T48 Build Thread

[miked]

Got the mouths/bottoms painted. I gave it a nice, heavy coat, so this should do it (for primer in these areas).

Before starting to paint, I had to make sure the drivers were protected and the driver chamber stayed clean. OCD to the rescue!!! I did all the cabs like this.


And many hours of painting later...here's one cab...they all look like this so just these shots for now. When they are totally primed I'll get a shot of the whole herd.



AFA Duratexing goes, for the front of the cab I am planning on ONLY DTexing panel 5/6 and the 6/10 braces. What do you think about that? If I was spraying it would be a non-issue, but I'm not spraying. If I wind up DTexing the bottom panel and the sides, I won't have to worry too much about coverage as I did a good job with the primer. There's no bare wood anywhere visible. Not even a dot.

I didn't get a shot of all my gear the other day, so here's one. The amp rack you've seen already. On top of that is a Berry 2442 analog mixer. It works just fine. Berry dual-31 band EQ underneath the mixer. I have Gemini rackmount single CD player that will go under the EQ...it's in another rack ATM. On the right is an American Audio SDJ-2. It plays/mixes MP3s off SD cards. It holds two 16GB SD cards and the middle USB slot can read either a thumb drive or a USB card reader...so 48GB worth of music on 3 cards. The only catch is that it ONLY reads MP3s. NO .WAV files, .ogg or anything else. Between the CD player and the MP3 deck I've got it covered. Plus I have cables to plug in someone's iPOD or whatever into the mixer.

[miked]

First primer coat is on! Sorrry for the lousy pics. Black cabs don't photograph well in a brightly lit garage at night. But the cabs actually LOOK like cabs now. I'm getting excited!








I'd like to say I'm starting the Duratex tomorrow, but there's still a lot of grain showing through the primer...at least it's too much for me. I have 1 brand new gallon of DTex and about 1/3rd leftover from my OTop build. I have not opened that older container though. I am assuming it is fine, but you never know. 1 gallon will give a heavy coat to 4 T48's for sure, but I don't want to risk any coverage issues. I have plenty of primer left. I think I will give the cabs another coat before hitting them with the DTex.

What are your thoughts on DTex for the mouth area? Should I DTex the whole thing, all the way back to include panel 11?

[Tom Smit]

Duratex all the way to the back, gets my vote.

[LelandCrooks]

+1

[Bruce Weldy]

Duratex all the way to the back, gets my vote.

Yep

[miked]

Thanks guys. Guess I've got a lot more painting to do. No point in half-assing it on the finishing steps, right? Another coat of primer should get them sealed up nicely. Then a thick coat of DTex and I'm ready to rock!

[frpcraig]

Crikey you are patient Miked!

[miked]

Crikey you are patient Miked!

I can be, when I need to be. My rig has been two years in the making and I'm really not on a timetable to get these finished. I'm hoping to possibly gets some Christmas Party type gigs come the end of the year...I'm pretty sure they'll be done by then. LOL! I figure another week, tops, TBH. The terminal cups are already wired, I have gasket tape on-hand, corners and wheels too. Just need to get the finish, finished.

[DJPhatman]

Don't worry about hiding the grain pattern with your primer paint, Mike. The Duratex will take care of that. Make sure the glued joints are nicely covered, as DuraTex does not like PL.

Paint the exteriors first. Paint the insides if you have enough DuraTex left over.

[miked]

I got a second coat of primer on all the cabs. Doing the mouths and the 6/10 braces takes longer than doing the whole rest of the cab! I think they look much better than last night. The color is much more even across the entire cab(s), which will help the Duratex look even better. They will dry until tomorrow, then it's Duratex time!

[Grant Bunter]

Looking smick already

[miked]

Thank you, Grant. Now the fun of how to DTex the bottoms, without scuffing up the rest of the cab can begin! When it's a bare cab, you don't care which way you flip it or drag it across the floor. But now I'm afraid to move them.

[Grant Bunter]

I laid my cabs on one of the sides.
On your dollies, that lets you do the bottom, the side you can see, the top, and most of the front and back (except perhaps near the side on the bottom).
And lets you decide about a second coat, though I don't think you'll need that.
This way the cabs are more than 80% done in one position.

Hope that's useful...

[LelandCrooks]

http://www.painterspyramid.com/

[miked]

http://www.painterspyramid.com/

Those are cool. Similar in concept to "Bench Dogs", (I think that's the name)> Those round, hockey-puck things.

The primered cabs dried very nicely overnight. But something didn't "feel" right. So I start looking around and there are my four, lovely, unpainted access covers, staring at me with that "You don't love us" look. How did I forget to paint them. UGH. Primer dries quickly, so I can get a couple of coats on them in the next couple of hours.

It is hot in that garage with no fan on. I have a big box fan that helps w/the heat, but you can't have dust blowing around when you're painting. Ah, the sacrifices we make for our craft! Oh well. All the sweating keeps me thin...ish.