2 x T30 Slim Build Log

[Grant Bunter]

I will say it again, same as the other thread.

I simply cannot get BB locally and got about half my pine ply for almost nothing.
I can't compare to a BB build, as I haven't done one, but I can read and it seems that:
Pine ply is more likely to warp than BB, so you may have to make more use of straightening boards, and that is my experience with this product.
Most say BB cuts better. I say Pine ply doesn't chip out on the edges when you put a saw through it.

Really, that covers the differences.
You might be used to seeing a larger number of plies in BB, so, in pine you want a minimum of 5 even plies (you can find 12mm 3 ply, so that would be a no no), it will be unusual to see more than 5 ply in 12mm.

Hope this helps...

[escapemcp]

Many thanks, indeed it does Off to the lumber yard I go...

[escapemcp]

Slight delay on the lumber yard visit <AGAIN!!!

Thought I needed 3 8x4 sheets and wasn't even going to check with our old friend cutlist... I did a back of a fag packet calculation and figured I needed at least 2 1/2 sheets. SO glad I did check though... I only needed 2 sheets AND still got almost 1/3 of a sheet left!! Cannot believe how far off my estimation was.

Moral of story: USE CUTLIST, save POUND/DOLLAR/EUROS/YEN/KWATCHA

[escapemcp]

OK, getting back up to speed. Drivers being broken in.

Flanges being installed today. It's SO much easier to do these as soon as you have panels 1-4 installed (and Lab 12 reducer panels if required)), rather than toward the end of the build when access is much tighter. This is also a bonus as I only have a few bits of ply left and the flanges can be teased out of these bits of 'scrap' wood. Tomorrow I will be off to get just 2 sheets (thanks Cutlist!) of Pine from the lumberyard With no work and nothing other than speaker building to do, I'm going to be like a pig in shit over the next few weeks! Expect fast progress... unless...

[escapemcp]

Major disaster!

Went along to the lumber yard where I got my beautiful 9 ply 8x4 BB from last time, but as they had none of this in stock atm, I was going to opt for pine ply instead. I thought it actually might be quite interesting to build with another type of wood, so that I could compare the differences. When I got there I was told that they had 2 types of ply, Elliotis and Radiata. They then took me into their warehouse:


Gettin' wood??

They showed me to the 2 types of pine ply, and the Elliotis was a C-grade face with lots knots all over it. It looked very much like someones wood that I have seen on a build thread on here (can't remember which/who's though). They then showed me to the Radiata pine, which seemed to look good and I've heard of Radiata pine and people using it on here (I think), so I opted for the Radiata.

When I got it chopped up, I noticed that I had forgotten the golden rule (5+ plies (ok) WITH NO THIN VENEER (DOH! )). When I had looked at the plies when the wood was on the stack, it had some green paint on the edge, which prevented me from seeing the plies... I should have still checked, but for whatever reason I didn't after not liking the Elliotis (which I think was actually the stuff I should have bought!).

Got home, pissed off and decided to see what it was like... shit is the nice way to put it. Holes in the ply, veneer face is stuck on with white spirit. Oh dear! Thought I'd try making panel 8 and seeing how it went. It wasn't the prettiest sight by a long way, but I made it happen. I then got called up to play skittles down the pub, so out I went.

A new day brings new hope. I DO have shit wood, but my panel 8 from last night is sounding just as structural as the BB. If I give it a knock below the brace, it sounds very sturdy. I therefore figure that I am stuck with the pine (well, poplar actually... pine is just the veneer!! ), so I might as well just get on with it and see how good I can actually make this bad situation. Thinking back (6 months) my first sub was out of rubbish veneer stuff, and it rocks, so why shouldn't this one be any different. I know the weaknesses of this wood, so I'll just attempt to engineer my way out of the problem (screws and glues - although the screws sometimes don't bite due to the separation of the plies! ). I am actually building these thinking that they may well get replaced after a year of 2 (as this wood will not take the sort of beating that these cabs will probably have to endure). I've even already imagined a whole cab (unloaded) sitting on a bonfire with flames licking around the base of it! By the time I build my 5th and 6th cabs, my builds will be looking a whole lot more tidy... my 1st cab was my first ever woodworking, so I consider these cabs 'learning'.

Anyway... here's the green stuff that made me miss the veneer check (still not quite sure how I missed it ) and a nice void in the ply.

