Speaker Grill construction - Cerwin Vega AT-12

[Jay_Diddy_B]

Hi,

This project is more woodworking than electronics. I am going to share the construction of a pair of speaker grills for a vintage Cerwin Vega AT-12 loudspeakers. This shows How I did for the Cerwin Vega's, the techniques should work for other brands.

I have bought two pairs of CV speakers, AT-10 and AT-12. The AT-10 speakers came with grills, the AT-12 did not. I used the AT-10 grill as a guide for fabricating the new grills.

I cut the new grill frames from 3/4" MDF board. The outside dimensions are 14 x 26 inches.



There is a 45 degree bevel on the front side:



And recess for the bass driver on the rear side:



Here is a picture of the grill attach pins:



I found similar pins at two places:

https://www.parts-express.com/parts-express-heavy-duty-speaker-grill-guides-12-pair--260-367

And

https://qcomponents.ca/McBride-GRILL-PIN-LARGE.html

I bought these pins:



To make these pins work, I added some spacer washers cut from 1/4" plywood.



To be continued …

Regards,
Jay_Diddy_B

[Jay_Diddy_B]

Hi group,

The construction continued by staining the frames black:



I used Unicorn Spit from the Home Hardware store. (Why use snake oil on an audiophile project, if you can get Unicorn Spit?)




I then covered the frames with black speaker cloth that I bought from Fabricland.

Here is a picture of the finished project:



Regards,
Jay_Diddy_B

[oventech]

Nice work. Turned out really good. Never heard of "Unicorn Spit" before. Have to keep this thread in mind if i have to redo (make) a new speaker grille.  I know some guys on AudioKarma.org  would enjoy seeing the result.

[salvagedcircuitry]

Nice job! My neighbor threw out a pair of AT-12's about 2 years ago. The speaker surrounds were completely rotted out. I was going to fix them but I simply did not have the space to keep them, so I put them up on craigslist free. Crazy.