Things that go boom

[himhimself]

Well crud Rich, Bill. Good advice a little too late. Oh well, access holes are cut on the initial sides. I remembered hating that step first time around - no different to start this time. Clamped down my jig and went to do the first cut, and of course it decided to wander on me. Probably due to my cheesy circular saw that doesn't have a super sturdy frame, as well as doing the plunge to full depth to start. Got my bearings and the rest of the cuts went fine. I'd only drop the blade a bit at a time and make repeated passes. Much better. Brand new 150t blade was already burning the wood. Baltic is pretty stout stuff. One thing I did different this time was to drill tiny holes through at the corners, then trace the outline on the outside, since the undersides of the cuts can be a little jagged. Worked fine. I knew that warbly first cut would drive me nuts down the road, so I dug up a strip of 1/2" from the scrap pile and glued it to the side. Will go back and trim that cut again so it looks straight, as well as straighten up the matching edge on the access panel. Annoyed enough with myself to call it a day...

[himhimself]

Couple photos...

[himhimself]

Should be good enough that a little filler and duratex can camouflage my oops fairly well.

[Bruce Weldy]

I don't see the "oops".

[Bruce Weldy]

I don't see the "oops".

Oh wait, now I do....

[himhimself]

Well, if it took two looks for you Bruce, I'm considering it a success.
Got the flanges installed today. Was going to do the one-piece version, but that sure wastes a bunch of wood. Since I have tons of 6-ply 5/16" baltic (~8" wide pieces, 2-4' long), I ripped 1 1/4" strips, then did a two-layer flange, alternating which sides were the long ones. All glued up, basically gives me a 12-layer 5/8" flange which should be really sturdy. And will give me alignment help when the first inner panels go on.

[Seth]

That will completely vanish with a little filler and sandpaper.

[himhimself]

Had a few minutes of sunlight this evening so got panels 1, 2 and 3 cut. I used the circular saw sled this time instead of the table saw jig thing. I think it actually went faster this way and panels look perfectly square. Using the last of my Menards baltic pieces that I picked up for under 2 bucks each. They are an exact 20" square and dead flat, so that makes things easy too. I had a couple strips of the 5/16" baltic that I used for the flanges left over, so glued them together and will cut out the driver blocks from that. Marked center on the panel 3's, so will did out the router and cut the driver holes later this week.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

A circular saw and sled works best cutting out large parts from a large sheet of plywood, table saw and jig works best cutting out smaller parts from small pieces of plywood. I usually cut the panels a bit large with the circular saw, then trim them to finished size on the table saw.

[himhimself]

Slowly moving forward. Made this cheesy hole cutting jig ages ago for some random project. Figured I would make a nice one or buy one at some point, yet here I am still making perfect circles with the original. Both driver holes cut out - 10 15/16 for the 3012lf’s.

[himhimself]

Driver screw retention blocks glued up last night. Will try to test fit the drivers and maybe start panel assembly today.

[himhimself]

Hmm, photo didn’t attach to previous post...

[himhimself]

Panels 1 and 2 assembled

[himhimself]

Soooooo much easier having installed the flanges from the start. I remember fiddling with getting panel 1 on with my first two T30s. This was a piece of cake. I used an unconventional assembly table - had four big tires from the truck stacked up that worked great. Could easily slide the side around to put screws in from underneath. Used a few 23g pins to hold stuff so it didn't slid around in the PL before driving the screws. I like them better than the 18g. If a little off, you can still move the panels a little if needed. Flanges made it easy to clamp a square on to keep things straight. That's probably it for today, but at this rate, I should be done before July

[himhimself]

Makes me smile just thinking about what 4 of these will sound (feel) like...