So after weeks of agonizing over what speakers to build, I finally decided to go smaller and higher-end, and build the Zaph SR71's...
First things first: huge thanks and round of applause to Zaph for his enormous contributions to the DIY community, including this design. I have spent many hours pouring over his site, and have learned a tremendous amount from doing so.
Here is a link to Zaph's wonderfully detailed write-up of these speakers:
So I ordered the "parts only" kit from Madisound... as much as I would have liked to build the crossovers from scratch, it was tough to pass up the 10% discount on all of the parts (including drivers) by buying the kit... I'll still have to solder up the crossovers, so I'll have some fun doing that...
I'll be building the cabinets from scratch, more or less exactly to Zaph's specs, so they'll look very much like these, only painted... not sure what color yet. The only other changes I'll be making is to make slightly thicker baffles (1.25" instead of 1"), and a bit more bracing.
So here we have the top of the cabinet being glued to one of the sides... in my opinion these first clamp-ups are the most crucial... get these nice and square and the rest of the cabinets will come together beautifully... the corner clamps shown here are an absolute godsend for this... sold for about $9 each at home depot... best $18 you'll ever spend... the clamp at the top of the picture is simply holding the assembly to a heavy iron right angle we have lying around the shop, so that I can hang the whole thing off theedge of the table, which makes it much easier to use the second right angle clamp underneath...
And now the bottom of the cabinet clamped up...
Here we have 2 layers of MDF (one .75" piece and one .5" piece) clamped up to make nice thick 1.25" baffles. I've made the baffles 1/8" bigger all the way around than the rest of the cabs, to be cleaned up later with a flush router bit. I'll also be routing a substantial chamfer on the back edge of the woofer hole so that the thick baffle doesn't interfere with the woofers...
Here we have a couple pictures of my secret weapon helping me glue up and clamp the other side walls on... this is the first time he's helped me build speakers and he's already got a full-blown case of the DIY bug...
While we're on the topic of gluing, a couple of pointers for anyone new to this...
- Do a dry run, at least in your head, of exactly how it's going to fit together, and how you're going to clamp it. Have all your clamps, wood blocks, etc ready. Know the sequence of which clamps are going on when. You'd be amazed at how quickly the glue will set up... you really don't want to be scrambling to find another clamp, or another block of wood to protect the surface your clamping etc, in the heat of the moment when the parts are already together...
- Always spread glue on both surfaces. I like to use a small brush to spread the glue. Spread enough to cover the surface thoroughly, but not so much that it's going to squish out all over the place and make a mess.
- If your clamps don't have rubber feet on them, use scraps of MDF to protect the panels... you can secure these scraps to the clamps using double sided tape, the thick masking-tape-like stuff. Do NOT just have loose floating blocks that you're trying to line up in the heat of the moment. This is such a pain in the keester. I've learned this the hard way. See the next picture, where I have scraps double-stick taped to the clamps.
- I'm a huge fan of Titebond III wood glue, because you only have to clamp it for 30 minutes... yes, that's right, only 30 minutes. Anyone who says otherwise is an old fart clinging to old wisdom ... the technology has improved. End of story.
Here's a close-up of it all clamped up...
Oh yeah... nice and square baby...
Here we have the horizontal braces stacked up in pairs with double-stick tape, and cut out with a bandsaw... I printed out the shapes from Solidworks and stuck it to the mdf with spray mount...
Here we have the horizontal braces glued and clamped... you can see here why I wanted to put the braces in prior to gluing the rear baffle on, as it allowed me to get some good clamping force on the braces... I also put a 1/4" radius on the edges of the braces (don't ask me why, it just looks nice).
The 4th leg on the upper horizontal brace (the lower one only has 3 legs) will attach to the front baffle between the drivers.
Here we have the vertical braces in place. I used 3/4" oak dowels, each one carefully sanded to a very tight fit. So tight in fact that I didn't even bother clamping.
There are two vertical braces tying to the top, as opposed to only one on the bottom, to allow for the port... they will also allow me to support the port later, probably with hot glue.
This arrangement of braces seemed like the most efficient way to support all of the walls while using a minimum of material and having a minimal impact on the internal volume.
