Yet Another Statement Build Thread

[BigJim_inFLA]

Latest update, baffles!! My progress seems to have slowed after a quick start. I just can't seem to find as much free time as I thought I would have. Baffles are two layers of 3/4" MDF. I will be extra careful to scallop as much as possible for the back of the mids. Today I got them flush trimmed. Outside the garage to limit the amount of dust.



Layed out the driver hole locations, will rout them this afternoon.

[BigJim_inFLA]

Routed out the holes for the drivers. Now to go to work on the backs.

[BigJim_inFLA]

Ok, finished for tonight. Got the baffles pretty much done. Will still have to round over the edges on the router table tomorrow. Backs are relieved.

[BigJim_inFLA]

So this morning I was looking through pictures of other Statement builds and I noticed just how much material everyone seemed to be removing behind the mid drivers. I wondered if my 1" deep 45 degree chamfer was enough, so I popped one driver in and it was almost impossible to see the back of the cone. This definitely needed some improvement. I hit it quickly with the router, but it just wasn't looking good. Then I thought this is a lot like porting and polishing the heads on my hot rod! Break out the die grinder (think Dremel tool on steroids) and open up the backs!



That should be enough breathing room.

[AdelaaR]

Lookin' good!

[BigJim_inFLA]

Finally looking like real speakers! Both baffles are done except for the roundover. I'm not sure if I will just round over the sides, or if I will also do the top and bottom.



I'm toying with the idea of using some granite on the stands I am designing. If I do that I was also thinking of having a piece of granite cut to match the top of the speakers. As much as I try to avoid it, things always end up setting on top of my current speakers. The granite tops would be pretty much impervious to whatever happened to end up on them.

[BeerParty]

I'm toying with the idea of using some granite on the stands I am designing. If I do that I was also thinking of having a piece of granite cut to match the top of the speakers. As much as I try to avoid it, things always end up setting on top of my current speakers. The granite tops would be pretty much impervious to whatever happened to end up on them.

Granite tops would look very cool, go for it!

[BigJim_inFLA]

Tonight I got the baffles rounded over.



Also sanded the backs and sprayed the first few coats of black.

[BigJim_inFLA]

Now begins the long and arduous task of finishing. I did decide to do a piano black finish to the baffles and the backs. A real piano black, I went out and bought a gallon of clear lacquer for the many coats it will take to get a truly wonderful finish. So here's to many hours of sanding, painting, sanding, painting, and some more sanding...then buffing and polishing. This could take a while. The first and most important step is to get the surface as close to perfect as possible before painting. Primer and spot putty will do the job.

[BigJim_inFLA]

Veneering has begun. The zebra wood does smell a bit like an old outhouse. It just gets worse when you put the heat to it to iron it on. I've read that it doesn't smell once its finished. I certainly hope that's the case.

[BigJim_inFLA]

Ok, well I ran in to a bit of a snag while applying one of the large pieces of veneer on the side. Seems I didn't let the glue dry quite enough, and as soon as I set the veneer on the box it stuck. Needless to say it was not properly positioned. So after some pulling and heating with an iron and some tearing sounds, I ended up with one ruined piece of veneer and some ugly looking rough glue on the speaker. Lots more sanding fixed it and I had enough spare zebrawood to cut another piece. I did use the old veneer as a test panel to see how the finish would look.



Hard to tell the difference but this test has four finishes. Clockwise from top left is just lacquer, BLO with lacquer, BLO with shellac and lacquer, and shellac with lacquer. In an earlier test I thought the boiled linseed oil darkened the wood too much so the BLO is only on about 1/3 of this test panel. I think I will be using a few coats of the super blond shellac and then finishing with lacquer.



I do love the way the grain looks when it is done. One is completed, the other soon to follow. Now if only the rest of my crossover parts would get here...

[BigJim_inFLA]

I made some more progress today. I fixed the veneer fiasco from yesterday, it hurts to see some of the zebrawood wasted, but there was no choice. Both speakers are completely veneered and I have a few coats of shellac on them. Tomorrow I will start laying on the lacquer!! :B

[Jim Holtz]

Very pretty! :T

Jim

[AdelaaR]

Good job indeed

[BigJim_inFLA]

Thanks guys. These are really turning out better than I expected. I think they are even better looking in person. Back to work, but I did get a package today!! Some crossover parts arrived, so I will be measuring and matching my caps. I had some AudioCap Theta film and foil caps scavenged from another project that I will be using as bypass caps.

[BigJim_inFLA]

So I made a trip to Skycraft Surplus and they had some 3/16" double sided copper clad board. $5.00 for 1 square foot pieces. I thought I might try these for my crossovers.



