How to Re-Edge Your Speakers

Step 4: Glue the foam surround to the paper cone. Many cones have a glossy protective coating, and you’ll see a ring of matte paper where you removed your previous foam: this is where you want to glue.  Place drops of glue on the matte part of the paper cone, and then use the included brush to make a smooth, uniform layer.  Then place the foam surround on the cone and press down.

Have a moist paper towel ready to mop up any glue that seeps out as you apply the foam.

Since you’re curving the foam down, it will likely pop up and you’ll have to keep pressing it down until it sticks (when the glue is really tacky).  This part may get a little messy, as glue will get on the cone and probably on the foam.

Apply glue to the cone’s edge and smooth it out with a brush

It doesn’t have to look perfect in order to sound perfect in the end.  As long as you clean up what you can and don’t have huge globs on the rounded part of the foam then you’ll be fine.  You’ll want to let this dry thoroughly before you glue the other side to the frame, because you may have to pull the cone for a proper alignment and if the glue isn’t secure then it will come undone.  It should be dry enough to move to the next step in about 4 hours, but a 24 hour cure would be best.

Step 5: Check voice coil alignment. We need to check the alignment of the cone to the voice coil before you start glueing the other edge all willy-nilly.  A speaker moves forward and backward, and there is a metal part that fits right down the center of the voice coil.  If you were to pull the cone even slightly to any one side, then the metal would scrape against the coil.  If you press straight down on the paper cone, you will see that there is no scrapeage.  Tilt it to the side and you’ll hear some scraping.  This is what you want to avoid when you perform the next step.

Left: the inner ring has cured.  Right: Gluing the outer ring and tapping down

Step 6: Glue the other side of the foam to the metal housing. Apply dots of glue to the metal frame.  Use the brush to make a nice even layer.  Now that you understand why you shouldn’t pull the cone in any direction, just tap the edge down onto the glue.  Don’t pull it or try to make it “look” symmetrical.  The important part is that the coil is aligned, not if the foam circle is completely centered in the frame.  Press straight down on the cone and verify that there is no scraping sound.  If not then continue to the next step.

On the next page we complete the speaker repair…