My Statements build thread

[FroDaddy]

Yes, it was kind of therapeutic :

In any case, things are progressing somewhat since the last time. On Friday, the "good" cabinet got its last coat of poly! Woohoo! Patching the problem areas as time consuming, but it turned out good:



The "bad" cabinet is still being bad, though! I finally have a process that is giving me relatively predictable results. It's slow, but it is moving forward now:

[Hdale85]

That one looks quite good. Not perfect but good enough in my book.

[wackii]

It's looking good. One more to go...

Al,

[FroDaddy]

That one looks quite good. Not perfect but good enough in my book.

Man I forgot to put the sides on! :rofl:

[Hdale85]

It took me a minute to notice. I was like what is it reflecting. Then I realized there wasn't a side.

[cobblepots]

I really like the way that turned out! Made me change my mind as to how I'm finishing mine. I think I may do this process with a Mottled Makore on the top and sides. I was originally planning on wraping the veneer around the front and sides with caps on the top in piano black like the av123 Rocket designs. But I was always worried about the veneer around the speaker cutouts. I think this will look better and eliminate the distortion caused by the endcaps. (They would have stuck out a 1/4"). How much time would you say it took to do each speaker so I know what I'm in for....

[FroDaddy]

I really like the way that turned out! Made me change my mind as to how I'm finishing mine. I think I may do this process with a Mottled Makore on the top and sides. I was originally planning on wraping the veneer around the front and sides with caps on the top in piano black like the av123 Rocket designs. But I was always worried about the veneer around the speaker cutouts. I think this will look better and eliminate the distortion caused by the endcaps. (They would have stuck out a 1/4"). How much time would you say it took to do each speaker so I know what I'm in for....

Hello cobblepots,

My friend is working on a trio of Khanspires and used raw veneer for all surfaces on the 3 speakers. He saved a lot of time versus painting, and although I haven't seen them in person yet, the pictures he sent me look fantastic so far.

I'd say that veneer is going to save you time when compared to a painted finish, and veneering is much less prone to having errors than painting glossy black. But when comparing painted finishes, I'd say the poly method I'm using saves more time than traditional methods. As Dougie085 said, the finish won't be perfect like piano black, but it is good enough for most people.

Here is a quick rundown of the process I'm going to use on the surrounds:

- Sand raw wood 400 grit
- Prime (2-4 coats) with HVLP gun
- Allow paint to cure, sand smooth
- Shoot with 2-4 coats of flat black
- Allow to cure, gradually sand to 2000 grit wet sanding
- Finish under high, direct florescent lighting.
- Using high gloss poly thinned with mineral spirits and a blue shop rag, apply a coat on one side. This takes me about 10 minutes total per side.
- Allow to cure 4 hours before doing another side, allow 24 hours cure before sanding again
- Wet sand 2000 grit. This process takes less and less time with more coats. With the big statements, the first pass took me 30-45min, then 20-30 min, then 15-20min. (This is for one long side, not the entire cabinet.)
- Repeat poly process, on the last coat I do not sand. I'm finding 2-3 coats gets the finish I'm after. The more coats you apply, the better it will look.

That's pretty much it, if I had to recommend veneering or painting, I would recommend veneering if you'd be happy with that finish. There are less things to screw up on, and it takes less time.

HTH

[FroDaddy]

I'm beginning to work on these again. I picked this back up where the "good" cabinet was finished with the poly stage, and the "bad" cabinet needed patchwork done still. I tried for a couple more months to get the bad cabinet patched up like I did with the good cabinet, but I ended up taking several months away from the speakers and worked on something else.

Recently I came back to this and made a decision to make the best out of the situation with the bad cabinet. I did a few more iterations of black paint / sanding to fix up the patchwork to a point.

So here is a picture of the "good" cabinet getting one of the sides glued on:



Yup, that's pretty much every clamp I have... I think it was somewhere around 20 or so

Today I worked on measuring out the final dimensions for the speaker bases and sanded the front of the bad cabinet getting ready for another coat of poly. Each day I'm working on these a few hours until I get bored. It's been much more enjoyable doing it this way! So the ETA is "when it's done" :T

[BeerParty]

Good to see you are back in action, and thanks for the thread. Since my Statement monitors will have a mix of black and veneer like yours (well, sort of like yours) reading about your issues will be a great help when it comes time to finish my speakers. The best part is, my speakers have the same ETA as yours! :roll:

So the ETA is "when it's done"

Keep plugging away at them!

[jeffc]

Thanks for sharing nice thread! Once you figure it out I can use your tricks

[FroDaddy]

Just a quick update, the "bad" cabinet is finished with the polyurethane gloss! It's not perfect under direct florescent lighting, but most of the flaws can't be seen in the indirect lighting in the living/HT room; even with indirect sunlight.

Here is a picture of the "good" cabinet with sides on:



Below is a progress picture of the speaker bases. They will have the 3d look similar to what ahaik did with his. The base collar is two 3/4in pieces of birch plywood laminated together, and the base is 3/4in birch, 3/4in MDF, and 1/2in MDF laminated together. Both the base and the collar weigh about 15lbs together. I have veneer edging on them and they are ready for finishing:

[Jim Holtz]

FroDaddy,

Those look great! :T

Jim

[---k---]

Wow, those look great.

BTW, how did your friend's Khans turn out? I hope he is happy.

[FroDaddy]

Thanks guys!

---k---, he's very happy with them and hasn't discussed building different speakers since he's had them I've heard them a lot and they sound great! :T

[---k---]

:T

Hopefully hearing your Statements won't change his mind.

[FroDaddy]

Which one is the "bad" cabinet? I'll never tell (those are different size milk crates they are sitting on btw)

[David Meek]

Beautiful Fro', beautiful! ;x(

[TacoD]

Wow great finish on these speakers.

[BeerParty]

Sweet! 2x :T

Now, for a little nudge - any idea how soon we will see pictures with the drivers in?

[FroDaddy]

Thanks for the kind words guys!

Sweet! 2x :T

Now, for a little nudge - any idea how soon we will see pictures with the drivers in?

Ahh you're tricky... putting drivers in is the last step so I'd have to make a prediction other than "when it's done" : But maybe I can manage to scare the Easter bunny away?! :W

[jagman]

Great progress! It won't be long before you have them up and running with your CC. I can't wait to see photos of the three together as well as your listening reviews .

[vinceb]

Cool Fro - they look great. it's always a good feeling once you get past the crisis and in smooth water again.

[BeerParty]

Ahh you're tricky... putting drivers in is the last step so I'd have to make a prediction other than "when it's done" :

Busted!

[FroDaddy]

Assembling the bases

The Statements are finished! I had Good Friday off of work, so I took the weekend to put the hammer down and finish the project. I put in a lot of hours, about 12-14 each day, and on Sunday I finished one tower right at midnight. The next night (Monday) I finished the second tower! Phew!

I wanted to show a few pictures of the assembly of the bases. Continuing from the previous picture of the bases, I applied Minwax Red Mahogany stain doing an immediate wipe on / wipe off on the top birch veneer, but leaving it on for about 10 minutes or so on the edge veneering. Some mineral spirits was used to color match to the tower stain and to bring out character in the wood, then a three coats of poly to match the gloss level of the towers:



Did I forget to stain something? Nope...



So what the heck am I gluing to the top?

[FroDaddy]

Your shortcut to a glossy black finish!



I'm finally ready to let the cat out of the bag! This stuff is a solid laminate surface from http://www.decotonesurfaces.com internal part number FL121GPC070BU, web part number is Formplac L121. You can order samples from them for free as well! They have different levels of gloss and texture, and I ordered two glossy black untextured 4ft x 10ft sheets for about $150! I wanted a shortcut to glossy black but couldn't find one. After all the headaches I was going through on the tower cabinets, my father took it upon himself to try to find something and this is what he discovered:



What I did was inlay the laminate into the wood. I'll buy a paint pen to take care of the wood edge. I made a more in-depth post about the material here: https://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33523

All I have to say is if you always wanted a good looking and even glossy black finish, order a free sample to see if it's good enough for your tastes. It was for mine, the pricing was so inexpensive it blew me away, and the install is MUCH MUCH easier than trying to do a finish like this using traditional methods. In fact, the finish on the laminate is better than I could do by hand ops: (I don't get any kickbacks from the company, I'm just a happy customer.) I plan on finishing my 2rCC Statement Center channel AND my upcoming Mini Statement surround speakers build with this laminate too!

[FroDaddy]

Getting back to the build...

