BillFitzmaurice.info

Ready for finishing. I was so nervous but also so excited at the same time, as I was building these. To echo others -- take. your. time. as you build these. Go slow and do it correctly.


Next up will be ~3 SLA pros.

What color/ finish options are you going with?

Hey J-,

I guess I should start by saying I know I skipped a bunch of steps in the "build", but that was only because I didn't want to show any mess ups. I wanted to wait until I was happy/proud, before I showed the towers.

I'd really like to go with "piano black" -- nice, shiny, black...but my wife said "Oh that's so boring...they'll look like everything else if you do that." So, I guess I'm open to suggestions, but for now, I think piano black is the only thing that would do it justice (at least when they're indoors). I duratex'd my autotubas, but...I think these deserve something more...sophisticated.

It’s ok, I’ve skipped bad photo days too
Piano black would be cool.

What about a black vinyl wrapped front with a nice wood veneer on the sides with a few coats of glossy clear coat, on the veneer.

That sounds pretty awesome. Do you have any pics/links of what something like that looks like? How would that happen? Would the vinyl extend a little to the sides so the veneer would cover it? (and therefore not have a vinyl seam/edge that could eventually peel off)

If you're going to wrap it wrap it. This is my car, the 'wood' is 3M Di-Noc in Gloss Bubinga.

Oooo very cool.
I thought that the TLAH‘s had a detachable front. Then you could wrap the front baffle in vinyl and Venere the rest of the cabinet.
I was looking at pictures of other TLAH is and I guess the front and sides are already put together.
I wonder if you would be able to router a thin channel all the way around, then when you wrap the front you could press it down into that groove. After you Venere the sides then you could glue some aluminum trim piece around it?

Bill, you did that center console???
Looks amazing! You must’ve been a car audio fabricator in another life.

Quick question -- the back piece/cover is just screwed to the rest of the construction (using gasket tape in the off chance you need to open up the TLAH) without PL, correct? I think I found a finish...will post pics when I get them back.

That's correct.

Last pic before finishing. I wanted to beef-up Bill's plan for pole mounting these by doing the following
I drilled all the way through one 2x4, Gorilla glued another un-cut 2x4 on top of it, and then Bondo'd the middles until it was one smooth, uniform piece. I attached it to the back with long bolts and washer, just to spread the load better.

Yeah! The family's all here! They're going to finishing school later today.

cut, strip, solder....repeat (2 sets for TLAH Pros, 3 sets for SLA Pros)

Question about stuffing for the TLAH Pros. How much is "enough"?
The plans look different, and if I don't put any stuffing between the mouth and the first brace (such that the top 2 woofers don't have any polyfill behind them) is that...ok? Also, has anybody built a box (wire mesh?) around their Xovers? I think that would be a good idea so you could stuff the whole thing and not worry about stuffing on the electronics.


me

The most critical place to stuff is near the terminus, the least critical is near the closed end. Put the crossover near the closed end so you don't have to put stuffing around it, and the cab is larger giving more room to place it. You need to use enough stuffing that it's compressed slightly.