Note: the nice looking bit of wood is a bit of my old BB... you can see the difference just from a pic!! The BB is there to provide extra support for my castors which get attached to panel 10 (the back) and the whole things is rolled around with the mouth facing upwards.
Before I got started I made myself a 15" jig as I don't have a tablesaw to cut all pieces to the correct width, and my saw sled is only 30" long. I chopped off a straight edge from the new ply and made the jig:

The wood to be chopped goes in (like the bit laying left to right in this pic) and I run the saw along the edge of the 'guide' wood (which has 2 screws in to hold the bit of wood you are cutting to length). I made 'end-stops' from a couple of bits of scrap BB.

Using this jig I have been ripping through the build, even with shit wood. I am now nowhere near as off as I was yesterday and I am now seeing it more of a challenge than an obstacle - hey, it's the only sensible way to deal with all the bad things in life

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.

So ex-prez saying it is actually BETTER that I have got this shit wood and I'll get more reward from knowing I triumphed over adversity (of the shit wood) It's all about your perception of where you are at, rather than where you are actually at!

So, this is where I am at:

Pretty well much built the first one... just panel 13 to cut & install, the 12/6 (mouth) brace to install and then the side to put on. Obviously it is actually more than this if I start including Speakons, castor cutouts (I do not actually have the castors for these subs yet, but I do have them installed on the other 2 subs, so I can use those for templates) and Duratexing the mouth... oh and handles... and there is probably other stuff I have forgotten.

The sharp eyed among you might have noticed that I have overshot on all the sides. The router and his flush-trim bit will be bought into service to tidy those up. It seemed a more sensible way to do it than cutting it and then realizing you had cut it a mm or 2 short as I did last time... it needs quite a bit of work with a sander to get it all even again. I did mean to cut panel 12 to length, as I won't be able to use the flush-trim bit on the mouth bit, but forgot, so I'm yet to work out how to do that (probably in a similar fashion to how panel 7 is chopped once the second side is on).

OK, break time over... back to garage... more later.

[Radian]

The sharp eyed among you might have noticed that I have overshot on all the sides. The router and his flush-trim bit will be bought into service to tidy those up. It seemed a more sensible way to do it than cutting it and then realizing you had cut it a mm or 2 short as I did last time... it needs quite a bit of work with a sander to get it all even again. I did mean to cut panel 12 to length, as I won't be able to use the flush-trim bit on the mouth bit, but forgot, so I'm yet to work out how to do that (probably in a similar fashion to how panel 7 is chopped once the second side is on).

The old plans from circa 2006 actually recommended this practice of overshooting all the external cuts from dimension by just a tad, then coming back and flush trimming everything in the end. I really liked the idea, and it makes for a very polished look so long as you have a router or belt sander handy.

[escapemcp]

Minor update:

Fiddled around with all the gubbins hidden behind panel 13. Cut the 2 holes for the speakons and attached my castor reinforcement blocks. I noticed a problem though - can you spot what is wrong from this photo:



OK, it's hard to see because of the light, but I have attached 2 of the blocks (behind panel 11) to the rear of the cab, but the other 2 behind panel 13 are attached to the base (the clue was on the 'to do' list written on the back of the cab - top of the list "Reinforcement for castors" ) No bother, I will attach another couple of blocks tomorrow and just leave the wrong ones in position... they shouldn't cause any issues (although I know at some point they will )

I had a great idea after finding my 15" jig incredibly handy and a massive timesaver. Tomorrow I am going to build a right angle jig, so that all my cuts will be a true right angle. It will reuse most of my 15" jig (once I have cut all the panels to the right width) and it will work for both straight AND angled cuts... I can already see it being a(nother) massive timesaver. I now totally get why the experienced guys on here always make a jig for everything. I'll post pics tomorrow once I get it completed (should only take half an hour... most of that will be doing test cuts to ensure I am bang on 90.0° (which is as accurate as my angle-o-meter runs). Then I will have the next cab done in record time.

Off to sleep now... a good day's building. Today I have completed:

• Panel 9
  Panel 10
  Panel 11
  10/2 Brace
  Panel 12
  Speaker cable attachment and Speakon wiring

Happy

[escapemcp]

Oh, a quick one that I have thought about every day on the build, but keep forgetting to ask you guys:
If I'm using tee nuts, should I drive the driver (!) home so that the gasket is fully compressed and that the frame is hard up against the wood (as I have been doing), or should I leave some slack? If so, how much?
Thanking you for you advice as always

[LelandCrooks]

Depends on the gasket. If its compressible all the way.

[escapemcp]

Depends on the gasket. If its compressible all the way.

It is (lab12). Thanks Leland

[escapemcp]

Update for yesterday:
Fiddled around yesterday and discovered that my shit wood will not take duratex! The surface layer just crinkles up like a wet newspaper. Also discovered that some of it was like that before the duratex even went on!

