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Thread: Rogers LS3/5A restoration

  1. #1
    Join Date: May 2016

    Location: Gloucestershire

    Posts: 977
    I'm Ian.

    Default Rogers LS3/5A restoration

    These are the LS3/5a speakers I bought from Adrian via this forum a few weeks back. They took a while to get here from Spain but Adrian had described them in his sale fairly accurately.



    The cabinets are a bit scruffy but not beyond recovery............



    .....and the crossovers look good.



    Found a tip on the web for scratch repairs involving a 50/50 mixture of olive oil and vinegar - in other words salad dressing

    before.........



    and after



    It works pretty well and the cabinets now look presentable but of course examine closely and you can still see the deeper scratches.



    The cabinets were built within a couple of days of each other.



    The mid bass drivers are April 1980 but they are totally blown as Adrian described. So I bought some new B110 drivers from Falcon. These are a close tolerance matched pair which Falcon states are built to BBC standards.

    Old and new side by side.



    Fitted new seals to drivers and baffles and connected them up with some trepidation. Do the tweeters still work? Are the crossovers OK?



    Whoopee! They work and sound great. The new mid-bass units opened up fairly quickly and they sound as expected - excellent!

    Still to do, chop out the badly fitted spring terminals and do some woodwork to seal the cabinets and fit new speaker sockets then repaint the backs. Fortunately the grilles are in good condition so that will be it.

  2. #2
    Bigman80 Guest

    Default

    Very nice.

    Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

  3. #3
    Join Date: Jan 2008

    Location: Witney Oxon

    Posts: 893
    I'm Martyn.

    Default

    I was very tempted by these.
    You did well...
    Would it be possible to post a pic. of the cabinets' rear panels showing the spring terminals.

    If you don't mind me asking, what did you pay for the LS3/5as ?

  4. #4
    Join Date: Dec 2015

    Location: Alicante. Spain.

    Posts: 1,885
    I'm Adrian.

    Default

    Great work! And fantastic to see them coming back to life. Will keep watching...

    Adey

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  5. #5
    Join Date: Feb 2008

    Location: Middlesex, UK

    Posts: 4,481
    I'm Alex.

    Default

    Brilliant repair, great idea the olive oil and vinegar, not heard of that one before, I have sometimes used Teak Oil to good effect.

    The T27's look like early ones, having the blue wire visible from the front.
    Spendorman

  6. #6
    Join Date: May 2016

    Location: Gloucestershire

    Posts: 977
    I'm Ian.

    Default

    Thanks everyone Martyn, I paid the asking price. I'll post a pic of the spring clips next time they are out - should be soon. Forgot, I've also got to clean up the little tweeter grilles and reattach them.

  7. #7
    Join Date: May 2016

    Location: Gloucestershire

    Posts: 977
    I'm Ian.

    Default

    Back to work after Christmas and there's a couple of jobs to do.

    First the loose tweeter covers.



    At first I thought they were slightly rusty but now I can see it is simply the old glue. These need reattaching.

    Now to the spring clips.



    I'm trying to work out why someone should do this to these lovely speakers. Maybe they had bare wire speaker cable but rather than buy some banana plugs they thought it would be easier to bodge some holes and fit the spring clip

    Ah well, whoever it was was clearly a craftsman





    Probably the best way would be to totally remove the back of the cabinets but I'm worried that knocking them out might just cause the whole cabinet to collapse plus I can't see an easy way to take off the Rogers labels to transfer them :undecided:

    Any opinions?

  8. #8
    Join Date: May 2016

    Location: Gloucestershire

    Posts: 977
    I'm Ian.

    Default

    I decided against knocking the back panel off although I did get the labels off using the old hair dryer technique so when I get to painting the backs it will be a lot easier.

    Cut the hole to a more or less rectangular shape and inserted some 12mm ply then glued in place with Titebond which is pretty good at filling gaps although the inserts were a decent fit.



    Tomorrow I'll get the filler out then lots of rubbing down and hopefully painting. The internal foam is a bit chewed, more so since I pulled it around to get the repair in so I think I'll order a complete set from Falcon.

  9. #9
    Join Date: Jan 2008

    Location: Witney Oxon

    Posts: 893
    I'm Martyn.

    Default

    What a mess was made with those spring clip collectors.
    Your solution of the inset wooden plate looks a good solution.

    When I'm building up LS3/5as, I try to obtain reasonable cabinets.
    Trouble is, they're getting:
    (a) rare and
    (b) expensive.
    Stirling Broacast sells genuine used LS3/5a cabinets at up to £400 !

    I have used new Falcon Acoustics cabinets for some builds, as people
    like new cabinets.
    Fully understandable.

    As you can see I really like LS3/5as...

  10. #10
    Join Date: May 2016

    Location: Gloucestershire

    Posts: 977
    I'm Ian.

    Default

    Hi Martyn,
    Maybe I could bring mine round to yours when they're finished so you can cast your expert ears over them - or you can come here of course.

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