How to Recone Speakers
Over long periods of time, speakers can become susceptible to wearing and tearing, causing the cone to dry out. When this happens, the cone can develop holes and cracks that ruin the sound’s quality. You can fix it with adhesive, but a better option would be to recone the speakers. Here’s how.
What You’ll Need:
Speaker reconing kit
Utility knife
Masking tape
Index card
Soldering gun
Glue
Procedure:
Purchase a speaker reconing kit from the nearest music repair shop. There are also online sites that sell these kits. What you’ll find in one of these kits is a replacement dust cap, a replacement gasket (to hold the cone in place), and some glue.
Disassemble the old speaker. Get the utility knife and slide it around the damaged cone’s outside, then pop it out and peel back. Use the same knife to cut out your old come, slicing carefully through the wires that connect it to the voice coil.
Take out the old cone, popping the gasket by sliding the knife’s blade along the space between the speaker’s inside and the gasket. Be careful while doing this, so you won’t cut yourself with the knife. Throw out the gasket and old cone.
Remove as much glue as you can from the speaker frame’s inside. Use your utility knife for this. Get an acetone solvent and clean the entire frame, removing all traces of glue. Afterwards, take out the tape that covers the voice coil gap.
Use the index card as a makeshift shim, to put in the voice coil gap. The shim should be at least two inches wide, and as long as the voice coil gap’s diameter. Put the shim in the gap.
Loosen any dirt and debris by moving the shim around in the voice coil gap. Remove the shim, then shake out all the dirt from the gap. Put the shim back in.
Secure the shim with some masking tape, rolling a cylinder shape in the palm of your hand. The length should be as long as the shim’s diameter.
Put the new cone in the speaker, the shim in position to check if it fits well. After removing the replacement cone, apply a steady adhesive bead to the inner and outer rims of your speaker frame. Reset the new cone on the glue, keeping the shim steady in the voice coil gap. Leave to dry overnight.
Take out the paper shim, then glue the gasket back on. Put the speaker in an upside down position so it’ll dry. Leave it for at least an hour.
Put glue around the inside edge of the cone and around the voice coil. Put the dust cap in place, lowering it over the voice coil. When the dust cap dries, solder the wires back to their wire terminals.
Some Tips
Don’t damage the voice coil as you remove the old cone.
The new come must be around the voice coil, and centered in the speaker frame. If it leans to one side, you’ll get poor sound quality.
For a securer fit, put weight on the dust cap as it dries.
Don’t put the wires in contact with the cone or frame while you’re re-soldering them.