I always use PVA glue. If you stuff it up, it washes off before it's set with water. It's flexible enough to use on the surround.

Those tears sound well within the capabilities of PVA.

As far as stuffing it up, just avoid getting glue into the voice coil gap. Tilting the speaker while gluing should work.

Hi Jimb.
My bottle of Latex came direct from the speaker supplier 12 years ago while working at Jaycar.
That removes any chance of knowing what and who about it.
I have not tried to buy any the 5L bottle will last me forever.

If I was looking for it I would start the usual search Google it and so on and check ebay.
Nailing down what water base latex goo is actually called is the first step.
Is it a sealant or adhesive?
I would also be trawling about the Selleys and similar products at Bunnings, you really only want a tube of whatever it is.

I know you are limited in moving about physically so some help from all of us would be good in naming a product for a start.

Does anybody have a quick answer for Jimb naming a easily obtained product?


Fred.

Thanks Ian and Fred I will try Ian's suggestion The PVA glue. I will still have to put some sort of tape on the big radial tear. Without sticking my fingers through the cone.
Kind Regards Jim.

The other problem I have when glueing is the cone material quickly becomes soggy and goes into holes.
Anyway I will keep you posted .
Regards Jim.

I prefer not to use PVA even that I have made several tons of it. Latex can be natural and the source of rubber, or it can be synthetic. I tend to use acrylic but often, solvent based is better, as it will not cause the distortion and other damage that aqueous adhesives can. However many of these are not good for you in confined spaces. This workshop was an art studio and I force vented it then, because of solvents.

The acrylic types are flexible & remain so. The medical micropore of non woven material I have found useful as it can be moulded into ripples. The biggest pain with big tears is any distortion can cause it to pole. Cones are a gettable thing. I did service a 1929 Lyric with one of the original type Rice -Kellogg speakers in it. that had been re-coned with a foam mount.

It is powered by a now very expensive #50 with lots of volts on it and a #24 wired diode to generate the grid bias. Its sound is exceptional.

Marc

I have a couple of test speakers with some nasty tears in them I have not worried about. I am going to have some practice runs on them first. I have fixed up speakers in the past and they are working ok . I used the dreaded silastic they look terrible but work.
I did try dissolving silastic with acetone on my last attemp it was also terrible. I have noted that there is some distortion on this cone I want to repair I need to check it is not poling. There is a steep leaning curve with speaker cone repairs I am still in the middle of the J section down the bottom however I need to keep practicing.
Regards Jim

I have successfully used acetone to dissolve neutral cure black silastic, but it takes some elbow grease to get it to dissolve. It is not the ideal solvent. I tried turps first but it took a long time to dry. So went to acetone. Used to mix it up in the old 35mm film canisters but they are long gone. Maybe a plastic pill bottle would do - minimises the amount of silicon and acetone to what is needed and seals tightly.

Silicones are just nasty stuff, best avoided for your health.
The nicest "glue" to work with is a water base or thin-able goop, like Ian, his PVA.

While doing rebuilds or repairs a normal technique is to center the voice coil with at least some shim material stuffed into the gap.
I know you then have to cut the felt off at the front but do it if the cone is miss-shaped.
Even if I have to cut the rear and front suspensions and re-glue them and a felt last.

Thankfully just centering the voice coil has worked on most jobs.

I was in our local Woolworths but did not see any Sellys product I would use.
Negative result.

Fred.

I have PVA glue .
I also have some white stuff that is supposed to be for speakers I bought on eBay it looks like PVA and probably is.
Still have not bit the bullet with this yet .Have been refitting the valve bases and fitting the power transformer etc.
Regards Jim.

Not withstanding that I worked for ICI when it owned Dulux & Selleys. I tend to lean towards Kwick Grip, for the majority of patch ups and I did send a photo, to Brad, of one speaker that really is a work of abstract art.

In order to judge one must see the mess. However, Quick grip being aqueous based can be thinned. A softish Art brush, paper towel and a bean can with water in it, plus a chopstick can prove useful. Do remember that paper has two sides, so does the cone. As has been discovered, the worst thing to do is saturate the paper, and I use this sticky for binding tatty books as well.

There are two ways to attack with Micropore, you can apply it and then paint it sparingly with the Kwick Grip, or you can prime the surface with Kwick Grip first. Often it pays (like welding) in areas around the rim where there are fatigue cracks to repair the crack, but avoid too much wetting, after which you gradually, also in short distances, to avoid distortion, go around the whole rim & corrugations, allowing drying in between. That will add strength.

You can often use the Micropore on the back of the cone to tack the tear together, so you can bind it at the front. Do not use rigid adhesive on the rim as it may cause the cone to rip. As Acrylic does not really set, the final step is to dust it with talc. It may not be a good look, but at least it will smell nice.

Marc

Marc . What is micropore ? Is it that white tape about 6mm wide used to hold wound dressings in place.
Regards Jim

The Micropore as used in wound dressing that I discovered when they used it on me after surgery around 1967, is a non woven tape that has an adhesive side. That makes it handy on speakers & me. Like I was farm fencing today & barbed wire is treacherous. Back of LH now has six holes in it; RH two.

Coffee type filter paper can also be used & if its just a reinforcing web: Plastic fly screen (like fly wire). The adhesive & porosity are the benefits. https://www.chemistdirect.com.au/catalogsearch/result/?q=micropore

Most medical glue succumbs to Metho as does Acrylic.

I do have a woven cloth adhesive tape here as well: Possibly loom tape, from where it came from. For books I use cloth ribbon from a Spotlight store here. That could also be used. I do not like adding too much weight to the cone. But I have not had joint fail.

Basically its just another exercise in paper Origami. This building was constructed as an Art studio, so its not out of place.

Marc

About 6 months ago I fitted new rubber surrounds to a 100W sub-woofer, a job that I had been putting off for years because of the potential for stuff-up.
The rubber surround kit came with syringes of white adhesive that looked like PVA. The instructions didn't say what it was, though it was called a slow setting contact adhesive, to allow the new surround to be re-positioned for a while. This adhesive was for gluing to the basket and to the cone.
Various instructors on-line did not mention using spacers in the magnet gap, something I have done in the past with vintage speakers. Instruction was to move the cone up and down and listen for noise and reposition if necessary before the glue set. This means that the centre cap does not need to be removed and reset. The worst part of the job is scraping the old adhesive off the basket, and especially the cone, without damaging anything. Whole process just a matter of taking your time.
All went well and it has had a very good trial watching movies sitting out CV-19. So it certainly hangs on well, though its flexibility is not tested at the edge of the cone and the basket attachment points. So not sure how it would go repairing the corrugated paper suspensions in vintage speakers.

Thanks Marc and STC830.
Sometime in the next day or so I will have to tackle it because I cannot wire up the power supply without it. I will finish off the filiament wiring and check the filiaments glow first.
Regards Jim

Hi STC, yep that edge white stuff is "gorilla snot" !

Takes hours to cure and goes transparent once set.
Leaves plenty of time to faff about getting things dead straight.

The suspension adhesive would be quick set, (get it right or you are dead) polyolmolyowhattyo epoxyeo 2 part stuff.
So long as the voice coil gap is acceptable the suspension positions are whatever they are and the cone runs true.
Pop the cap on and its done.

I used to repair/glue/weld/wind/whatever high power drivers stitching together voice coils and cones and suspensions.
Great fun, almost like fixing electric motors rather than speakers.

Fred.