Finished my first Jack 110.Pants exploded, socks knocked off

[kynetx]

After two weeks and a ton of sawdust my first of two Jacks is complete.

When I first got done with the sawdust I was so excited I grabbed the guts out of a 2x10 cabinet to make some noise. I used a Bugera aluminum cone driver and a compression horn. Big mistake. It sounded like fried hell.
I was quite discouraged, but I did a little bit of research and discovered that the necessary T/S parameters of the recommended drivers aren't just important, they are critical. Still being on the fence about continuing I dropped the cash and bought the melded array kit from Leland with the 2510 driver. At first I cobbled together the crossover kit and after a restless night of contemplating where I might have screwed up I grabbed a couple of resin boards and built them using better techniques. Even after a second attempt, I have to say that the fabbing of the crossover(s) was easily the most intellectually challenging aspect of the build. If you have the means, I think buying the pre-assembled crossover would be the way to go.
The melded array was tricky too, but a lot of the difficulty comes from doing it for the first time. I was afraid of having the saw blade high enough to cut into the screw lugs on the driver so close to my fretters and pluckers, so I used a rasp and sandpaper to file them down. Model glue wasn't all that great for joining the HF horns so I whipped up a couple batches of JB-Weld that I had sitting around. I worked really well and filled a lot of the leftover gaps from where I screwed up. On the front I used some of the leftover bondo to take care of the rest of the voids. I filled all but the four corner holes, but later drilled them all out when I mounted the array in the cab. I have an unnatural fetish for nickel-plated machine screws on black material so I went with that after painting the assembly with Valspar premium latex. It was brushed on, so careful application with a 1" chip brush allowed me to get into the horn throats without having paint drip into the drivers.
I like the look of carpet, so I bought about 2 LF of grey indoor/outdoor carpet from Lowe's and used common contact cement for the adhesive.
For dampening I used what I could find - a couple LF of carpet padding, also from Lowe's.
I finished it off with the Penn-Elcomm corners and rubber feet from Speaker Hardware. Even though I'm really happy with how the carpet came out, I figured the corners would do a good job of protecting them.

After touching up the paint on the wood used for mounting the melded array I loaded up Dire Strait's Money for Nothing (the proper version with the extended intro) and played with a little eq'ing before letting it stretch its legs. Happy with a decent sound I backed up to the beginning and let 'er rip.

It started with the iconic Terry Williams drum solo, keys and Sting's "I want my..." lyrics coming through clean and clear. As the intro crescendo'd with the drums and synth part building I really noticed the punch of the toms and snare driving through the mix with very little coloring. It finally built into Mark Knopfler's guitar part, and when the bass came in I was floored. I was not expecting that much bottom end out of a single 10". My housemate came into the garage to find out what was going on. She's a drummer and I know she loves this song. With a little encouragement I turned up the volume some more... and then some more, cringing internally, waiting for distortion or cone slap. It never came and I ran out of courage before I ran out of power.
The HF dispersion was every bit as good as advertised. It's just so... clean. Almost as good as the studio monitors I was using on my computer, but with an actual bottom end.

What a feeling. A speaker I had built sounded sooo good. I ran it through its paces, playing Extreme, Gorillaz, Gnarls Barkley and even some Sir Mix-a-lot. The bottom end was astounding. When BF says it's full range - it really is. For a DJ gig with a lot of hip-hop they will probably benefit from a T39 or two, but as concert mains they are powerful enough.

I won't lie. It was a tough build, made tougher by my anxiousness and by missing details in the plan. I had a lot of trouble with the panel jig that plagued me later on, but I've since fixed it. My next Jack will be better and easier and I'm really looking forward to it.

[LelandCrooks]

Nice cab. Good work.

[bitSmasher]

You owe it to yourself to post up some better pictures of the cab, let us see the details in all their glory...

[Rickisan]

Loved it when you said this part...

With a little encouragement I turned up the volume some more... and then some more, cringing internally, waiting for distortion or cone slap. It never came and I ran out of courage before I ran out of power.

[Tom Smit]

Very good sir!

[kynetx]

Thanks! You guys are too kind.

Really. WAY too kind.

Here are some better pictures, though the flash does reveal some flaws.

Thankfully, carpeting hides a multitude of sins.

[Harley]

Here are some better pictures, though the flash does reveal some flaws. .

The biggest critic of your work always tends to be yourself. That goes for just about everybody

They look fine to me considering they are your first BFM cabs

I am glad they turned out to be the tone monsters I told you they would.

[kynetx]

Here are some better pictures, though the flash does reveal some flaws. .

The biggest critic of your work always tends to be yourself. That goes for just about everybody

They look fine to me considering they are your first BFM cabs

I am glad they turned out to be the tone monsters I told you they would.

Oh god. I took it to practice today and let it stretch its legs. First I played some music and then hooked my bass up to it. It took a bit to get used to since we expect a bucket full of harmonic information with traditional bass cabs. I dialed in a lot of midrange and then tweaked it little by little. My bass' tone nobs never did much till now. The tone was so awesome. Lots of growl. I could have dialed in some more low end if I wanted, but I was really enjoying the midbass. Playing with the EQ on my preamp (Presonus Studio Channel) I dialed in some low end once in a while and no matter how much I turned it up, the excursion on the cone was never more than a couple of millimeters max. From that it seems clear that there is a LOT more headroom in this thing. I think it'd be possible to bridge my amp (Peavey PV8.5C, 1000 or so watts) and use this single Jack for a gig if I needed to.
Thanks for the recommendation Harley, this thing is a bass monster. The tone was soooo sweet.

The goal is to build one cab per payday. This Friday is the second Jack, and then I start building a pair of T39s. Once we get the Jacks and T39s built the guitar player and I will go direct into the PA, no cabs. The drummer is considering going to an all-electronic setup or mesh heads with triggers. We'll save so much space on stage and in the truck(s).