BillFitzmaurice.info

Drey Chennells wrote:Very nice work and documentation. Respect.

+1

DaveK wrote:The solution to your top-hat dilemma is to get two fixed hats from Leland and mount them in the other two cabs at the balance point. Then you put those on the bottom when stacking straight.

I finally got around to doing something about this great suggestion! Not finished yet, but I got the openings done today. Going to reach inside and do a little painting before installing the tophats so that I can't see bare wood through the port holes anymore.

Jig in place and ready for the router...


The hole on left is where the router slipped and went too deep, but it didn't go all the way through, so harm done...


My hole saw wasn't quite deep enough, so I had to go as deep as I could with it, and then I used the jigsaw to finish it off...

I was planning on recessing my tophats, but got kind of nervous about only 1/4" of ply holding all that weight.

I used the plastic corners, so even though the tophats stick out, they stack fine.

bzb wrote:I was planning on recessing my tophats, but got kind of nervous about only 1/4" of ply holding all that weight.

I will be reinforcing the routed area with a piece of 1/2" ply on the inside of the cab before installing the hats.

David Carter wrote:

bzb wrote:I was planning on recessing my tophats, but got kind of nervous about only 1/4" of ply holding all that weight.

I will be reinforcing the routed area with a piece of 1/2" ply on the inside of the cab before installing the hats.

+1

I laminated the access door with the top hat. The other side goes into the baffle...and that is about the strongest point on a DR.

--Stan Graves

Good idea. I guess once I put the grills on my OT12s I can do the same.

Finished up the tophats. Haven't pole mounted them yet to test, but they should be just fine. Tested for leaks, and all is well. I purposely cut the hole slightly larger than needed in order to allow a little wiggle room in case it wasn't perfectly centered, but I put gasket tape on the underside of the tophat to seal the gap.

Here's one of the access covers laminated with extra layer of 1/2" ply...


And the final result...

Looks good. Seeing the hat makes me think of stands.

Word of advice that's semi related. Do NOT buy the cheap model dayton speaker stands. I bought a pair a long time ago as a spare set for the rental store and used them last night for the first time. They barely hold a pair of 250's. Scared me to death. I gave them to the band after the show to use for their small light setup.

quick question dave. How did you go about rolling your duratex? I've applied coats with a normal foam roller, and the textured one from leland, and mine looks a lot.... "sharper" than yours hahahaha. As in, you could like skin your knee on sharp. I really like the look of those cabs.

LelandCrooks wrote:Looks good. Seeing the hat makes me think of stands.

Word of advice that's semi related. Do NOT buy the cheap model dayton speaker stands. I bought a pair a long time ago as a spare set for the rental store and used them last night for the first time. They barely hold a pair of 250's. Scared me to death. I gave them to the band after the show to use for their small light setup.

I don't know what brand mine are, but I've stacked a pair of DR200's on one of them when testing the adjustable hat, and they seem sturdy. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

sine143 wrote:quick question dave. How did you go about rolling your duratex? I've applied coats with a normal foam roller, and the textured one from leland, and mine looks a lot.... "sharper" than yours hahahaha. As in, you could like skin your knee on sharp. I really like the look of those cabs.

I use a regular 3/8" nap paint roller to roll on a coat of flat black acrylic paint as a primer. Then I roll on the Duratex with the textured roller from Acrytech (which Leland now stocks also). One of the things you have to do is roll it on and leave it alone. The more you keep rolling over the stuff that's already been applied, the more you'll end up with a very fine sandpaper-like texture. To get more of the orange peel type texture, you need to roll on a fairly heavy coat and let it be.

David Carter wrote: One of the things you have to do is roll it on and leave it alone. The more you keep rolling over the stuff that's already been applied, the more you'll end up with a very fine sandpaper-like texture. To get more of the orange peel type texture, you need to roll on a fairly heavy coat and let it be.

That is true.

Also, if you apply it outside on a hot day in sunlight, it'll dry so fast you almost can't help getting the sandpaper affect on large panels.

That's exactly what I did with mine - I'll have to post some pictures.

Did you have to notch the back of the driver horn? or are you hats not that deep?

Chris_Allen wrote:Did you have to notch the back of the driver horn? or are you hats not that deep?

Nope. They're not that deep. I was afraid I would have to, but it wasn't an issue. I got them from Leland.

I repositioned the crossover so I could have one pair of DR200's with hats in both sides - this was so I could stack them using a short piece of 35mm connecting pole.