I've painted almost a hundred speakers in the last two months, so took some photos.  Originally posted this over at IP, but thought it would be a good thread here to so others can add to it.

This method will work with any type of spray system (even the disposable Prevals).

Get your speakers unboxed.

Mask speakers. These were pulled out when a room was repainted. If you have new speakers, hopefully they came with paint masks.

Rough up your frames. I've been using these 220 grit foam sanding pads from Norton and they work well. Sandpaper works great too and you can even use a scotchbrite bad. I think I mentioned using a finer grit paper in another post, but in reality I guess I use 200-400 for this.

Do the same for the grills. Make sure to pull out the cloth liners first without stretching them out.

Blow all the dust off.

Wipe frame & grills down with denatured alcohol (isopropyl will work too).

Mask off the back of the speakers if you want to protect them from overspray. I use small plastic trash bags.

Dilute your paint. I like to use distilled water for latex paint.  These little disposable plastic mixing cups are great.

Add the Floetrol. I normally just do this by experience... read the bottle for recommended dose until you get a feel for it.

Mix everything up good and run through a strainer. This photo shows me running the paint through a viscosity cup which can help you determine if you have the right consistency based on how long it takes to go through. Once you get the hang of it you can skip this step.

Load up your sprayer

Spray some paint. The Floetrol really helps lay the paint down so you can actually go on a little thicker than you might think. Depending on speaker and paint, I can usually get good results with 2-3 coats.

I normally setup on a box or something that I can spin around easily without touching the speaker to make painting easier. A cheap little turntable (lazy susan) under the box is ideal and will let you rotate as you paint.

Make sure to get a nice wet coat... sure it looks gloppy, but thats what the Floetrol additive is for. Once the paint lays down and dries, you have a nice smooth finish.

After it's dry with two coats.

Here's the turbine HVLP setup I'm using now. Sounds like a shop vac when it's on, but nice and portable and easy to clean up.  Before I was using my shop compressor and a detail spray gun.

THanks Paul! Great threat and contribution!

Looks great. I am really good with spray cans...lots of training as a teenager :). I have always wanted to get a nice sprayer setup and learn how to paint cars. Not having enough time or money or a place to experiment with has always been a hurdle. I might get the mini-mite to practice with.

Looks good man. Cool little gun. What did you give for it? What size tip does it have?

I recently had to paint five speakers, and was able to get good results with water based paint, using the gallon the painters had used on the ceiling, no thinning, with one of those 3" wide foam rollers from Home Depot.

The grilles, of course, had a problem here and there. There's a tool that phone guys have with a plastic hook on one and a bent piece of steel wire on the other for pulling wires off of 66 blocks. That steel wire was perfect for clearing the few grille holes that had filled.

What model is the sprayer and where did you buy it?

The spray setup is a Fuji Mini-Mite 3 which is a turbine powered HVLP setup (not compressor).  It's nice because it's so small... the turbine is not much bigger than a lunch box.

This allows me to throw it in the van and bring to the jobsite if needed which is something I couldn't do with my old compressor setup.

I'm using the standard tip that came with the spray gun which I think is 1.4mm.  They have at least 5 different tips for different applications.  The gun is good quality and is very adjustable.  I found it easy to setup & use and you can alter the spray pattern from fan shape to round easily which is nice.  The smaller round shape is perfect for going around the speaker rim and then the fan pattern is better for spraying the grill.

The cost was around $600 for the complete setup and it was purchased online, but I don't remember where.

They have the same setup with a larger 1qt gun, but the smaller gravity gun is really ideal for speakers because you can swivel the cup and point the gun straight down when needed.

Here's a link to the manufactureres website:
http://www.fujispray.com/

I did a quick search trying to find where I purchased and found a video that does a good job explaining the different between the two guns:
[Link: youtu.be]

Wow thats pricey little gun. I though my Sata was expensive.. holy

I don't think I've seen anyone goto that much effort on Proficient speakers.

Nice job though.

totally worth it, i wouldn't be surprised if its been paid for twice over by now. I charge $65 per speaker with a minimum of 2. in a 5.1 set up thats an additional $325 for not all that much work. and sets you apart from the other guys. I too use a HVLP gun hooked to a compressor but once i pick up again i may drop the price on something like paul purchased.

We recently purchased some unfinished cabinet doors for some cabinets we built around the house and we were getting some pretty tragic results with the HVLP gun so we purchased a airless paint sprayer and got some phenomenal results with it. The thing eats through paint like its nobodys business though

Awesome post Paul! also i like to take the shop vac after i spray and suck the the grill from behind just to make sure no holes are clogged.

$600 is for the gun, turbine & hose (everything you need to paint), so the gun may only account for 40-60% of that.  It was a good investment... paid for itself the first week I had it.

The speakers in the photos are Paradigm SA-35 & SA-30.  I don't discrimiate though and paint lots of inexpensive speakers from Proficient and SnapAV too.

My bad, they had the same color scheme as Proficients.

I usually leave my speaker thread unpainted for a more natural look.