum)1.JPG. (Caution: This file may not be virus scanned.)

[cvrs]

perhaps you could use the cone from modern speaker? if the donor was just a little larger you might be able to use that.
you can make a cone from light construction paper. it should be a thin snappy paper.

The easiest way is to see if a fellow radio collector has a spare speaker. If you measured the diameter, and check the number of ohms across the field coil and the voice coil. ( mainly the field coil , the voice coil is not many turns) close will usually work good enough to make it work.
It wouldn’t hurt to put the area that you are writing in from in your profile. That could allow others near you to help better.

Phil

[jpdonato]

Thank you for your great tips. I will try to glue a new cone! And I updated my profile. Cheers.

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