Modified Allwave 23 questions

[Troy Taylor]

Hello-

I just posted some questions about the Allwave 12 I bought last weekend and wanted to ask some questions about a second Scott radio I was offered, but turned down because I have some reservations about its degree of authenticity (it has obviously been modified), and whether or not it would be possible to restore it to it's original configuration.

The second radio is an Allwave 23 and I was all set to purchase it too, but then I took a look at the back of the cabinet and noticed the cover panel was attached with phillips-head sheet-rock screws.  I removed the screws and saw a large mystery box of components and modern wiring, and a terminal strip of wires going everywhere stuck in the bottom of the cabinet.  Some of the wires lead to a large MAGNAVOX speaker that had been shoved in there.  Obviously someone has removed the correct speaker and replaced it with this albatross substitute, and then created some sort of Frankenstein contraption to work around the electrical differences between the factory speaker and this substitute.  I do not have any pictures of this conglomeration, but it is definitely not original factory work, or the work of someone that shares my belief of the necessity of maintaining originality when working on vintage items.

Although it might be functional, or made to be functional, as-is, I am only willing to buy this radio if I discover it is possible to 'unmolest' it and return it to the correct configuration and components it would have had when built.

At the very least it will need a replacement speaker of whatever variety is correct for this radio.  (However, I do not know what kind of speaker this would be.)  Probably everyone wants these speakers for something, so I have little confidence in finding one, but if it is possible to do so, I will reconsider purchasing this radio if I can be sure it is restorable.  I would like to restore this radio correctly, but I have little interest in one that has been butchered in this manner if proper restoration is not possible.

Thank you and best regards-

Troy Taylor

[David C. Poland]

TROY - Your speaker board and tweeter boards are not original.  Guess you have the Warrington cabinet based on the shadow pattern on the cloth. Hope you can remove the cloth from that speaker board the without damage.

Scott speaker boards I have seen would be glued up 3/4 inch boards, of Spruce I think.  I have used 3/4 inch plywood of common pine to be a bit resonant. The 10 1/2 inch hole for the pedestal speaker is situated with the speaker sitting on the cabinet floor. You are correct the tweeter holes should be above the pedestal speaker hole in a cabinet like yours,  "Micky Mouse ears" style. A 4 inch hole saw is about right. The speaker boards usually were a walnut stain.

Mounting speaker cloth: glue or spray adhesive is commonly used. But Scott speaker boards had 1/8th inch saw blade kerfs about 3/16's deep  in the speaker board, positioned just outside the opening of the cabinet grill opening. A table saw or router can cut the saw kerfs. Scott pounded wood strips into the kerfs to secure the speaker cloth. But I use 1/8th inch screening spline (your hardware store) and the inexpensive installation tool to press the spline and edge of the cloth into the saw kerf. You can easily pull out and reinstall the spline to fine tune the cloth alignment.

Some Scott cabinets are too shallow to accommodate the amp behind the speaker. If so, a 5  3/4 inch wide shelf is installed with 11 inch clearance above the cabinet floor - which is just above the handle  of the pedestal speaker. (measurement from my Laureate Grande AW-23.)  See the illustration in an AW-23 Instruction Manual. Look for telltale screw holes in your cabinet for 3/4" x 1" wood stock as cleats supporting such a shelf.

The decal said E. H. Scott, and maybe also Rockford Peerless Furniture Co, Rockford IL. Don't know of a source of a repo decal.

Hope this helps.

[Troy Taylor]

Thank you David-

I had been thinking of using Baltic Birch cabinet grade plywood but, based on what you said, I will pursue getting some spruce planks and edge-join them together with a few dowel pins.  Yes, the cabinet is a Warrington.  The speaker cloth is attached to the homemade speaker board using upholstery tacks, which I should be able to remove without additional damage using my tack puller.  The degree of wrinkling in the fabric and the ease with which I can move it slightly with my fingers gives me hope that there is no adhesive.

I will replicate the saw kerfs on my reproduction board to install the fabric.  The window screen material and tools sound like a great way to do the job.

If you take a close look at the picture of the homemade speaker board you can see the six screw holes by which it was fastened to the interior of the cabinet.  Is this how Scott did it?  I see no other means of fastening in the front of the cabinet and am making the assumption that the creator of this speaker board re-used the existing screw holes to attach his.  If this is correct, I will do the same.

There are so many surplus screw holes in the sides of my cabinet now, owing to the homemade tweeter brackets and homemade shelf supports, that I am not able to differentiate if any were once used to support original components for this purpose.

Thank you for the additional information!  I am getting closer to undoing all the previous modifications and reaching my goal of returning this radio back to factory configuration.

Best regards-

Troy

[Robert Feenstra]

I would presume that my Warrington AM/FM cabinet would be similar.  The radio and speaker is out of the cabinet right now and i could take photos if you would like.  Mine does not have the tweeters but the cutouts for them  are there.