These are the boards I will be using for the midwoofer crossovers. 7" x 5".



This is the layout I came up with.



Both boards clamped down together to drill mounting holes.



I drew out the copper that needs to remain. The ground plane will be on the backside. I will be using a Dremel to mill away the copper that needs to come off.

[BigJim_inFLA]

First I used an engraving bit to freehand the outlines.



Then I switched to a flat grinding bit with the depth attachment to just take off the copper.



Here is the finished top side.



After doing the same to the back they got a good wash and scrub in hot water. After a quick dry I masked off all the mounting holes.

[BigJim_inFLA]

I sprayed a coat of black lacquer on the front and back to protect the exposed copper, and to make them look nice.



Here is one after removing the masks, ready for populating and soldering.



This is how the finished midwoofer board looks. All components are attached with hot melt glue. Plenty small enough to fit through the woofer holes. I will mount them to the mid enclosures with screws.

[BigJim_inFLA]

A little bit later I got a visit from my favorite UPS guy. He had some foam for me. Seems I ordered the 2" pyramid instead of the 2" wedge foam most people are using. I'm hoping that will be ok. After a few minutes with a straight edge and utility knife I had quite the pile.



Glued in place.

[Jim Holtz]

Looks good to me! :T

Jim

[BigJim_inFLA]

Today I discovered another challenge that I should have thought about earlier. When I went to drill the holes to mount the crossover board I found that there is no way to get a drill in there. I only have 4 1/4" between the mid enclosure and the window brace. Hmmmmm.... Luckily Dremel makes an angle attachment that did the trick.



Here is the board mounted.



In this picture you can see the nylon spacers I used under the board.

[bigbardmusiq]

you do great work, those should sound really good!!

[yelnatsch517]

Hi BigJim, I noticed your unique design on the Sealed Statements. If you can take a chance to check out the flat-pack thread either here or on AVSforum, that would be awesome. There are many of us who'd like to build Statements without the necessary tools so Eric, being such an outstanding person, decided to completely revolutionize the industry and get flat packs made for all us. Now people who only dreamed of joining the DIY group can actually fulfill that dream.

Here's the flat pack thread on HTGuide:

https://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38533

and here's the flat pack thread on AVS:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1309344

I thought your design was best suited for flat pack, which is why I decided to post in your thread. I hope you join us. There's plenty of us who will greatly appreciate your help and will chip in donations. :B

[BigJim_inFLA]

Well I have continued to layer on coats of lacquer when time and weather permit. I am at the mercy of Parts Express now. The last crossover component for the woofer section was on back order until 5/6, but now they are out of stock until 6/3!?!?! I need my Erse inductor! Once that arrives I'll be able to finish up the crossovers, mount them, and get the baffles on. While I wait I have figured out SketchUp well enough to design my stands.



Column will be same zebrawood as the cabinets. Base will be dark gray or black granite.

I'm going for something like this.

[BigJim_inFLA]

While I'm stalled on the Statements I can get some work done to my amp.

[Jim Holtz]

Hi Big Jim,

Meniscus has the inductor for the woofer and are very good people to do business with.

Great work, BTW! :T

Jim

[DeathMonk]

Those are some big ass heatsinks 8O

[john trials]

More info on the amp, please!

[BigJim_inFLA]

Hi Big Jim,

Meniscus has the inductor for the woofer and are very good people to do business with.

Great work, BTW! :T

Jim

Thank you Jim!! They are on the way!

Those are some big ass heatsinks 8O

Yes they are! 7" x 10", with 2.5" fins. The amp runs in Class A and each channel dissipate about 60 watts.

More info on the amp, please!

The amp is DIY version of the First Watt F5. It was designed by Nelson Pass who sells a commercial version, but he also gives very detailed instruction on how to build your own.

F5 Manual

The F5 is a class A amplifier good for about 25 watts per channel into 8 ohms. By all accounts that I have read it sounds wonderful. I've always wanted to build my own amp and this seemed straight forward enough for me. I am by no means an electronics whizz. There is tremendous support for this amp over at the DIYAudio forum. In the original Statements thread I believe one of the posters was using an F5 to power his Statements and was quite pleased. I will be trying the same set up myself.

[john trials]

Thank you Jim!! They are on the way!



Yes they are! 7" x 10", with 2.5" fins. The amp runs in Class A and each channel dissipate about 60 watts.



The amp is DIY version of the First Watt F5. It was designed by Nelson Pass who sells a commercial version, but he also gives very detailed instruction on how to build your own.

