lumber

[jesuchete]

I finally located birch plywood here in kitchener Canada where i am located now. How much will I need for the Dr300 and T48. I am working on a very very tight budget.

[Harley]

I finally located birch plywood here in kitchener Canada where i am located now. How much will I need for the Dr300 and T48. I am working on a very very tight budget.

Cut shedules are in the plans and it depends how wide your T48 will be.

[bzb]

Minimum of 2 sheets for the T48, and that's for the slim cab with 12" driver.

[jesuchete]

I am trying to find an alternative to the baltic birch as the only folks with the proper stuff are too far for me to drive. Is there any other type of wood I can use. The stuff I had found is the chinese stuff and it is full of voids.

[bzb]

Check the ply thickness for alternatives. There needs to be at least 5 plies, and they need to be equal thickness.

Up there in Canada, not sure what you have available to you... but you can use anything, really, as long as there isn't a thin outer veneer. That's what de-laminates and causes problems.

If you absolutely must use stuff with thin outer veneer, then you probably want to use some slight dadoes for assembly. This will ensure you cut through that outer veneer and attach to the thicker plies.

You might be able to find some B/C project panels at your local home center. They should be sufficient, but you'll have to spend a lot more time finishing them since the faces are generally pretty rough.

[SeisTres]

I actually built my second pair of jacks with 15/36" sheathing from Home depot. It has four equal plies and a few knots and voids but nothing major. One of the I think it's B/C plywood. I got a 4x8 sheet of that stuff for $20 while Aurauco runs for $25 at Lowes.

Although it was not the same quality as arauco, it is perfect for these designs and I think it's a little bit harder than arauco, which is pine. The glue between plies seems to be of a lower quality than arauco, but like I said, it worked just fine for the jacks and would do fine for subs.

But I'll warn you, I used 3/8" sheathing for my AT and it WAY below even particle board. However, i did pay $11 for a sheet of that crap so I cant complain. And the tuba worked just fine. And I braced as in the plans, no extra stuff. And also, the first sheet I bought was the thin veener blondewood, which is pretty much trash for these designs, as well.

[bzb]

Man, after seeing so many people have trouble, I feel like I'm so incredibly lucky to have a place that carries 1/2" BB for $20... that's about 2 miles from my house

[bzb]

On another note, I picked up some Chinese birch for another project I'm doing. It's "lyptus" core with a thin white birch veneer.

There are three reasons this stuff shouldn't be used for BFD cabs:

1. The veneer delaminates INCREDIBLY easy. Glue on butt joints would destroy this stuff. I got 2 inch chips just cross cutting this stuff. Ridiculous. Luckily, I'm trimming my project out with poplar.

2. It's a good deal heavier than Baltic Birch.

3. There are lots of voids in the plywood. While cutting the dadoes in the panels, there were dozens of knot holes that were not filled.

The 3/4" panels are about $15 cheaper per panel than BB, the 1/2" is $4 cheaper. Don't let the cheaper price sucker you.

[jesuchete]

Yeah I have been keeping away from from the chinese stuff, however I did find some douglas fir and it looked pretty solid and had no voids or knots. It was priced at $20 for a 4x8 sheet and I think for a Dr300 3 sheets should be enough. The fir was 5 ply and is readily available.I don't know what you guys think about fir.

[BrentEvans]

Fir, pine, and spruce are all pretty similar from what I've seen. If I remember correctly, Auraco is pine. What's more important is the quality of the ply itself, and what you described sounds decent enough. Look very closely to make sure there isn't a micro-veneer layer, I found some "Russian Birch" that looked great, until I picked at the edge a bit and the veneer started flaking off.