BillFitzmaurice.info

My ex-wife can't figure out how to use a can opener. That's one of the reasons why she's my ex-wife.

Got all the panels sized and bevels cut. Been slowly threading this construction through all that's going on lately as I don't get much time to crack into shop projects much these days.

The lion's share of braces all trimmed to the layout lines. This weekend was spent diving into the baffles...starting with the spacers. Only hiccup was on the third spacer (see the close-up), I started to cut with the Jasper jig in the wrong hole. Luckily it wasn't too far off the mark, was a first pass cut, and I caught it early enough. Sandwiched between panel #2, this will be an easy recovery with a touch of Bondo and light sanding. Driver cut-outs in the baffles up next, glue the spacers down, and onwards to the drill press for the fastener holes.

I have been privileged to see a fair amount of Radian’s work in person. It is refreshing to watch his attention to detain. His careful and deliberate approach to these builds is inspiring.

It is nice to see him make an error every now and again, makes me feel more normal.

I am excited to see these subs in action. I wish that those drivers were still in production.

ACUA wrote: ↑Mon Feb 28, 2022 8:54 am
It is nice to see him make an error every now and again, makes me feel more normal.

The mark of a craftsman isn't that he never makes a mistake, but rather that he can fix the mistake without you knowing it.

Slow going, but the baffles are where attention to the details really count, in my experience. Here I've located, centered, and glued the spacers down in one step using using a trio of long shank pocket hole screws, cut so as not to protrude all the way through the baffle.

Spacers cured in place, I remove the screws. The holes located such that they won't interfere with the driver gasket surface and driver bolt circle.

In hindsight, CNC'ing the spacers would have made short work of the bolt-circle layout process, but I did it manually. I needed to get the drivers centered as perfectly as possible, because there's only 2-3mm allowance of the inner diameter for placement. Too far off-center, and the thinnest portions of the driver gasket near the the bolt holes won't have any material to support them, thus likely to leak.....which would be unacceptable.

View of the driver in place, from the throat side of the baffle. Looks right at home.

Inner panels and baffles for four slim cabs. 3 hours at the drill press got the bolt-circles correctly located, piloted, and prepped (counter bored and countersunk) to accept H-nuts. All the while remaining perfectly square, so that the nearly 8 cm long bolts actually thread into their respective nuts on the other side of all that spacer material. Lighter spots of color are some IP dimensions I fuzzed over.

Ahhh...Money shot of the dreaded H-nut. Repeatable 2000 lbf clamping load for any Eminence 8-bolt 10 inch driver for years to come. Another 3 hours in the shop mixing epoxy and squeezing everything into place with the arbor press. The trick being, to keep the epoxy out of the threads at all cost.

Messy and a complete PITA to get right, but soooo worth it my book. Baffles done, onwards to dry-fitting cab #1...

Beautiful!
I chase my threads with a tap to clean them up after epoxy, coz i'm MESSY!

Looks good.

Man this looks awesome!

I’ve built 4 T48’s at 18” with 3015s. You’ll love the build and the result! They have quickly become my go to boxes. Easy to store, transport, and deploy. Sound incredible and provide surprising output, especially in a herd!