More to follow...
First things first: huge thanks and round of applause to Zaph for his enormous contributions to the DIY community, including this design. I have spent many hours pouring over his site, and have learned a tremendous amount from doing so.
Here is a link to Zaph's wonderfully detailed write-up of these speakers:
So I ordered the "parts only" kit from Madisound... as much as I would have liked to build the crossovers from scratch, it was tough to pass up the 10% discount on all of the parts (including drivers) by buying the kit... I'll still have to solder up the crossovers, so I'll have some fun doing that...
I'll be building the cabinets from scratch, more or less exactly to Zaph's specs, so they'll look very much like these, only painted... not sure what color yet. The only other changes I'll be making is to make slightly thicker baffles (1.25" instead of 1"), and a bit more bracing.
So here we have the top of the cabinet being glued to one of the sides... in my opinion these first clamp-ups are the most crucial... get these nice and square and the rest of the cabinets will come together beautifully... the corner clamps shown here are an absolute godsend for this... sold for about $9 each at home depot... best $18 you'll ever spend... the clamp at the top of the picture is simply holding the assembly to a heavy iron right angle we have lying around the shop, so that I can hang the whole thing off theedge of the table, which makes it much easier to use the second right angle clamp underneath...
And now the bottom of the cabinet clamped up...
Here we have 2 layers of MDF (one .75" piece and one .5" piece) clamped up to make nice thick 1.25" baffles. I've made the baffles 1/8" bigger all the way around than the rest of the cabs, to be cleaned up later with a flush router bit. I'll also be routing a substantial chamfer on the back edge of the woofer hole so that the thick baffle doesn't interfere with the woofers...
Here we have a couple pictures of my secret weapon helping me glue up and clamp the other side walls on... this is the first time he's helped me build speakers and he's already got a full-blown case of the DIY bug...
While we're on the topic of gluing, a couple of pointers for anyone new to this...
- Do a dry run, at least in your head, of exactly how it's going to fit together, and how you're going to clamp it. Have all your clamps, wood blocks, etc ready. Know the sequence of which clamps are going on when. You'd be amazed at how quickly the glue will set up... you really don't want to be scrambling to find another clamp, or another block of wood to protect the surface your clamping etc, in the heat of the moment when the parts are already together...
- Always spread glue on both surfaces. I like to use a small brush to spread the glue. Spread enough to cover the surface thoroughly, but not so much that it's going to squish out all over the place and make a mess.
- If your clamps don't have rubber feet on them, use scraps of MDF to protect the panels... you can secure these scraps to the clamps using double sided tape, the thick masking-tape-like stuff. Do NOT just have loose floating blocks that you're trying to line up in the heat of the moment. This is such a pain in the keester. I've learned this the hard way. See the next picture, where I have scraps double-stick taped to the clamps.
- I'm a huge fan of Titebond III wood glue, because you only have to clamp it for 30 minutes... yes, that's right, only 30 minutes. Anyone who says otherwise is an old fart clinging to old wisdom ... the technology has improved. End of story.
Here's a close-up of it all clamped up...
Oh yeah... nice and square baby...
Here we have the horizontal braces stacked up in pairs with double-stick tape, and cut out with a bandsaw... I printed out the shapes from Solidworks and stuck it to the mdf with spray mount...
Here we have the horizontal braces glued and clamped... you can see here why I wanted to put the braces in prior to gluing the rear baffle on, as it allowed me to get some good clamping force on the braces... I also put a 1/4" radius on the edges of the braces (don't ask me why, it just looks nice).
The 4th leg on the upper horizontal brace (the lower one only has 3 legs) will attach to the front baffle between the drivers.
Here we have the vertical braces in place. I used 3/4" oak dowels, each one carefully sanded to a very tight fit. So tight in fact that I didn't even bother clamping.
There are two vertical braces tying to the top, as opposed to only one on the bottom, to allow for the port... they will also allow me to support the port later, probably with hot glue.
This arrangement of braces seemed like the most efficient way to support all of the walls while using a minimum of material and having a minimal impact on the internal volume.
More to follow...
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