Leslie upper horn

[johnny b3]

Greetings.</p>

I joined this forum a few years ago because I needed advice on building this:</p>

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Here is the empty cab and finished cab:</p>

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I
tried to sell this thing in order to afford the real deal. since I
can't sell it, and it is pretty cool, I may as well try to
upgrade...make it more authentic. As of now its main issue is with the
treble being forced through a very poor sounding rotary
mechanism. It has no pick up (speed change) and sucks once at
tremolo. choral is pretty bad ass. Maybe another shortcoming is it's
sides being made out of 1/4" plywood. With closed back the bass makes
this thing resonate pretty bad on some notes. Poor man's fix: jam a
length of dowel inside pressing against the side panels and the noise stops. </p>

Is it worth upgrading this to
have a real treble driver &amp; plastic horn? If the upgrade is
practicle, I would be temped to swap out the rotosonic and put in a
real baffle/drum.</p>

Is it hard to mount a drum and have it spin "true"? </p>

What parts do I need for the upper horn? </p>

-plastic
horn, belt, pully tension spring, motor stack, driver...is that it? are
there any little pieces that go between the horn and driver? </p>

</p>

Thanks!</p>

[Hammond101]

Re: Leslie upper horn



Wow, you've been busy! Your list of items for the upper rotor is pretty acurate. You will for sure need a crossover (dividing network) to send highs to the horn and lows to the 15" driver. There is a mounting adaptor that the horn rotates on that mounts the driver/horn assy. as well a a rubber washer and hardened thrusrt wash for the horn to rotate on.</P>


Personally I would use it as it is and save for the real deal. I need another Leslie myself (251) and am building it from a 710. It required scraping the rotosonic drum and changing the baffle board for a standard lower rotor. I will usea tube 251 amp and 16 ohm drivers. Yes it will be a frankenleslie but I can build it for about $500 which sure beats the $1000-1200 for a genuine artical times as they are.</P>


H101</P>

[johnny b3]

Re: Leslie upper horn



its already got a cross-over, sending the lows to the 15" and the
highs to the 6x9". That way you get the most pronounced effect.</p>

</p>

I
can't use this "as is" because it sucks so much. Noone will buy it. I
sold some foldback kits recently so I have $300 in the bank. Looks like
each respective assembly will be about that much. Ebay right now has
lower assemblies from $10 w/ bids, and $180 buy it now with little
interest. The upper assembly would be about the same ~150. So, i dunno.
this WOULD be the real deal if I got those two upgrades. Though it will
weigh a helluva lot less and it will be powered by a 100W tube head,
not the 20W leslie amp w/ 6550's. (Bogen 100chb with 4 7868's)</p>

[Hammond101]

Re: Leslie upper horn



JB3,</P>


You should be able to find a Leslie 710 for under $500, I paid $250 for mine about the price of an empty cab. You can add a crossover to it (sends highs only to the rotosonic available from trek II) and use it as is and they sound pretty decent. If you parted out the unit you have, you might get enough for a lower rotor/baffle board to do a nice conversion. If you retain the 710 solid state amp you could get by pretty cheaply. </P>


Valhala Woodworking makes repro baffle boards that are quite nice. They are an exact duplicate of the 122/147/251 style baffle. About $50-60. In making your decision of what to do keep in mind that the Leslie cabinet design is part of "the sound".</P>

[Guest]

Re: Leslie upper horn



http://blog.makezine.com/archive/200...e_speaker.html - just joke anyway...</p>

http://www.users.bigpond.com/johnacollins/hammond.htm - nice!</p>

I have found an article in Internet about building one rotor (lower only) leslie from scratch!</p>

can't find it anymore.</p>

Goff sells upper horns. Get rid of this rotosonic!</p>

Jon</p>

[Guest]

Re: Leslie upper horn

[quote user="johnny b3"]


I can't use this "as is" because it sucks so much.</P>


[/quote]</P>


I'm with H101 on this -I wouldn't invest any further into what you have. Save for the real deal.What youhavemightnot"suck so much" after you make the mods but I bet you still won't be happy with the results.</P>

[johnny b3]

