SEANSTEPHENS
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This is my Classic Sharp B'Box. its an '82 model i think, but mine was made in '83. i always wanted one. you could say they are a hiphop icon from the early 80s, although how people would carry these around on their shoulder is beyond me. full of D cell batteries, they weigh a tonne! :shock:
those in mint condition nowadays go for big money!! so i thought id restore one, and the sharps seem to be the best that you can still find in the uk. i did, have a couple of hitatchi boxes before getting this one, one of which had twin subs and LED level meters across the front and looked sick! but it was a late 80s in black and it lacked somewhat in retro-ness (not sure if thats actually a word
)
i bought this off ebay in 2010 as a restoration project. cant find many of the resto pictures so i'll just post a before piture to give you an idea of what i was working with.
This is the day it arrived, as you can see in the photo it is filthy. judging by the amount of dirt on it i reckon it spent 20 years in someone's loft.
i probably spent a whole weekend just cleaning the thing. but cosmetically, and under all the dirt it was in excellent condition.
it did have faults with it. only 1 speaker was working, and the distortion of the speakers and crackling of the sliders was terrible. the cassette decks didnt work to great either, nor did the aux
Luckilly i think most problems with this unit were caused by dust, so i cleaned thouroughly all the sliders, switches, the auxillary port and a few other contact points with some cheap switch cleaner i bought from maplins. the crackle was gone, the aux worked and i also had sound in both speakers!! i then cleaned the corrsion from the heads of the tape decks and adjusted them. the belts were fine so that was the cassette decks working as well. i still needed to replace the distorted speakers. i could of got them fixed by a local 'guitar amp-man' but due to the condition of them as well i thought it would be better to replace them. also i wanted something a bit different.
it all went back together, cleaned and semi working
http://s1218.photobucket.com/user/SeanS ... sort=3&o=7
i searched internet forums and ebay for a couple of months and in early 2011 i came across a pair of speakers from an earlier sharp boombox circa 1978 and they were the exact same size and power! so i snapped them up and got them sent to me from belgium or somewhere, i cant remember.... when they arrive they sounded spot on, they were a 70s beige/brown colour and they were stained, they looked a state. so i thought to modernise them and make them look a bit less ugly, i would try and paint them. so i found in the garage half a can of white primer, so i used that. i made a tube from a rolled up peice of a4 paper for the cones, masked up the edges and gave them a couple cotes of white. i didnt expect them to look so good, but anyway, here is the sharp with the white speakers fitted, and also the grilles freshly painted in black to finish it off.
so heres some pics of the finished thing, a lot of time and effort has gone into it
with the main grills
and without them
then i thought it would look better with polished tweeter grills
and i still have the sharp today, it still works perfect and i still get it down sometimes to give it a clean and a to blast my ipod through it... and i doubt i'll ever sell it, so please dont ask
heres a few pics i took yesterday
sean
those in mint condition nowadays go for big money!! so i thought id restore one, and the sharps seem to be the best that you can still find in the uk. i did, have a couple of hitatchi boxes before getting this one, one of which had twin subs and LED level meters across the front and looked sick! but it was a late 80s in black and it lacked somewhat in retro-ness (not sure if thats actually a word
)i bought this off ebay in 2010 as a restoration project. cant find many of the resto pictures so i'll just post a before piture to give you an idea of what i was working with.
This is the day it arrived, as you can see in the photo it is filthy. judging by the amount of dirt on it i reckon it spent 20 years in someone's loft.
i probably spent a whole weekend just cleaning the thing. but cosmetically, and under all the dirt it was in excellent condition.
it did have faults with it. only 1 speaker was working, and the distortion of the speakers and crackling of the sliders was terrible. the cassette decks didnt work to great either, nor did the aux
Luckilly i think most problems with this unit were caused by dust, so i cleaned thouroughly all the sliders, switches, the auxillary port and a few other contact points with some cheap switch cleaner i bought from maplins. the crackle was gone, the aux worked and i also had sound in both speakers!! i then cleaned the corrsion from the heads of the tape decks and adjusted them. the belts were fine so that was the cassette decks working as well. i still needed to replace the distorted speakers. i could of got them fixed by a local 'guitar amp-man' but due to the condition of them as well i thought it would be better to replace them. also i wanted something a bit different.
it all went back together, cleaned and semi working
http://s1218.photobucket.com/user/SeanS ... sort=3&o=7
i searched internet forums and ebay for a couple of months and in early 2011 i came across a pair of speakers from an earlier sharp boombox circa 1978 and they were the exact same size and power! so i snapped them up and got them sent to me from belgium or somewhere, i cant remember.... when they arrive they sounded spot on, they were a 70s beige/brown colour and they were stained, they looked a state. so i thought to modernise them and make them look a bit less ugly, i would try and paint them. so i found in the garage half a can of white primer, so i used that. i made a tube from a rolled up peice of a4 paper for the cones, masked up the edges and gave them a couple cotes of white. i didnt expect them to look so good, but anyway, here is the sharp with the white speakers fitted, and also the grilles freshly painted in black to finish it off.
so heres some pics of the finished thing, a lot of time and effort has gone into it
with the main grills
and without them
then i thought it would look better with polished tweeter grills
and i still have the sharp today, it still works perfect and i still get it down sometimes to give it a clean and a to blast my ipod through it... and i doubt i'll ever sell it, so please dont ask
heres a few pics i took yesterday
sean
