[Hallicrafters] R-46A Speaker Enclosure and Grill Cloth

[Bill Gerhold]

A short time ago I received a very nice R-46A speaker to complete my SX-101
MKIII and the HT-32 combination.  I also mentioned I was looking for
replacement grill cloth.  My description of the existing cloth led one
respondent to indicate I probably had Flocking for a grill.  I knew of the
word flocking from my astronomy days but was not sure about the flocked
grill.

Well upon removal of the speaker from the enclosure, I found the grill is
indeed flocked.  That is, a wire grid with a felt like material that was I
guess sprayed on or dipped.  Since it looked real (color) bad, I decided to
put the grill in a bath of bleach and warm water.  This cleaned and
brightened it up very well but, it still looked like crap.  So, I took the
grill to work, bead blasted it, to bare metal.  It is just a heavy gauge
wire screen without the felt covering about twice as large (gauge) as a
common window screen.  So, what I decided to do, is tightly cover the wire
screen with new grill cloth.  This should look real nice.

As to the cabinet, it is a flat black with minimal scratches and dings so I
just repainted it very lightly so the "Hallicrafters" and "R-46A" white
lettering did not stand out against the rest of the freshly painted cabinet.
It has come out very nice.  Now I got to get to the receiver and
transmitter.  I took the easy way out.

K2WH