John wanted a very special set of speakers for a home theater system built around the Veracity ST's. This included a center channel and on wall WOW1's as well. The challenge was to do the finish he desired. He wanted light gray over white oak. The problem is, oak is somewhat yellow. If you only spray a light coat of gray dye, the yellow shows through.
So the first technique we tried was to pickle the oak in white and then spray gray over the top. We pretty much got the gray we were looking for, but the grain was obviously the same color. After sending out a sample, we talked over the options and told him we would try to dream up some other approach that would result in a light gray finish with darker gray grain. We didn't know if it could even be done, but we tried a number of different approaches and finally found one that worked.
Here is the result...
The front baffle was done in a metallic graphite gray automotive paint and the final topcoat was high gloss clearcoat.
And a close-up...
For the on-wall WOW1 surround speakers, he wanted also white oak, but this time he wanted it pickled with a white pearl automotive finish on the front baffles. It is a little hard to see the effect in this photo, but here it is...
I would have to say this was about the most involved finish we had ever done. John certainly knew how to put us to the test. But in the end, it was an effort that was well worth while. In fact, I'm considering doing that same finish on a pair of our new Song3's for myself.
Happy listening John!
- Jim
