The first thing I did was to make boxes and ship the empty boxes to my customer so he could ship the speakers back to me.  It was over $100 to ship the empty boxes from Maine to Utah!

The boxes made it back in pretty good shape, and can be used to send the finished speakers in.

There is 2" of foam surrounding the speakers on all sides and the speakers fit very tightly inside the boxes.  The cardboard is heavy duty, double-wall.

The speakers were in great shape and really didn't need to be restored, but my customer wanted something really nice.

I disassembled them, removing all drivers and crossovers.

Here they are sanded and ready for the veneer.  They were in such good condition that I didn't even have to use any filler to repair dents or scratches.

Here's the veneer - Tineo (Indian Apple Wood).  I spent some time looking at the veneer and measuring to see what would look the best.  At first I was inclined to put the darker stripe down the center of the sides and tops of the speakers, but after looking at it I decided to use the sapwood (lighter) for the center.   I carefully laid out and cut the veneer so the grain would go up one side, across the top, and down the other side of the speaker.  I also reversed the layout for the other speaker so they would be mirror images of one another.  I also cut the edge-banding for the front edges of the speakers right next to the side/top pieces, so the grain and coloring near the edge of the speaker would wrap right around to the front.

This is not a detailed webpage, sorry, I didn't want to take the time.   Besides, I've already covered the details of veneering in other pages.   Here's a couple of pictures of the cabinets and veneer waiting for the glue to dry before installing the veneer.

UPS dropped these off at my shop at about 1:30 in the aftenooon, and I worked on them from two p.m. til midnight, and here they are with eight pieces of veneer on, waiting for the edge-banding.

Sometimes the veneer is flakey in spots.  My camera really shows a lot of detail and makes this look worse than it is.  This picture shows what I've done with a knife to gently lift the flakes of veneer off the paper backing.  Next, I'll work some glue under the flakes, wipe with a damp rag, and then iron the flakes down.   After sanding and finish this will be noticeable only by looking very closely.

15 hours total to this point - for making boxes, disassembly, sanding and prep, installing all the veneer, sanding to 180 grit, detail work, sanding black paint for prep, masking the veneer, and first coat of new satin black paint.

Here's a few pictures with the paint done (under the masking), the veneer all detailed and sanded, and the first coat of lacquer.

Here they are with the lacquer finished, being re-assembled.

The crossovers had been replaced at some point.

These are getting new Crites woofers.

This is a pretty good way to make a solder connection to a banana jack pin.

This was the only label.  It was pretty ratty, so didn't put it back on the back, I glued it inside the cabinet.

Here are the finish photos: