Stacked Lamination Cabinet Construction Build

[Rolex]

I've been intrigued for some time with curved cabinets and stacked lamination. I decided to try it with a speaker I had already built. It's a bookshelf speaker designed by Meniscus audio. I've been extremely happy with this budget kit. It's a 5 1/4" silver flute driver with a Seas H1212 tweeter. Absolutely incredible sound for the price. I want to do a stacked lamination project that is a tower. Probably the 2 1/2 way that I keep dreaming zaph will finally do with the scan speak midbass and the 6600 tweeter. Before I get to that, I wanted to try stacked lamination to see what the results were. I decided to use mdf knowing that I was going to cover it up with veneer. I'll leave the 2 1/2 way to baltic birch, unveneered. I talked with my local raw veneer supplier and he sold me some really nice imbuya veneer that I wanted to use for this project. I was pretty happy with the results, although it was quite labor intensive with little gain in sound quality over my previous cabinets. I didn't want to go into too much detail about the crossover, cause I wanted this thread to be mostly about the cabinet construction. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. The finish is a penetrating oil (about 5 coats) with a real hard paste wax. They look much better outside than they do in artificial light. I much prefer an airless applied lacquer finish. But, I wasn't able to do that this time. I'm not thrilled with the finish, but it is livable. The 2 1/2 ways I'm dreaming of will definitely have a precatalyzed lacquer finish. Hopefully someone can get something out of this documentation. If you have any questions, let me know.

[dawg1161]

One word...........WOW.......

[kevmurray]

I love the colour in the outdoors photos. Very well done overall!

[cacophonix]

-awesome-!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;x( ;x( ;x(

If its not too much to ask, can you please elaborate on how you used the template and routing table to make such consistent cutouts?

[Bent]

looks to me like he has a flush trim bit mounted on the router in the table, The template prolly sits on top (screws hold the stock) and he traces it on the inside and outside with the guide bearing against the template.

[Gir]

I'd classify that as a little bit more than "livable". More like, "freaking awesome". Just my $0.02 8O

[joecarrow]

Those are seriously off the hook. I wish that I was able to produce such meticulous edges and finish.

If I may ask, what's the story with the vacuum bag system? I've been daydreaming about rigging one up for a long time now, but nothing's come up.

[audioslave]

wow....ur killin me....I have a stack of Imbuya and Maple Pomel in the garage awaiting my Neo CC cab. I was asking about that hand pump vacuum system in the Veneer Tools thread...it looks like the roarockit system. Looks like it worked well. I assume that you baged it before you cut the driver holes. Any details you wish to share on the veneering would be great.

Also my imbuya is a bit different....but i might like to try that oil as a test finish. What is it?

[Raptor550]

For some reason its hard to accept that all that beauty is for a "budget" desighn. I mean experience tells me it probably sounds better than most commercial stuff, but still, those enclosures scream for spendy seas excel or at least a crazy intricate crossover that uses 10lbs of copper . WELL DONE DUDE!

[Rolex]

cacophonix - The template is mounted on top of the stock, and then moved against the flush trim bit. To get to that point though, I cut a bunch of retangles out of a 4x8 sheet of mdf. After that I traced the template onto the rectangle. Trimmed it with the band saw on the outside and used a jig saw to do the inside. I tried to be within 1/16 to 1/8 of my traced line. I didn't want to have to use the router to remove any more material than necessary. As it was, I had to buy another flush trim bit to complete the project.

joecarrow - the vacuum bag kit is the roarockit system that I ordered from the local rockler. It served it's purpose well. However, when I read reviews online of that system, everyone said you could remove all the air in less than a minute with the hand pump. Um, no, you can't. I ended up sealing the bag, then opening up a corner and sucking the air out with my mouth (as much as I could) then went to the hand pump. Like I said, it serves its purpose well, justtakes some time to get used to using it. I used tite bond extended open time glue. It takes a while to apply the glue, put the veneer in place, then tape it down so it doesn't move, put the cabinet in the bag, seal it, and suck the air out. I wanted as much open time as I could get. I didn't cut the driver holes till after the cabinet was veneered. That was definitely the smart way to do it. It was nice not having to deal with removing veneer from the recesses of the driver.

audioslave - if I didn't answer your questions on the veneering let me know. The oil I used you can buy at Lowes and also I think rockler has it. It is Watco Danish oil. I use the Natural finish. I applied 3 coats (dry time between each one), then applied a fourth and wet sanded with 600 grit emory cloth. After that was dry I applied a fifth coat (following directions on the can). Once dry, I applied two coat of Trewax brand paste wax. I'm much happier with how this wax leaves the surface than something like Johnson's paste wax. Everyone has their favorite, that is mine. I probably should do atleast one more coat of wax before I'm said and done.

Raptor550 - Your comment is valid. All i can say is this: the only thing that makes that system budget is the dollar amount it cost me for all the components. It was less than $150 for the drivers and crossover parts. As far as performance goes, I'm very happy with them. This is the third set of cabinets I have built for this system. The first time I built it, I sent the speakers to my brother in CA. The second set was for me cause I was so happy with them. They are really a great little speaker, and I would throw them up against most anything under $1500 on the commercial to see how they did. That being said, if I was spending 1500 bucks on commercial speakers, I would expect finish at this level if not better.

One thing I forgot to mention before was that matching stands will be coming shortly. I would also like to build a small sub in the future that matches the speakers. It's my feeling that would make a really nice little reference system for the living room. We'll leave the bigger zaph designed 2 1/2 way for downstairs..

[bikedave]

Rolex, those look awesome! I'm curious about glueing up the laminates though. In my experience glueing so many pieces at one time can get a little squirrely during clamping as all the layers want to slide around. How did you get around this or was it even a problem?

[Rolex]

I glued one layer at a time. Yes, it took a while. My next stacked lamination project I do, I will use my local mill work shop and have them do pieces on their CNC for me. It's a company I work with regularly, and they quote me very good pricing for the cnc time. Also, I will have them cut (2) half inch diameter holes in each layer so that I can use 1/2" dowels to align all the parts during clamping.

[jkrutke]

Those are beautiful. Note that if your cutout has enough clearance, a Seas 15cm will fit in there. The Silver Flute is a nice woofer for the price, but like the others, I'd probably want a better woofer in a cabinet of that quality.

Probably the 2 1/2 way that I keep dreaming zaph will finally do with the scan speak midbass and the 6600 tweeter.

I'm almost done with those. I suppose now it's no hurry since the woofers are sold out at Madisound.

[augerpro]

How in the hell...you make the veneering sound so easy. Those are gorgeous man!

[Rolex]

Thanks for the compliments. I'll look into the 15 cm woofer from Seas. Although that would mean designing a new crossover. That's the part of speaker building I don't do. And, without a crossover design, the woofer doesn't do me much good..

Does anyone know if the 15 cm from Seas can function alright in a 0.3 cu. ft. enclosure?

[gmed]

Very nice work. Im glad to see more people do Trans-Laminated speakers. More work but at the end, its all worth it. You can check out mine here
TransLam

if yo haven't already

Very nice.