I have just finished recovering the frets on my pair of BL8000 and thought I should share some pics..
I used a pair of 60 denier tights (pantyhose) - 40 denier is probably a marginally better match for the original fabric and was what I was going to use originally, but the ones I bought had a thicker reinforcement area near the top of each leg and would have been a little short if I'd cut this area off. 60 denier is still a very close match to the original fabric though and I'm very happy with the results.
Items required:-
ten 5mm x 5m rolls of double sided tape (2.99 GBP from ebay)
6.00GBP for three pairs of 60 denier tights (tesco)
A pair of scissors
(actually, the above is sufficient to re-cover three pairs of speakers, and one 5m roll of tape is sufficient if you are very careful about wastage)
1. Detach frets from speakers and remove existing cloth
Affix double sided tape to frame
Cut one leg from tights, remove backing from double sided tape, and slide the leg of the tights over the frame. I found it best to slide it on from the bottom of the frame leaving the toe of the tights at the end with hole for the LED - this means you have more fabric to work with around the top plate.
I then tied the fabric at the top to keep it in place whilst I worked and to ensure I had enough fabric at the end when it came to dealing with the top part.
Start cutting the fabric at the rear of the frame, starting at the bottom and press the fabric against the double sided tape as you go - this helps ensure the grain of the fabric remains square to the frame
Finally, remove the tie from the top, and maneuver the top part of the fret into place and the dress the fabric around it.
Trim off the excess fabric (cutting with scissors whilst stretching the excess fabric away from the line of tape results in a nice clean finish)
Reinstall the completed fret and you're done. Time taken approx 45 mins per speaker - and probably only 30 mins if you're not stopping to take photos š
Apologies for the poor quality photos, but taking them was a bit of an last minute decision - my digital camera wasn't charged and my mobile is in for repair so I ended up using a rather old camera phone.
Thanks and credit are due to Leslie for the inspiration of using tights for the re-covering.
Martin.
Location: Exeter, UK
