Hi, all. This thread will document the process of building a pair of Rick Craig-designed tower speakers. These might be some of the last speakers he ever designed. I worked with Rick last spring and summer (2021). I'm sure many of you know of Rick. He was truly one of the great guys in the world of speaker design. I thoroughly enjoyed working with him on this design; I was really saddened to learn of his untimely death. The design was finished late July last year, but due to a protracted medical crisis with my mom, I hadn't been able to start the build until recently. I had, however, been accumulating the necessary parts/raw materials in the interim. Rick and I never settled on a name, but ruminating recently I thought I'd call them the Psalms Towers, as a nod to Rick's company, Selah Audio. He also designed a matching center channel - but that will be a separate project.
While this is my first ever speaker build, I am no stranger to woodworking or machining. Rick and I agreed that he would design a basic rectangular cabinet, and I would use the baffle dimensions and interior volumes to design a slightly more elaborate cabinet. My 3D CAD skills are...developing; so I did all the design work in 2D CAD with a fairly elaborate Excel spreadsheet to help out with all the necessary calculations. Though I am pretty handy with a soldering iron, Rick built the crossovers and shipped them complete to me last summer.
I will likely have some questions along the way, but I've done a lot of research and even more thinking about this project for a long time. I'll probably over-document things - hopefully folks don't mind a lot of pictures.
The drivers will be:
T: 1" Bliesma T25B-6 beryllium dome
M: 5" Satori MW13TX-8 with TeXtreme cone
W (x2): 6.5" Purifi PTT6.5X08-NFA-01 with the funky surround
The cabinets will be made with 3/4" maple Appleply (more on that later), which I special ordered from a supplier here locally. This stuff is HEAVY. Much more dense than Baltic birch. The curved sides will be 3 layers of bent-laminated 1/4" Baltic birch. That process will be a challenge unto itself -- 1/4" Baltic birch doesn't like to bend.
My hope is to get these to a point where I can spray them while it is still warm enough to do so. I plan on using automotive polyurethane clearcoat - the same as I used to paint my truck. I've done tables and other projects with it in the past and the results are spectacular.
Anyway, I hope you come along with me on this journey. And I hope to do Rick proud.
While this is my first ever speaker build, I am no stranger to woodworking or machining. Rick and I agreed that he would design a basic rectangular cabinet, and I would use the baffle dimensions and interior volumes to design a slightly more elaborate cabinet. My 3D CAD skills are...developing; so I did all the design work in 2D CAD with a fairly elaborate Excel spreadsheet to help out with all the necessary calculations. Though I am pretty handy with a soldering iron, Rick built the crossovers and shipped them complete to me last summer.
I will likely have some questions along the way, but I've done a lot of research and even more thinking about this project for a long time. I'll probably over-document things - hopefully folks don't mind a lot of pictures.
The drivers will be:
T: 1" Bliesma T25B-6 beryllium dome
M: 5" Satori MW13TX-8 with TeXtreme cone
W (x2): 6.5" Purifi PTT6.5X08-NFA-01 with the funky surround
The cabinets will be made with 3/4" maple Appleply (more on that later), which I special ordered from a supplier here locally. This stuff is HEAVY. Much more dense than Baltic birch. The curved sides will be 3 layers of bent-laminated 1/4" Baltic birch. That process will be a challenge unto itself -- 1/4" Baltic birch doesn't like to bend.
My hope is to get these to a point where I can spray them while it is still warm enough to do so. I plan on using automotive polyurethane clearcoat - the same as I used to paint my truck. I've done tables and other projects with it in the past and the results are spectacular.
Anyway, I hope you come along with me on this journey. And I hope to do Rick proud.
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