T48 Build Thread

[sine143]

The lab15 only weigs 10lbs but get er in there and after your 4th or fifth trip up stairs you'll swear its 200

[Bruce Weldy]

The lab15 only weigs 10lbs but get er in there and after your 4th or fifth trip up stairs you'll swear its 200

We don't do stairs in Texas. We got enough room to put everything on the ground.

[miked]

The 6/10 braces seem like such a simple thing, even when test-fitting them, TO INCLUDE PREDRILLING AND INSERTING THE SCREWS. But nooooooooooooo. Something's got to go wrong. Not a big deal, but still a PITA.

The final 3 cabs were finished up without fanfare. But of course, the FIRST one I put the braces in just had to be a jerk about it. I will have a lot of work to do w/the angle grinder to cut off the brads that didn't want to seat properly while securing the tops of the braces. And then the horizontal brace split on the end. WTF??? I predrilled it. Then I put the screws all the way in on both ends. Removed it all, PL'd it and put the screws in and it split. REALLY?

So here we see my submission for "Best Use Of A $1.00 Spring Clamp." There is a lot of PL in the split. I am confident it will seal up just fine. But still...why ya gotta go do that in the first place?



The other 3 cabs were completed w/o incident. Here we see an overall picture of The Four Horsemen. I will attempt to extract every last db out of these cabs. They will deliver or disintegrate trying. For all the effort I've extended, I'll accept nothing less.


Some general pics of the cabs.


Because I chose to put handle holes at the front edges of the bottom, this made installing the 6/10 braces a little more challenging. All the brace bottoms' had to clear the handle holes. Here's a general representationj of what that looked like. I used a chisel as a straightedge. You can see the clearance.


Other pics.




Finally; see all the screws in that second side? The finishing work has been on my mind since I started cutting wood for this project. I learned a hard lesson with my 4 OTops. Bascially, the finish work will take you twice as long as you thought it would b/c you'll have to patch/sand/repatch sand before you get an acceptable surface. This is one side. Times four cabs equals 8 sides. PLUS the tops and bottoms. Oh, this is gonna be fun!!!


Tomorrow I will scrape the PL from the 6/10 braces, remove the 2nd side screws and hopefully get started truing/rounding the edges of the cabs. Thanks for looking!

[Rune Bivrin]

Oh No!!! Not the faces again. The handholds are staring at me!

This is one of the very rare cases when a LOL is literally correct. People stared at me as I was quietly sitting at the bus stop reading an obscure forum for geeks, then suddenly laughing uncontrollably.

[Harley]

Having witnessed it first hand, I'd say it's the cleanest garage (that gets used as a shop) that I've ever seen.

So, I'd like to officially nominate the shop of Miked for a Harley......

Done!

To Mikey

[Titanium Hand]

I'm with you MikeD, finishing off cabs, OUCH! Soo many screw holes to fill and so little time. They look great though

[miked]

Wow, awesome! Thanks very much Harley! I really appreciate the honor.

Now let's hope my finishing skills are up to the task. Not looking forward to scraping the PL off the 6/10 braces...so many angles to get into, etc. I sorta feel like at this point w/PL scraping. I'll get that done today, though. There just seems to be no neat way of getting that horizontal brace in there. It's 23" wide and the space it needs to go into is 23" wide. The PL all gets scraped off before it gets to it's resting place. But I slathered a bunch on there...which of course, makes my scraping job more difficult. /facepalm

More later. Thanks again, Harley!

[Rich4349]

I've penciled in lines on the panels marking where the braces will end up (all four sides of the brace) and applied a SMALL amount of PL there ahead of time, as well as applying it to the brace itself. The PL on the panel acts as a lubricant, and reduces how much / how fast the brace's PL gets scraped off.

[Bruce Weldy]

Shoot 4 brads in from the side along with the PL....it ain't goin' anywhere.

[Grant Bunter]

Wow, awesome! Thanks very much Harley! I really appreciate the honor.

Woohoo well done Mike, haven't seen a Harley 5 for a good while.

There just seems to be no neat way of getting that horizontal brace in there. It's 23" wide and the space it needs to go into is 23" wide. The PL all gets scraped off before it gets to it's resting place.

Errr if you put it in before you put side 2 on, it's not messy at all...

[miked]

Got the PL scraped off the braces. What a PITA that was. I really made a mess with the PL and gouged quite a bit of wood out trying to scrape it off. We all know "Duratex hides a multitude of sins." I will be testing that theory to the max. LOL! With a thick coat of primer and hopefully two good coats of DTex, they will look just dandy.







One of the cleaner "PL removal shots." Other areas don't quite look this good. /whistling


I think I scraped off more PL than is actually holding the braces in there.


The rest of the build will be on hold for a few days as I've got a lot going on. I wanted to have the edges trued and rounded by this point, but it wasn't to be. I need to remember to get the access cover holes drilled before I go any further too. See you guys in a few days. Thanks for looking.

[David Raehn]

Beautiful! Enjoy a couple days away from them!

[doncolga]

Very nice job!

[hifibob]

Them pics look sexy mike! Do you scrape your PL once fully dried?

[miked]

Thanks guys. I TRY to scrape the PL after 18-24 hours of application. At that point it is almost fully-cured, but not rock-hard yet. However, the time varies b/c of the variable heat and humidity in my garage. It could be 86F/45% humidity or it could be 102F/20% humidity. It's a total crapshoot, unfortunately. But still, better than building them in my kitchen, which is what I used to have to do.

I will get the edges trued and rounded over today/tmrw. I still have a bit of PL scraping to do on the 6/10 braces as I wasn't as meticulous (read: sober) as I should've been the first time around.
I don't ever drink and power tools, but PL scraping/painting...different animal, you know. After that comes a whole lot of filling/sanding/repeat.

After I get the edges done and access cover holes drilled, I will leak test with the covers off. I am not too worried about the access cover leaking. The rear panel on my OTops is almost twice the size of these access covers and they don't leak. Two rows or gasket tape, etc.