[Scott Seickel]

Pics of my AW-23 Warrington.  Not back together here. 

If you need any measurements or anything, let me know. 

[Troy Taylor]

Hello and Thank you!
I now see exactly what I need to do to recreate what the interior of my Warrington cabinet should look like. I was not expecting to see the angled brackets for the tweeters; I'll need to figure out a method of making those tapers. I have some ideas, if I can implement them.
Could not find Spruce at three different lumber yards after work today, so I got a nice piece of straight-grained Hemlock instead. Right now it is gluing in clamps; four pieces edge-joined and doweled to make the new speaker board. I have the grain oriented horizontally, to match the photos above. This is opposite what I expected to do.
The width and height dimensions of the tweeter brackets, as well as the distance between them and the edges (bottom and sides) would be very helpful, so I can know what size to make them and where they are supposed to be located. Is the big circle 10-1/2" in diameter for the main speaker?
Thank you all and best regards-
Troy

[Thomas Day]

Troy. The tweeters mount directly to the panel. The angled parts are covers for the holes if tweeters were not supplied. Thom

[Norman S Braithwaite]

No.  The tapered mounting boards were only used with tweeters.  In some cases tweeters were installed directly to the baffle board without the tapered mounting boards.  If tweeters were not included, a flat round thin plywood cover was placed over the tweeter holes in the baffle board.

Norman

[David C. Poland]

The Tweeter mounting boards are indeed cut with a tapered thickness.  In my Laureate Grande cabinet the tweeters are aimed away from each other at a modest angle by the wood mounting brackets.

Recommend you first fit your new speaker board to the cabinet, and then pencil the grill opening edges onto the front of the speaker board. Next consider locating the 6 mounting screw holes before cutting the saw kerfs. Maybe use old speaker board to mark drill holes so as to align with existing cabinet holes.

What I do to cutting the hole for the 12 inch speaker lacking a template. - Mark a vertical center line on the back of speaker board. Install the speaker board with screws. Then place the speaker basket against the board, align the speaker basket' top screw hole to the centerline.  Pencil the outer edge onto the speaker board. Also mark 4 screw holes for mounting the main speaker to the board. The big hole should be about 3/4 inch inside the pencil line circumfrence all around, hence the 10 1/2 inch diameter hole to be cut as I mentioned earlier.

As a reality check before cutting or drilling anything else.  Use a T- square or carpenter's square to transfer the the grill opening edges to the back of the speaker board. Grill opening look OK with respect to the speaker outline?  At this point, you have grill opening penciled on one side of the speaker board, and speaker outline on the other side. But no saw kerfs yet. You want to avoid saw kerfs being too close to the grill opening because you do not want the screening spline to be visible from the cabinet front. 

Now I would cut the 10 1/2 inch hole centered in the 12 inch outline.

Suggest you use scrap wood and scrap cloth to get experience using screening spline before you cut the shallow kerfs into your repo speaker board.

Avoid having the 6 mounting screws go through a saw kerf (to avoid snagging cloth threads). The saw kerfs are positioned close to pencil lines on the grill opening, sides and top. If not enough room at the bottom for a saw kerf, put saw kerf low an the back side if your clothe is long enough ... or wrap cloth under the bottom edge of the speaker board and secure with your reclaimed tacks.

Holes for the tweeters may need to be high enough so the cabinet obscures a bit of the tweeter hole.

Good luck..

[Scott Seickel]

The 12" speaker hole is 10-3/4" dia. The tweeter holes are 4" dia.  The main speaker hole starts exactly 1" from the bottom.  The bottom of the tweeter holes are 12-7/16" from the bottom and 13-1/8" from outside of hole to outside of hole. 

The angle boards that the tweeters sit on are 5-5/8" on each side.  They taper from just 3/32" thick to 5/8" thick.  The angle boards have a veneer on the outside only.  They are nailed in place with small brads.  There are a lot of approaches to making these angled boards, depending on what tools you have available.  See picture. 

Let me know if you need anything else. 

[Troy Taylor]

Hello-
Wow! Thank you all for the advice/information. I will be following it all as I continue to try and make this radio as original/complete as possible. This evening was spent cutting/laminating tapers to make the tweeter brackets.
Best regards-
Troy

[Troy Taylor]

[Troy Taylor]

Hello-

Still making progress, albeit slow.  Cut the big speaker hole with a router to make sure it was actually round and had clean edges.  Used a full kerf 1/8 saw blade to cut the slots for the cloth to be fastened with screen door spline.  Finished the tapered tweeter mounts, got them installed, and cut the holes for the speakers using a hole saw.  Right now everything is hanging in the garage to dry, after using walnut stain and two coats of amber shellac.  Hoping to get the radio all fully reassembled back into the cabinet sometime this week. 

Still have to figure out how to remove the rows of deteriorated black foam weatherstripping that are gunking up the shelf in the cabinet where the receiver chassis goes.  It is crumbling into dust and looks awful, even if not actually visible.

-Troy