I’m getting around (finally!) to finishing up some pesky sound installs in a few brass engines and I just mounted a bottom firing speaker in the tender floor of a B&O T-3a. The floor didn’t have punched holes so I used my microlux drill press and managed to get about a dozen nicely spaced 3/32nd holes for the sound to come out.
So, what I’m wondering is, what do you call—and where do you get the “grille cloth” that I have seen used in commercial products, including DCC speakers. The stuff is black and very flat and takes glue very well and should be sonically transparent. Of course I only need about 6 square inches!
I think I saved some once from some old computer speakers but don’t remember if I finally tossed it. I want to have some barrier between the cone and the outside world to keep little iron filings and such out of the speaker.
I plan to tack it to the bottom of the tender so I can remove it and blow it off if it picks up any gunk.
The home theater guys use an accoustically transparant fabric from Guilford of Maine. It’s pricey, but in the quantity you need it wouldn’t be an issue.
When installing speakers in the fuel tank openings on Kato SD40-2’s I have used bandage gause from a first aid kit to prevent picking up any metal that might make its way through the grill to the speaker face. That has seemed to work well and is very inexpensive.
Ruderunner’s idea was good but when I went toward my wife with an Xacto knife I got hit in the head with a spike maul [xx(]
Carl… I’m familiar with regular speaker grille cloth—I remember when every Allied, Lafayette, Olson, Heathkit and Radio Shack had displays of the latest style of speaker cloth (purple-paisley was my favorite!) but the stuff I’m talking about is thin, like the gauze Marty is talking about. Come to think about it… its like the thin gauze that I’ve seen underneath cheap furniture… black, see through and very thin.
That gives me an idea… maybe I’ll flip the sofa over tomorrow and see what I can find there!
Yeah, the black cloth-like stuff they use to enclose the bottom of furniture should work. Cut out a square big enough for what you need and no one will notice.[;)]
Something very similar is landscape cloth. It’s cheap and suitable, I believe. I use it mostly to make skirting for the layout, but it would work.
These are some good ideas! Dave is right about the window screen. But you gave me an option! I have some stainless steel fine mesh (600 threads per inch) that might work if I can’t find any of the black stuff.
Some of the landscape fabric is thin, like perforated drop cloth. I used some around my corn plants! I’ll have to see if I can remember where I put it…
Randy, I used to have a cat that somehow clawed its way into the box spring of the mattress! By the time we knew about it he had pulled it all down (this guy weighed in at about 30 lbs.) They say it helps to have a cat around to reduce stress!![}:)]
Grab a coffee filter out of the kitchen cabinet, before making coffee. lol.
Cut out what you need. Helps keep the speaker magnet from picking up magnetic material from the roadbed. You would be surprised at what a speaker in the oil tank of a diesel can pick up.
Everyone has some creative ideas here! When I Google speaker cloth or any variation of the same all sorts of stuff comes up but not exactly what I had in mind.
I have taken apart old speakers with molded plastic fronts but behind the molded plastic was a thin, yes, almost like a nylon stocking [:$] fabric. Sort of paper-like, sort of coffee filter but very much like the black “membrane” like you see under lots of furniture nowadays.
This stuff has to have a name, right? As it turns out I found some dark gray nylon material that I think will work out pretty well. I plan to make a brass wire rectangle with the cloth stretched over it that will snugly fit under the tender, out of sight, but I can pop it out if it ever needs to have the magnetic bits cleaned off (see LION’s reply in the track spiking thread!)