Speaker covers

No big projects this between-season period of winter 19-20. Only a lot of smaller repair and improvement activities. Which is perfectly OK :).

A project slightly off the beaten track is new speaker covers. I think we were on our third set of outdoor speakers now. There has been nothing wrong with the speaker elements themselves. But the outside covers have crazed and cracked and become ugly.

Plastic expands and retracts considerably with temperature. So after the covers have been snugly screwed to the hull, they will start to work back and forth, finally cracking up the area of the screw holes. In addition, the plastic seems to become more brittle with time, so if the covers are removed for some reson and re-fastened, it is easy to overtighten the screws slightly, cracking the plastic. I have tried to use rubber backing gaskets to prevent cracking, but in vain.

Basically, I like this shape. There are other shapes, as thicker discs with a more solid area for the holes. But they have, in my view, some disadvantages. More bulky speaker covers protrude too much, and on a sailboat the ropes will easily get caught by them and possibly pull them off. You could also more easily hit them with body parts when moving around during sailing. So I believe the speaker covers should have a slim and low shape.

I could find no sets of speakers to fit my requirements. Consquently I started to think of making some myself. They would have to be solid, low profile, cheap, easily repaired and have an acceptable appearance. Easier said than done, and it took some time to find a concept.


Some small 2mm glass fiber sheets were found on eBay. They were cut to discs, then to rings, then doubled to leave space for some kind of mesh to be fastened inside.

The outside perimeter was easily sanded to a smooth finish by fastening the disc (before cutting out the inside and making a ring) to a table drilling machine. The inside was a bit more tricky to smoothen out. It was solved by making a simple jig that could be used in the same drilling machine.

With that the hardest part was finished. The rest was to spray paint, glue in some Phifertex as a mesh, and put a layer of thin fabric behind as a water spray barrier.

This is obviously before the spring washing and cleaning this year, but it shows the final product installed. I hope it will last for a while. At least it is repairable.


I chose to keep the speakers and the covers separate. To be able to mount the speakers from the inside, I had to find suitable speakers that were supported by a square mounting plate. Otherwise I could not get them through the hole and still have "ears" to get some fastening bolts through. (The inside area requires a lot of dismantling to get full access).