F5 Manual

The F5 is a class A amplifier good for about 25 watts per channel into 8 ohms. By all accounts that I have read it sounds wonderful. I've always wanted to build my own amp and this seemed straight forward enough for me. I am by no means an electronics whizz. There is tremendous support for this amp over at the DIYAudio forum. In the original Statements thread I believe one of the posters was using an F5 to power his Statements and was quite pleased. I will be trying the same set up myself.

I've been enticed by Nelson Pass' designs also, but never built anything. Where did you get your circuit boards and components? Was it a kit?

[BigJim_inFLA]

I've been enticed by Nelson Pass' designs also, but never built anything. Where did you get your circuit boards and components? Was it a kit?

The boards were designed by a DIYAudio member and are sold on the site. The rest of the parts were sourced in various places, Mouser, Digikey, local RadioShack. TechDIY.com sells everything you need for the boards as a kit, but you are still on your own as far as the power supply goes.

[BigJim_inFLA]

I just fired up my power supply for the first time. No smoke!! And both rails are putting out a steady 24.6v, perfect!

[BigJim_inFLA]

Inductors should be here tomorrow, my first day back to work. :M

I have been progressing on other projects.



Amp is somewhat assembled. I can fire it up and set bias.



It sounds amazing!

[joeybutts]

This looks fantastic. I wish I would have thought ahead to rabbet my panels for my Khan's.

Nice work.

What is that sub in your avatar if you don't mind me asking? Looks familiar.

[PanteraGSTK]

I've always wanted to build my own amp. I'm going to have to look into it now. I need to get away from these forums. Too many projects, not enough time.

BTW, I like the finish on the front of those speakers in the last pic. What is it?

[0db]

Big Jim, I've just got to say that reading your build thread (others too, but mostly yours) has given me the confidence to jump into a major build like this. Your documentation is great and really helps reveal a lot of the details that make a build go really well instead of "just okay."

Now if only Curt's website was working so I could really get myself into trouble...

[BigJim_inFLA]

What is that sub in your avatar if you don't mind me asking? Looks familiar.

That is one of my bass bins. Each has 2 of the Dayton RSS315-HF subs. They take the LF duty off of my sealed Nat P's.

BTW, I like the finish on the front of those speakers in the last pic. What is it?

That is Rust-Oleum Textured paint in Aged Iron color. It goes on heavy so only two coats covered pretty much any mistakes I made on the baffles.

Big Jim, I've just got to say that reading your build thread (others too, but mostly yours) has given me the confidence to jump into a major build like this. Your documentation is great and really helps reveal a lot of the details that make a build go really well instead of "just okay."

Now if only Curt's website was working so I could really get myself into trouble...

I'm glad you found this thread helpful. If you are building full size Statements in sealed or vented config I think I downloaded all the PDF files. Let me know if you need them.

[BigJim_inFLA]

Some progress

Got my inductors from Meniscus. Threw together the tweet/woof crossovers.



Installed them in the boxes, wired everything up, and glued on the baffles. I may actually hear some music quite soon. Still working on the finish, that will be some time before its complete.

[BeerParty]

Nice job on the crossovers (much nicer than mine ops: ) and your boxes are looking great as well. Glad to see you are making progress.

[BigJim_inFLA]

Making progress and making music! Finished wiring one up today. Installed the drivers and just had to listen. Sounds very nice. It is in a concrete walled garage, playing an iPod through a tiny 40 watt amp, but it sounds good. Can't wait to finish them and move them inside with some better electronics.

[ttan98]

BigJim,

Very Nice Indeed.

Just for my interest how many man hours you spent on building the cabinet alone?

[BigJim_inFLA]

Thank you. I never really thought about how much time I put into these until you asked. I think I have spent about 100 hours building and veneering the cabinets, and another 30 or so in finishing so far. I will probably spend another 50 hours in finishing to get it right. So if I paid myself what I get paid at work that would make these...too damn expensive! I guess its a good thing I enjoy the process as much as the results.

BigJim,

Very Nice Indeed.

Just for my interest how many man hours you spent on building the cabinet alone?

[sdl2112]

Yes looks great!

I was curious how you attached the baffle and how you plan to finish it. I assume it is permanently attached.

[gadut]

great job and documentation

help me so much for my future project

[BigJim_inFLA]

Yes looks great!

I was curious how you attached the baffle and how you plan to finish it. I assume it is permanently attached.

Baffle is just glued on, yes it is permanently attached. The sides and top/bottom have 1/4" rabbet and the inside of the baffle is cut smaller to fit into it. It was a very tight fit even without the glue, had to be tapped together with a mallet. I will be painting them black then lots of coats of clear lacquer, sand, buffing, polishing, etc.