How to Properly Refoam your Speakers

[@robertholsopple9451]

I tore down my 1st set last night. I bought a set of nice RE30s over the weekend and the foam was shot. I followed your instructions and they turned out great. I'm waiting on the foam to arrive in the mail. I did decide to shim mine. I hope the rest of the job turns out good. I'm nervous about doing it. I want them to look as good as possible. I keep re watching your videos and others trying to make sure I got it down. After all, I'll only get 1 shot at it and I don't want to ruin any of these vintage woofers. Now I'm divorced I can finally afford some, 😂 Thanks for making all these videos.

[@SavingVegas]

Biggest thing is to apply the proper amount of glue and spreading it evenly on the surround to avoid it from squeezing out onto the visible surface of the cone. Use the supplied glue on something else first to get a feel of how the glue reacts and sets.

[@sandlmv8301]

How did you go? I've done it twice and the second time a used a turntable to spin the speaker and it was so much easier to even out the glue.

[@robertholsopple9451]

@@sandlmv8301 they turned out awesome. I used my finger to spread the glue instead of a brush. They look great. No glue got on the cone or anything.

[@robertholsopple9451]

@@SavingVegas they turned out perfect. I could t be happier with them. Thanks

[@audio-obvious568]

Thank you so much for this video! I have a set of 15s I need to refoam and was contemplating on shimming because these have a really tight gap. And your right, the simply speaker guy is a professional and makes it look so easy, this is my first set I will be attempting.

[@SavingVegas]

This is exactly why I did this video. He is right in saying you don't need to shim but for someone doing it for the first time or if they are picky like me it's not always a good idea. I will be doing a video on refoaming without shimming and I will give a few tips and tricks that he missed in that video.

[@josephsaucedo8691]

I did mine with out shining them and the first two set of 12s came out perfect you do have to constantly check when replacing them but I tried to do a set of d9 10s the same why and let's just say it needed shimming and a second kit 👍👌✌️💯🥂🎶 ps still waiting for my dream sub to fall in my lap the stroker lol

[@Scandinavian_Pride]

I've never done a speaker repair in my life and that made total sense. I'm going to try and refoam a 8w3 D4 JL 8". I just got to get some better to measure with besides a carpenters tape. I'm assuming

[@spenzee1722]

What is shiming ? I am new to diy and have cervin vegas they are 100% original but needs new foam thay have been passed down from my dad to me he bought them pretty much when thay came out arount 1994 i think

[@SavingVegas]

Shimming is when you remove the dust cap of the woofer when you are replacing the foam surround. The reason for this is so you can put shims between the vioce coil and magnet to keep it 100% straight when you glue the new foam on. Check out this video for an example kzbin.info/www/bejne/baWkf4Gug5epZqM

[@Guovssohas]

Does having the grille always on vs always off impact the lifespan on these foams? If it's always on then less light and whatnot gets to it? Or is it the same either way, same lifespan?

[@SavingVegas]

I think it has more to do with just the environment itself, like humidity and such. My D5s came from the original owner, who bought them new in 1985. He had packaged them up in the original boxes in 1990. The first time they came out of the box was in 2022, and the foams were rotted.

[@Guovssohas]

@@SavingVegas Ok thanks for the reply my friend. Great job saving vegas, old and newer(if that's a word😄).

[@mattandkatchristie2552]

What kind of glue can i buy off Amazon or ebay? I have new foams need glue tho

[@davidfreed6317]

See ur videos all the time good work

[@onthecounter]

I refoamed my 1997 VS series using simply speakers video and had no coil rub, that was my first rodeo. I think taking off the dust cap your more likely to mess them up

[@ColvinAvianBreadline]

Howdy. Where do you order your voice coil shims from?

[@SavingVegas]

When I order re-cone kits, they are usually included. Brew City Audio is the place to go for CV parts.

[@RonRivet]

So is there a place that you place shims in the back? I ordered a foam surround kit for my D7`s.

[@SavingVegas]

To shim the voice coil you need to remove the dust cap from the center of the cone and place shims between voice coil and magnet gap. Most places that sell refoam kits have shim kits you can buy separately. Shim kits will come with a few different thicknesses.

[@robertaucoin2651]

Hey how do you shim if you don’t want to remove the dust cone have about to do two E 310

[@SavingVegas]

To shim the voice coil unfortunately removing the dust cap is the only way. Many speaker part suppliers have kits that come with new dust caps.

[@jrburch522]

So what is coil rub??? Show us what makes the sound?

[@edgewound]

Use a tone generator to check for coil rub.

[@WalterSears-rx6te]

Where r u located???

[@SavingVegas]

Saskatchewan Canada 🇨🇦

[@WindomRettes]

Cool Beans!

[@cbschinke]

Just saying - you might want to re-title this video to “How to check for coil rub”; I thought you were going to show us how to refoam woofers.

[@jackland454]

I just saw the other video and thought the same thing. He has refoamed 1000 pairs before and makes it look too easy.

[@SavingVegas]

Yup, not his first refoam job obviously. I found there was lots of debate on the techniques of refoaming woofers so I figured it was worth doing a short video on it. Don't get me wrong I don't have a problem with not shimming or with any of these speaker companies. I have done lots of refoam jobs without shimming but some woofers seem to have tighter voice coil gaps than others causing more chances it ending up with coil rub. The only true way to know it will be 💯 centered is to use shims, unless you have fare bit of experience with it.

[@user-hf4eh2ts3q]

i completely reconed my vs150 woofers and i did use the shims but for some reason 1 woofers voicecoil rubbed after the glue dried and i removed the shims. Pissed me off. i will get another kit of course but has that ever happened to you? i did buy the simply speakers kit too. it is a good kit

[@SavingVegas]

I have had this happen to me before. First off you have to make sure when you are shimming that you use the proper thickness of shims so that the voice coil is snug enough that it's not too tight but still tight enough that it cannot move around while you are gluing everything down. Second thing is when you are gluing the foam to the basket you have to be sure you are not sliding the foam around too much. Even though you have the VC shimmed the foam is flexible enough that if your not careful you could glue it down unevenly. When I do it I have my amp with a tone generator set at 10Hz ready to go and as soon as the glue has set enough to hold the foam down but yet still wet enough to make adjustments I pull the shims out and run the woofer with the 10Hz tone. At 10Hz the cone will move slowly up and down so I am able to adjust if needed. Biggest thing is when you glue the foam down to only press straight down and not any side to side movement that may push the foam out of alignment if that makes any sense.

[@user-hf4eh2ts3q]

@@SavingVegas yeah, the shims were kinda tight. the kit sent 3x5 cards for shims

[@PoAssProductions]

I just picked up some DX-3s at a estates sale. They have been playing the for awhile without the foam. One the duck taped over the foam. If I can get the tape glue off the cone I’ll reform. How can I tell if I have some coil damage?

[@SavingVegas]

Only way to tell is testing the resistance with a multi meter but the voice coil would have to be centered to get an accurate reading. You could remove dust cap and shim the coil then test it.

[@redfishhead1]

@@SavingVegas what do you recommend replacing the mid and tweets with. Where can I find them?

[@SavingVegas]

I would start by searching the web for original replacement parts. The tweeters are HF5 (old model number) LSH-SL2010 (new model number) The mids are DMX4 (old model number) LSC-SN2010 (new model number).

[@BlindMan-ik5es]

Can you use rubber surrounds on cv speakers

[@SavingVegas]

Rubber surrounds are generally heavier and stiffer than foam surrounds which would change the parameters of the woofer.