As said in a previous post, I had Good Friday off and worked all day and night on the speakers. First thing was to line the cabinets with foam. From the original Statement thread, I used Curt's trick with an electric knife to cut the tunnel lining. The foam cuts like butter with this! I borrowed this one from my father; circa 1970 I'd say :rofl:



Per the design spec, the upper cabinet was lined with 2" wedge foam from Foambymail and glued to the cabinet with 3M Super 77 spray glue:



I lined the entire lower section with the foam as well. The cabinet echoed too much for my tastes until I lined the entire thing. I used precision ports to port out the bottom of the cabinet:

[john trials]

VERY nice!!!!! I just received the drivers today for my Statements, and I was going to start a web search for some kind of gloss black veneer. I'm not sure if I want gloss black, matte black or a light maple veneer on mine. There is no way I'm painting them black!

I was also wondering how people were attaching the foam...your thread answered that one, too. Great build thread! I can hardly wait to see the finished product...

[john trials]

Did that Formplac L121 bend around that sharp corner on your bases, or is that 2 pieces? I'm hoping that the Formplac L121 will go around the 3/4" radius on the baffles.

[FroDaddy]

Hi John, this stuff is like countertop formica so it's not flexible at all. It has a thin panelboard like backing to it.

[tomdro]

Hi FroDaddy,
That electric knife is really slick. Did you use the 1" charcoal packing foam from foambymail.com for the mid tunnels? I was thinking about using it for my project. Your cabinets look really nice!

[FroDaddy]

After the cabinet was lined, I flipped the speakers over to paint the bottoms black so that the bare MDF wouldn't reflect onto the bases. The rest of Friday's daylight was spent trying to work out a method for the laminate inlay and finishing up the collar bases. Later that night I made all the physical connections for the crossovers until around midnight or so.

Saturday I was up-and-at-em early ready to get the laminate inlay finished, but that proved to be much harder than I originally anticipated. Being that I had to actually route the original inlay lines at slight angles to cover up routing mistakes, it made accurately cutting the inlay much harder. I tried a paper cutter which was useful to cut the pieces out of the main sheets but not for perfectly straight lines. A router WILL scratch this stuff even through the protective covering, so after cutting a perfect piece I had to throw it out after realizing this. The solution to that was to use painters tape + painters paper to add a couple extra layers of protection. To cut the inlay pieces, I worked out a solution after much more trial and error than I wanted. Since the original inlay lines were absolutely routed straight, I was able to measure the front / back widths and setup a jig to cut the inlay pieces with a router trim bit. I got within 1/32 of an inch on the whole, so each line is within 1/64th. I glued all but one piece with Titebond III, in which that choice was made after testing contact cement versus the glue earlier in the day. Daylight was fading fast so I cut the crossover boards and finished them up late that night. I will bi-amp the speakers:



Sunday the goal was to get them up and running, and I partially met that goal. First order of business was to finish up the bases, so while the final inlay piece was drying I had to come up with a method to trim this stuff. The best method I could come up with was to use scrap pieces and tape them to the edge the laminate bit's bearing would ride on. The surface the router will ride on absolutely has to be protected with painters tape + painters paper even though the laminate comes with a protective surface. In the afternoon it was time to assemble the bases.

I hadn't said anything up to this point about the collar finish. After the edges of the collars were trimmed with birch plywood veneer I primed them, then painted them with two coats of glossy black with a bristle brush, then after drying for a day I applied one coat of poly using the same method as the main cabinets but minus the sanding steps. Since the collars would be in the shadows, perfection wasn't top priority. They look decent if you lay down on the floor to inspect the finish on them :lol: So after obtaining the measurements to square them up to the base, screw holes were tapped and countersunk, then the bases installed with a thin layer of glue in between that was spread with a cheap brush.

The bases largely had the same alignment process and were installed to the speaker cabinets which produced this result:



So I didn't reach my goal of getting BOTH towers done on Sunday since the inlay was more difficult than I originally anticipated the day before. But, I managed to get one tower up on Sunday! After wiring the cabinet, I mounted the crossovers to the shelf braces inside the tower with some high strength velcro, then mounted the speakers. On Monday I finished the other tower, and they sound great! I'll have to post back with a more in depth review and better pictures, but for now here is the pic I have:

[FroDaddy]

Hi FroDaddy,
That electric knife is really slick. Did you use the 1" charcoal packing foam from foambymail.com for the mid tunnels? I was thinking about using it for my project. Your cabinets look really nice!

