Will a Welllington cabinet fit a FM Philharmonic?

[Karl Sherwin]

The AM FM Philharmonic I bought recently came without a cabinet, but it does have the speaker baffle (with the 2 tweeters & flange mounted 15", aka the HiFi option) and the front face board with the dial glass & escutcheon and all the knob escutcheons. Based on what I can tell, this came out of a Warrington.

There's a local person that has a FM Phantom in a Wellington cabinet, looks to be a 12" speaker with cutouts for the tweeters but no tweeters. See eBay item 293954237321. He doesn't show the front but I messaged him and got 2 pictures of the front.

Could I make this work for my Philly? i.e., could I remove the Phantom's face board & speaker baffle and put mine in?

Thanks!

[Scott Seickel]

C'mon Mike, we don't use that silly system of measurement, we use the one that your country gave us ;-)

Most of these cabinets are either mahagony or walnut.  I don't see birch as being close to either one. The grain structure is so different that you may get the color, but it will always look like maple or birch with a stain. 

[mike hadley]

Sorry Scott I forgot myself,

I used 'That' birch ply as it was the nearest size I could get, the 1/4 inch stuff over here is all coarse filler inbetween the surface veneer,

I used 9mm birch with walnut veneer on one side, used hot hide glue, didnt pull the board out of shape either.

Mike

[Scott Seickel]

Mike, we have imported Baltic birch- sweet stuff.  9mm isn't common in the lumber yards, but I see it is available via mail order in smaller pieces.    I thought you meant to use the birch and stain it without applying a veneer first, lol....

[mike hadley]

Scott,

this has got to be one of the most boring photo's ever, it's an off cut from the plywood I used for my philharmonic 

A shade under 9mm (sorry it's metric again)

Mike

[Michael Lawton]

LOL ! Looking at that mic, although it is set for the dreaded Metric system, if you look above, at the inch scale, and at the 7 layers of solid wood in the plywood, it looks like a high grade, or aircraft grade 3/8" plywood.

[Karl Sherwin]

Thanks for all the replies.

Robert Feenstra had mentioned that his Philly sticks out about an inch in the back of his Wellington. Mine would too, a little over a half inch. Since I'm starting with a new face board, I was thinking of placing it flush or slightly forward of the surrounding trim on the cabinet opening. That way the chassis will have about an inch of space in the back. The chassis is able to slide forward, almost flush with the back side of the cabinet front panel. I would probably add some trim around the face board to make it less noticeable. But, that's further down the road...

[mike hadley]

Karl,

the philharmonic is a deep chassis, it will hang out of the cabinet a little, I used a Tasman cabinet that originally housed an allwave 23' the Philly stuck out about an inch or so, I made a removable frame to cover the chassis

I also had to lower the internal shelf a few inches, I painted the frame black as I knew I could not make a match,

when up against the wall it doesn't notice, however when the radio amp and speaker are fitted the cabinet is full.

Mike

[Karl Sherwin]

Hi Mike, I had the same idea as you, and I happened to see your post. NIce!  In my case I would only need an inch or so and like you, if I paint it black or even try to match the cabinet finish and maybe add a bit of trim that would hide it well. Thinking it over it would seem your approach would be more aesthetically pleasing than having the face sticking out of the cabinet. Frankly, no amount of trim would hide it.