Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
Sounds good to me. I know the Rola Celestions don't have the same mystique as the pre-Rola ones, but to my ear most of them still sound great - less edgy than the more modern ones. I do prefer a greenback in a closed back cab though to keep the low end tighter when it's being hit hard (listen to the bit on the low strings at about 0:38).
Thanks Alan. The reason I asked, and the reason I posted this, is that the speaker had been damaged in transit to me. I don't know how it happened, but I should have impressed on a friend of mine how fragile the thing is. Anyway, when he dropped it off and I opened the package, it had a huge tear in it. So I looked as various options, reconing, professional repairing, or DIY repair. Eventually settled on the DIY thing and felt that if it did not work, I would have it reconed.
So after quite a bit of research it seemed that this type of repair is rather common, generally with good results, so I gave it ago. Basically one can use a coffee filter/cooking oil filter and a mild paper glue. I used a cooking oil filter and pritt glue (the glue diluted with water).
So I thought I would post some pics of what and and how I did it for anyone who may have a similar problem.
So this is how the speaker looked ☹
Cooking oil filter
Tearing the filter in the shape of the tear. Don't cut it to shape, because you want as many little "threads" from the cloth to help with the fix
The piece I decided to use
Diluting glue (Pritt) with water
Using a small paint brush to apply the filter cloth over the tear
Basically smearing the solution into the filter cloth and over the tear
I waited for it to dry and then I repeated the process and put another layer on. Most of what I read indicated that one layer would be enough, but I decided to play it safe. There was some risk of messing with the tonality by adding more weight and reducing the flex, but to me it seemed minimal.
And dry! ? So I put the speaker in like this and discovered that the repair line could be clearly seen through the speaker cloth ?
Decided to blacken it with a permanent marker, and VOILA! ?
So the speaker sounds fine to me, I just did not know if it had maybe lost some tonal characteristics of a Greenback G12M. Listening to other examples on Youtube did not help me.
I can now decide if I want to have the thing reconed at a later stage or not. Consensus seems to be to always try use (try to save) the original cone. I reckon I'll keep it like this since I'm not unhappy with the result. The repair is holding nicely, so unless there is a reliability issue, I'm happy to leave it as is.