Re: Leslie upper horn



Are upper and lower 2-speed leslie motors identical aside from the pully? </p>

Decorator
leslies had a wood baffle with a sold piece of wood on the underside -
no holes cut in it. Regular 122/147 etc baffles had those round holes
on both the top and bottom. Is there a difference between these two in
a side by side comparison? Will the decorator baffle take longer to
accelerate or is the weight difference negligable?</p>

[redoctoberff]

Re: Leslie upper horn



JB3:</P>


Old thread I know, but I was looking at the photos from this project and I was wondering how you got that half-rounded shape at the ends of your louvres--its one of the design problems with my own DIY Leslie. Did you do them by hand or was there special tooling involved?</P>

[johnny b3]

Re: Leslie upper horn



sorry I missed this post! </p>

The louvers were made with a simple hand held jig saw. There is 3d definition to the holes, they're simply a straight cut for the top edge, and a curved cut near the edges. I used a stencil if i recall. The cab had 1/4" sides so there was no way to make traditional style louvres with any depth.
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</p>

This cab is no more! It...well...sucked. the amp was awesome and it was loud, but the leslie sound was horrid. 8 - 10 second pickup! The fast to slow transition was good but otherwise it was not usable. I kind of miss it...but I prefer my 145 :)
</p>

[johnny b3]

Re: Leslie upper horn



Check out this site:</p>

http://www.users.bigpond.com/johnacollins/hammond.htm</p>

The guy in Australia made a very authentic looking leslie from scratch, using a home-made tool for his skill saw. He also generously provides a spec sheet for the tool itself. Pretty cool if I may say so! I spent a good long while drooling over his page before I gave up on making a leslie.
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[redoctoberff]

Re: Leslie upper horn



Haha, I don't blame you. I'll probably get that 145 eventually...</P>


But until then, I want to build one. I've also spent a lot of time checking out that page, but don't have the resources or the abilityreally to build a tool like that. I think I'm just going to cut diagonal vents, which means I'll probably have to do the ends rectangular instead of the rounded shape you have, but its probably worth it to get the FM effect and might actually look better because you're not staring directlyinto the cabinet. I'll let you know if I go anywhere with that though, I'd definitely prefer to do it the way he did...</P>

[johnny b3]

Re: Leslie upper horn



Sorry I meant to say there is NO 3D definition to the holes I made.</p>

Have
you purhcased all the actual leslie parts yet? Overall I decided that
buying all the parts separately was way too expensive for a DIY leslie.
Not to hamper your motivation to build your own cab but it may just be
worth saving up slowly and buying the real deal. Some have come close
with their own projects but personally I know I would never have been
satisfied by my own speaker building skills. </p>

But if you proceed, goodluck! Maybe post some pics along the way?</p>

[Guest]

Re: Leslie upper horn



Hey bro.... long time no talk... hope all has been well :)</P>


I saw this Leslie you've made and fell in love with the passion you had to build it.</P>


I picked up an old Leslie model 130 *the odd duck of the Leslie fleet as some have called it*.. and with it being such a common and thus... less desirable model.. I think I can justify the sacrilege of doing something very similar to what you've done here. You've inspired me :)))) Don't know what I'll do yet *my brain is going through random possibilites at this very half-second*. Whoa.... a pulpit/podium for a church... haha...</P>


Actually... I'm toying with the idea of manually deriving *thus custom tailored* Theile-Small parameters from the sub in the Leslie 130... which appears to be a "MODEL EVM 12L 8OHM" driver... Buchanon, Michagan?? An American sub.. lol... or the 70's Oklahoma equivalent of a Stillwater Designs "Kicker".. lol.... ok ok I'll move on..</P>


/action frowns after looking at bloody non-filter cigarette in the ashtray next to his laptop... just had a tooth pulled... they told me not to smoke... lol</P>
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[Brendon Wright]

Re: Leslie upper horn



Yeh, how do you work out all those parameters?</P>


Tonewheel66 sent me some springs to turn my ex-internal leslie motors into real leslie motors. $3 each. He even gave me a second set for good measure. Now I can hang the leslie from the roof upside down if I want!</P>


-Brendon</P>

[johnny b3]

Re: Leslie upper horn



Parameters?</p>

hope your mouth heals up real soon, noah
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