Davids for Tom

[AntonZ]

We both got what we needed.

Looks to me like he gained more in weight than he lost in hair

(ducking for cover)

[publicIdaho]

[publicIdaho]

Another coat today after sanding with 320 grit paper. Really looking good, might be good enough for a kid that is getting pretty anxious to hear his speakers.

The haircut does not look too bad either.

[Bas Gooiker]

A beer, new speakers and a haircut... sounds like the perfect christmas to me...

Now stop tempting us and show off the end result.

[publicIdaho]

Sorry to take so long getting to the final result, but we had troubles.

I was re-finishing my old speakers too - they were a coat or two behind the Davids, but I got them to a point where I was satisfied and brought them home. The Davids had a little something or other that I was not quite happy with, so we sanded them down again and re-sprayed. They looked pretty good so they made the trip home Christmas eve. But when we looked at them under the different lights of the house, we saw a sag on one and orange peal on the other, so it was back to the shop for another sand and spray.

Christmas day and the results were worse.

At least we got the grill cloth mounted. Used the spray glue in a can "Really strong stuff."

Made sure to cut the excess off around the folds at the corners so that they did not have extra layers to make the corners thicker than the rest.

[publicIdaho]

Turned out fairly nice.

The trick with the magnets in the frame and a matching set of magnets inset on the back of the front panel is sweet. Definitely strong enough to hold the grills in place and not one hint of how they stick there.

Of course with the amount of lacquer and sanding that happened, probably overkill. I had so much lacquer on the cabinets that the #8 screw holes for the drivers were almost gone by the end, just showed as a small dimple actually, not a hole anymore.

[publicIdaho]

Dec 26th - sand, spray

Dec 27th - finally fed up with trying to spray at 40°F, and cleaned up a corner of the shop, cranked up the heat to 65°F and sprayed them again. First side or two, I got the weird wavey sort of sag that I associated with having to thin my lacquer too much and it just would not hold on a vertical surface. So I blew out my material hose, added just a little more straight lacquer to thicken it up and ended up with orange peal.



My son saw this smiley and asked why the guy was hitting the horse in the balls.

After 4 days of failure in the spray room, we were beginning to relate the feeling of bashed like that horse.

Dec 28th - looked over my rig after sanding out the mistakes of the day before. I found that the knob that adjusts the amount of pressure into the pot had moved. I never touch this knob and it had been cranked way up so that I probably had triple the pressure that I normally have pushing the material out the hose. It was a miracle I got anything close to reasonable with that setup.

Readjusted my pressure and finally put on a nice coat. (me) (my son)

Waited overnight and into the afternoon to let the finish set up a little. Came up with a good distraction for a young lad that has seen his Christmas present get delay after delay - loaded up the 4-wheelers and headed up the hill to find some snow to drive them around in. Great time but cut short when the transmission went out on one and we had to use the other one to tow it back to the trailer.

But a short day in the snow meant we came back a bit earlier to bring the speakers home!

Now it was time to assemble.
First was putting some gasket tape on the input cups.

[publicIdaho]

Then in went the woofers.

[publicIdaho]

Then some gasket tape on the inner access panel and then screw it in place.

[publicIdaho]

We found a stethoscope at an auto parts store that we used to listen for air leaks around the panel. Not a peep.

[publicIdaho]

More gasket tape on the outer panel.

[publicIdaho]

I put a tiny O-ring around the shaft of the black 8-32 screws used to tighten down the back panel.

[publicIdaho]

The O-rings start to bulge out when things are tight enough and they protect the finish from the screw. They might also help seal up any possible air leaks through the screw threads, if this is even a concern.

The finish looks very funny in this shot - mostly showing the dust.

[publicIdaho]

I removed the tape I had covered the inside lip of the outside access panel when I thought I was on my last coat, so when many more coats were added after that, I ended up with lots of gunk in the lip. Did not realize this until I was putting in the panels, which was a pain because I also painted over my marks showing which panel was fitted where.

Not very happy with how the back panels fit, but no air leaks.

Might see if the boy wants to go back and try to improve on this, but after all the delays with the finish, we were not stopping here.

[publicIdaho]

On to stuffing the MTM section.