Restored Motorola TSN6000 speakers

[W5KVV]

I picked up a couple of these old Motorola mobile speakers & an old switchbox of some sort last week off flea bay for $20 free shipping. I have no use for the box right now, but I'll use it for something eventually.

I've always liked these old speakers. They're built like a tank & they have that old 60's look to them. I soda blasted them, repainted & rewired them. They still sound great. I'm gonna use them in the shack.

Thought you Motorola guys would appreciate my effort.

BEFORE



AFTER

 

[Rt169Radio]

Nice job, it looks great!

 

[zz0468]

The colors look original, what paint did you use? Driftwood and Blue Gray is long since NLA from Motorola.

 

[62Truck]

They look brand new like they just came out of the factory. I have one of those old speakers and a mic someplace

 

[W5KVV]

Thanks for the compliments guys! This was a fun little project. I was stoked at how they turned out. I was worried about paint sticking to the front piece since it appears to be cast aluminum. Sometimes paint just wont take too well to smooth cast aluminum.

zz0468, the paint came from Lowes. It's just off the shelf rattlecan paint. Rustoleum dark bronze hammered on the case & screen. The front is almond gloss enamel. They match pretty close, but not exactly. The blue grey that was on the front piece originally is a hard color to match.

Here are the rustoleum paint #'s if you ever want to pick some up.

Hammered dark bronze: 7218830

Almond gloss protective enamel: 7770

 

[zz0468]

zz0468, the paint came from Lowes. It's just off the shelf rattlecan paint...

Very good! I've taken notes for future reference. I've got a handful of these speakers floating around that don't get used because, well, they're just ugly. But that's fixable. Thanks for the idea.

 

[cmdrwill]

Probably one of the best sounding speakers. I use one on my HF radio, and one on the portable Spectra base radio.

 

[W5KVV]

zz0468: No problem! I actually picked up another one & i'm in the process of going thru it right now. This one has a bad speaker tho. Gonna go to Wally World tomorrow & see if I can find a replacement.

Be sure you get all the old paint off the front piece. It's cast aluminum. If you just spray the new color over the old, the old paint will be very noticeable. I had to break out the home made soda blaster for the front pieces.

cmdrwill: I agree. I was amazed at how good these speakers sound. Especially for their age. I have two on the dual band rig in the shack & I'm working on one for the HF rig as we speak. Just finished up painting everything.

 

[len644]

Excellent Painting

Hello W5KVV,
I happened across your entry on the forum and was wondering how you actually did the repainting of the M MOTOROLA lettering on the speakers? This repaint of the lettering seems to be very difficult to do it right. It was a very good job.
Thanks for your info.

 

[mikegilbert]

Great job on the resto!