I therefore decided that the surface layer had to be sanded off... I spent best part of an hour sanding down one side of the T30 and testing with Duratex before I eventually got pissed off with it, downed tools and went to the pub for the rest of the day. At least the Duratex now takes to the wood ok:


Today
Decided to not worry about the shit veneer for now and just get on with the build. Chopped up most of my wood into 15" strips, so I could tear down the 15" jig and make a right-angled one. This was the result:

I run the saw along the edge of the long bit of wood, and my cutline is exactly 4 1/2" beyond the wood.
Annoyingly I build the right-angle jig to accept my 15" strips of wood... when the main reason I wanted to get it build today was to cut the 30x30 sides to size Decided that for only 3 sides, it was easier to just ensure an accurate cut and flush trim the others to size. This worked well Now that I had my sides, I could draw out the horn on the panel. This I had to do twice as I initially forgot that I build the second cabs in reverse (left is right and right is left) This is so that the access panels for both cabs can be on the same side (top or bottom) when in V-plate formation, rather than one up, one down.
Once this had been done correctly, I drilled the pilot holes through all 3 sides - I didn't do this earlier as I was fast running out of BB and only had enough for one side plus the internal panels.
After a bit of messing around with warped wood , I installed the 6/12 brace to hold everything in place. I also installed a few strips of BB in the horn, as I don't entirely trust this wood I have bought - attaching the BB to the inside edges of the outer panels ensured that a) the wood would be secure as I could drive holes through it into BB and, b) that I could roundover without any screws being in the way, as all my screws are now at least 1/2" back from the edges. I couldn't just use this 'small strips of wood' method for the mouth as it would look ugly, but I am thinking of using quarter rounds to do the same job. I'll get photos of this tomorrow, so that you can see what I am on about.
With all this fiddling I could then check to see if everything in the build lines up as I test fitted the final side. As with the previous build, everything was good (dunno how! )... this is always the point in the build I worry about, but I needn't have I attached a few screws, turned the cab upright and took some money shots:

Note the pre-installed flanges... was a nice sight seeing them in there all ready to accept an access cover
That's about it for today... I have a feeling tomorrow will be a good day with the final side going on... the day after, even better

[Tom Smit]

Good progress!

[escapemcp]

Good progress!

Thanks

Today's Efforts
First thing on the list today was to take photos that I forgot to take yesterday. These are my reinforcements because the new wood is SO awful:

I have attached these with glue and screws. Now when I attach the side I have something robust to screw into (the crap wood doesn't grip screws with any strength before giving way! ) It also means that I do not have to worry about the screws when I am rounding over as they are far enough in to not be in the router bit's way.

I did want to get to ScrewFix as they seem to be one of the only places to stock a 12.7mm roundover bit, but it's 16 miles away and I couldn't be arsed to cycle there with the sky looking like it was going to open up at any moment. The bit was so that I could make some quarter rounds which would have lined the mouth and served the same purpose as my reinforcements (but would have looked neater). Upon checking the widths of the panels I discovered that my outside panels (of crap wood) stood about a mm proud, so as long as I made sure that the side was screwed down fully to the central panels, the wood would 'push' down on the outside panels anyway. I will HAVE to use the quarter rounds on the next sub (probably on ALL panels), as that will be made solely from the rubbish ply That's going to be a fun build!

So before I put the side on, I got a couple more shots of the inside, as I'll never see it again (hopefully ):


Also managed to attach the weatherseal to the pre-installed flanges (after a small spot of sanding to ensure flushness:

Loving the total weatherseal overkill

The side went on, but there seemed to be a massive gap behind panel 11. I force fed it some PL and hoping that all will be well come 30Hz test day tomorrow

A quick trip to the shops netted me some wood filler and some yellow spray paint. The paint was so that I could finally get a colour scheme going:

(Same colour scheme as my r/c plane you may have seen in some other shots I have posted here).

After a lot of filling and sanding this was how the sub looked by the end of the day:


I'm properly aching after all of that today. A good night's kip should sort that, and then tomorrow it's test time (or )

[Titanium Hand]

Great build thread Escape. Shit wood is like a hangover that never really goes away! Until the build is completed and you realise that you've done your best the whole time and it is good enough

I had some proper moody wood that I used for my otops, voids and sections of weak wrinkly outer ply like yours. I didn't bother sanding off the shit, just scored the heck out of it with a stanley knife deep enough into the stronger plies to provide a better 'key' for the PL in all the joints.

Best of luck completing your rig. Your lighting addition to your console / case looks neat as.

[ripNdeb]

yellow
j/k looking good!