Cabinet building

[AndrewM]

Well, I'm about to undertake the construction side of this new project, I've got most of the first round of materials sitting in the garage (glue, wood, screws and a plan). But a couple of questions.

How can I make this cabinet as dead as I can? And not have it weigh in at the fork lift level. Can you brace a cabinet to much? Or is the volume of the enclosure simple the volume of it? This is going to be a floor-standing setup, around 40-42inches tall, around 10 inches wide and something like 14-15 inches deep. Right now I am planning to have one brace run right up the middle of the enclosure, and then I was thinking of doing some "shelf" type bracing, maybe 2 or 3 on each side of the center brace. This is all done with 3/4" MDF, ditto for the side, back and top/bottom piece. The front baffle will be 1.5" MDF (especially since that damn tweeter needs a deep hole to make it flush).

I was looking over an old issue of speaker builder in which they built/tested/reviewed one of the Northcreek kits, and he spent some time talking about the construction of the cabinet, the front and rear were 1.5", one layer of MDF one layer of void free. All of the bracing was 3/4" void free as well. They didn't have any "shelf" type bracing, but I seem to recall 2 vertical braces in it.

Any thoughts?

Andrew

[JonMarsh]

At Klone Audio and AudioWorx we have a saying:

"Some''s good, more's better, and too much is just enough!"

Unfortunately, fork lift level is pretty much where you want to be if you can tolerate it.

My X1 Klones don't have any enclosure wall thinner than 1-1/2", and fronts are usually 2-1/4", though for a smaller driver set that's overkill.

The least I'd recommed is 1" MDF, heavily braced, assuming you want these to satisfy and fulfill, and last.

With my odd little bookshelf project, I'm cutting corners using extra hardboard and oak bracing to improve on 3/4". More complete braces would be ideal.

Take a look at this project: I think it's well done, from the enclosure viewpoint, and it might give you some ideas.

http://members.home.nl/edgar.beers/

There are some simple CAD drawings showing internal bracing, as well as photographs.

Regards,

Jon




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