They definitely don't make them like they used to. It's a shame puke green went out of style! That is the 1" foam from foambymail.com as well; I ordered both the 2" wedge foam and the 1" in the same order. Thanks for the kind words!

[jcocomo]

FroDaddy,

Those loud speakers are nicely done! I really like the pedestal base and solid wood, they look fantastic congratulations! :T

John...

[deewan]

GREAT looking speakers! This is one of my favorite modified Statement cabinets (basically the bases). I hope you don't mind but I think I will be copying your base design. It just looks to good not to have in my theater.

[john trials]

Hi John, this stuff is like countertop formica so it's not flexible at all. It has a thin panelboard like backing to it.

Bummer...I was so excited last night about that stuff...too good to be true!

Your finished speakers are gorgeous. I also like the bases that you made...not as 'chunky' as most. I'm going to look into some kind of granite as a possibility for a baseplate. I'm not sure how that will look, though. Too many possibilities!

[FroDaddy]

GREAT looking speakers! This is one of my favorite modified Statement cabinets (basically the bases). I hope you don't mind but I think I will be copying your base design. It just looks to good not to have in my theater.

No problems here; I actually borrowed from a few other people for my build. Ahaik first did the 3d bases on the Statements, and I found the wood sides / black center in I believe a NatP build.

Bummer...I was so excited last night about that stuff...too good to be true!

Your finished speakers are gorgeous. I also like the bases that you made...not as 'chunky' as most. I'm going to look into some kind of granite as a possibility for a baseplate. I'm not sure how that will look, though. Too many possibilities!

It's possible to use the laminate on a 45deg angled edge. The stuff must be trimmed with a router trim bit, so the trouble with a 45deg edge would be how to setup the router to trim it. If your trim bit is long, this probably wouldn't be an issue. Just throwing that idea out there.

Thanks for the kind words, off the top of my head I remember the dimensions to be 18.5 x 14 x 2. However I'm not sure if I can recommend the smaller footprint yet. The 1" rubber feet I used were positioned about 1.25 from each edge so the towers aren't as stable as I'd like right now. I plan to scooch them out to the corners and I can report back then. The granite idea sounds intriguing!

[impala454]

Awesome build Fro, make sure you get us some final shots of them in place with your center and everything.

[Curt C]

Very nicey done!

I hope you find they sound as good as they look...

C

[wackii]

Wow... very nicely done. Great looking speakers.

Enjoy.

Al,

[johnathanwinter]

that is a very nice clean job. the base really makes the whole design come together.

are you going to make a grill for them?

oh... thanks for the tip on the formica. :T

[ahaik]

However I'm not sure if I can recommend the smaller footprint yet. The 1" rubber feet I used were positioned about 1.25 from each edge so the towers aren't as stable as I'd like right now. I plan to scooch them out to the corners and I can report back then. The granite idea sounds intriguing!

FroDaddy,
These are beautiful :T
My base is a little wider in the back (surely contributes to the stability). Right now I have then standing on a carpet with thick padding and they are very stable.
A thought - I have them on spikes, but the room is temporary and I need to move them close and away from the wall (otherwise the kids will bump into them). So I bought something similar to these (only shallower) from HomeDepot, put the discs that came with the spikes inside the sliders and for my surprise it works really well, you can slide the speakers with relative ease and the spikes don't come out of the discs. I find them to be very stable this way on the carpet, plus I like the spike look. I'll try to take some pics of the bases with the sliders tonight.
Asi.

[rmht]

F-in beautiful......absolutely gorgeous.....

[juliovideo]

FroDaddy .......very nice speakers , congratulation !!!!!


:T




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[juliovideo]

I wanted to give you advice, but maybe I am the least indicated, because I do not know a lot of audio.

But one of the secret in the formula for the speakers RCA 50 years ago is .........,to put acoustic foam in three sides only ,this gives more clean and deep at low frequencies.That means that three sides are without any acoustic.

I have done and really works . :T I´m sorry for my english








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[cobblepots]

I just love the creativity that this forum has! You're speakers are fantastic. I absolutely love my mini's and think you'll find they were probably the best investment both money and time you'll ever make.