Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Refinishing speakers a new colour

Just throwing this out there, I haven't done any research.

Is it a possibility that speakers could be restained? I'm looking at buying a pair of immaculate m80's, boston cherry. However, my fiance says black would look better in our house and I agree. Of course, I'll wait to see them in our house to do anything too stupid

Well, it wouldn't be refinishing, but you could paint them. On the vinyl wrap speakers, the vinyl is a core component of the speaker itself; take the vinyl off, and you'll be left with about 6 pieces of MDF lying on your floor.

Well, there's a little bit of glue in the corners too . The mdf comes with the vinyl already attached, at least where the reg vinyl is concerned.

Well, fine, yeah...

Look at Adrian, acting big shot and like he knows it all ... like he's *personally* seen the factory firsthand or something.

I'll be.

I just didn't think we could stick with Ken's explanation.

MichaelD did a retrofit to his sub with some nice wood veneer and I know if you use a heat gun you can peel the vinyl off the MDF and then it can be sanded and painted without the vinyl wood grain showing through for a real smooth finish. And then of course you can get some plastic paint and just paint right over the vinyl.

Plastic paint? What's that? I have light maple vinyl speakers whose color I really don't care for. I'm thinking of painting them (not refinishing) -- just, like, masking off the cones and other parts that aren't vinyl, and spraying them. I have a spray can of flat black "Touch 'n tone" paint (can says toluene, acetone, and xylene) that I used on some make-shift speaker stands; it worked great on a sort of rubberized surface. But maybe semi-gloss black would look better?

I know little about paint. Any hints or suggestions would be welcome.

I don't like my tan grills, either. But since I tried RIT black dye on some other grilles that soon turned brown and ugly, I'm not optimistic about blackening my grills. Probably I'll just leave the grills off.

If your going to try this, Greg, I'd flip the speaker upside down, tape the sides off on the speaker to prevent overspray, and just paint the bottom to see how it looks before committing to the complete job. You may be able to find some alternate speaker fabric from a fabric supplier, or order some through Parts Express, Madisound, Meniscus Audio ect.

In 1993 I bought a pair of Tannoy C6 bookshelf speakers. They were on sale for $199. That was pretty cheap, because they were white, yes white as snow (black grills). So I took the drivers out and spray painted them gloss Black, belive it or not I used Tremclad. It worked great. I got a nice piano black finish for a couple of bucks!

However I agree with adrian, I would try it on the bottom of the speaker first. One thing to ruin $200 book shelf speakers, something else to ruin a full range floor stander like the M80.

Where's your sense of adventure Adrian?

I give up. I cannot win today.

Maybe I should clarify, it's just the standard finish on it. I'm not looking to do too much work on it if we do want to change the colour. I was thinking a light sanding and slap on the new paint/stain whatever. Good idea about testing first on the bottom!

ps. reminds me of my car..bought some canadian tire auto touch up paint. Touched up 4 rust spots on my car..didn't practise or test first. I now have 4 obvious large squares of a different shade on my car. I get laughed at now

Or you could order new grills from Axiom.

Your wanting to paint vinyl?

That's an idea. It never would have occurred to me to price new grills. How do you come up with this stuff?

Nobody else is giving up, so it seems you won something, at least.

Fixed that for ya.

Paint for plastic

http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=118

There are some other companies making it also ie. Krylon

So I take it the standard finish is a vinyl too..and you would need to paint it with a plastic paint?

As a start, I would see what paints are recommended to use on vinyl siding.

All of Axiom's finishes are vinyl except the Vasollo series of real wood veneer's.

I think any paint will work with proper prep work, it is just that I have used paint for plastic before on vinyl products with good success. As has been mentuioned try it out on the bottom and see how well it sticks to the surface, if it works great if not sand it off and ry another.

I would also recommend fully removing all the drivers and such when painting rather than taping over them. Paint always seems to bleed a little under the tape.

I was wondering... How expensive and how hard would it be to just recover it with black vinyl? Right over the existing vinyl. The edges would be difficult, so you would need someone to do it that has experience with the edges.

Jay's answer looks good. Let us know how it turns out.

I will. Thanks, Jay. (It'll be a while before I get around to trying it.)

I was on the verge of painting my speakers myself when we moved into our new house in January, but my wife liked the contrast the light maple had with the darker wood the new house has, so I was off the hook on that project.

maybe I can hold off and I can buy some black m-80's off of axiom's auction page. Unfortunatly they don't wanna tell me if/when a pair will go up :P