Hacker RP10 foam replacement.

[boater sam]

Has anyone stripped the covering off the front panel of a Hacker RP10 and replaced the foam?
I have one to restore where the foam has degenerated, the speaker bolts have lost their bite in the wood but the rexine is in fair but filthy condition.
I have got the speaker off by cutting the nut off the worst spinning bolt and the panel out of the cabinet. The grill is out, that was easy, but there are lots of staples and glue on the piping trim and panel.
What is the foam? How thick was it?

Sam.

[Mark Hennessy]

The RP10 is one of the easiest Hacker sets to re-foam. The piping around the edge of the front/rear panels means that there's no need to worry about doing a perfect job on the rounded corners of the later sets (very hard to unglue and re-glue those perfectly).

The foam was 1/8" in old money. I use 3mm scrim foam that I bought from Woolies Trim: https://www.woolies-trim.co.uk/p-1562-scrim-foam

Obviously there are many other sources of foam, but finding stuff that thin might be tricky. You'd also have to ask yourself what sort of lifespan it might enjoy - a lot of it is found in fairly disposable objects. I figured that scrim foam is sold to people who are making something that is expected to last, so it hopefully is a better quality than other stuff. But obviously there's no way of knowing that for sure. All I can say is that the scrim foam I bought a decade ago is still good - even the unused bits exposed to light - but a decade isn't all that long, I suppose.

[boater sam]

The RP10 is one of the easiest Hacker sets to re-foam. The piping around the edge of the front/rear panels means that there's no need to worry about doing a perfect job on the rounded corners of the later sets (very hard to unglue and re-glue those perfectly).

The foam was 1/8" in old money. I use 3mm scrim foam that I bought from Woolies Trim: https://www.woolies-trim.co.uk/p-1562-scrim-foam

Obviously there are many other sources of foam, but finding stuff that thin might be tricky. You'd also have to ask yourself what sort of lifespan it might enjoy - a lot of it is found in fairly disposable objects. I figured that scrim foam is sold to people who are making something that is expected to last, so it hopefully is a better quality than other stuff. But obviously there's no way of knowing that for sure. All I can say is that the scrim foam I bought a decade ago is still good - even the unused bits exposed to light - but a decade isn't all that long, I suppose.

Thanks Mark.
What dissolves the glue without wrecking the Rexine?  Do you reuse the staples or new stainless steel ones?
Sam.

[Mark Hennessy]

Just gently peel it away. With the earlier sets that used birch ply, it'll come off with no issues. The cloth is really quite tough - much more so than regular Rexine as used by Roberts, etc.

Later sets changed to something that's a bit of a cross between chipboard and OSB - bits of this tend to flake off with the leathercloth. They can be removed from the cloth separately, but unless you spend a bit of time filling the uneven surface of the panel that was left, you'll get a poor finish when it all goes back together. Luckily not an issue for an RP10 though.

I generally reuse the staples if they're in good condition.