My Ochocinco MTM build...

[CADman_ks]

Bondo = ohnodo...

So, I decided that I should just bite the bullet and try out the bondo idea which seems to be so popular. It can't be that bad, right?

WHEW... My first mix was WAY to hot, and my open time was only like 3 minutes TOPS, and that was mixing it LESS than what the can said. Of course, I threw most of that away, because I just couldn't use it after a while.

My second and third batches were a little less hot, and had a little longer open time, like 5 minutes now. And while that was better, I noticed that it wasn't getting hard after about 10 minutes. I'm still waiting to see if that hardens up or not. I sure hope that it does.

My fourth batch was probably just about right, and still had 3-4 minute open time.

But I don't know how much of this I'll actually remember, though. I'm so high now from smelling the stuff that I might actually pass out as I typ.......................................e....... .............................................t.... .................................................. ....................................h............. .................................................. ...............i.................................. .................................................. ....s............................................. .............

c.......................

[CADman_ks]

Well, I didn't keel over, at least not yet.

But, as I was sanding out the bondo, which does sand rather nicely, I must admit, I realized that I forgot (4) of the holes. damn...

I figured that this was a good time to give the old Durham RockHard a try, and forgo the mixing of a teeny-tiny batch of Bondo.

Worked pretty good, and probably would have worked in the place of Bondo here, but RockHard has it's drawbacks as well...

CADman_ks

[CADman_ks]

Cabinets - first finish sanding...

I managed to get all (4) of the cabinets sanded once, and I'll add more something (juries still out on Bondo vs. RockHard vs. plain old wood filler) on the holes that still need to be filled some more again. Some holes filled better than others, and some need a second coat.

But, I used a tool tonight that I bought a couple of years back, to do some body work on my daughters car (we never did do the body work, she didn't like the car) and have never had a chance to really use. It's an inline air-sander. This thing really works nice for keeping things level, and not rounding over the edges.

Here's a pic of the sander:



This is a picture of the "line" that was left when I stopped sanding. It's hard to tell in this picture, but the right side of the box is sanded and the left isn't. The right side is pretty much one continuous plane across the entire top:



And here's a closeup of that "transition" area from the above pic. It's not easy to see the transition here either, but it's pretty easy to see where I stopped, by the sawdust rolling off the edge. One thing that you can see from the picture is that the top is not really rounded at all.



The transition between these two panels is also very smooth, as are all of the others. What the flush trim bit didn't catch, is pretty easy to catch with this sander.

CADman_ks

[CADman_ks]

...

Tonight will be the first time that I've actually been able to work on / build speakers outdoors!

...

BTW, working on them outdoors was really really nice! I didn't have to clean anything up, and sawdust wasn't all over everything, at least not inside...

CADman_ks

[---k---]

You perfectionist make me sick.

[CADman_ks]

You perfectionist make me sick.

LOL!!! :rofl:

(I really am LMAO!!!)

CADman_ks

[CADman_ks]

How to make hole bigger???

I did find out today, that I'm probably going to have to make my terminal cup hole bigger. I DO have the right size for the terminal cups that I ordered from Erse, but they didn't send them with my order. I called today to see what the deal was, and they are not backordered, they are not going to stock them anymore.

UH-OH!!! 8O

I think that they are going to send me the next size bigger that they have, and that will work, but now I have to cut my holes out bigger. I originally cut these with a boring bar.

I might have to put them in the drill press and line up the hole as best I can (I still have the original plugs), and then clamp the thing down and hope for the best. I had thought that I was going to start veneering some time this week, but now I'm having second thoughts. The last thing I want is to mess up the veneer on the front face while I'm cutting this hole on the back...

OR, if I had a TOP mounted bearing flush trim bit, I could rabbet out to the right size, and then flush trim. Hummm... Wife put the ki-bosh on more tools. I've been buying a lot of tools lately. Might have to fly under the radar for a while.

To quote Joel's father from Risky Business, "What can you do, but say 'What the heck?'" :huh:

CADman_ks

[cjd]

Hole saw? Or switch to the PE plates and posts.

[CADman_ks]

Hole saw? ...

That sounds a little dicey, and I don't think that I have the right size anyways.

... Or switch to the PE plates and posts.

I could possibly make my own custom plates. That's something that I never thought of.

I was looking at some stuff on eBay last nite as well, and it appears that I can get the same thing that I was originally planning on using as well, and that's a pretty appealing option. That means I wouldn't have to change anything.

Hopefully, Erse comes thru for me...

CADman_ks

[---k---]

On one of my projects, I cut a hole like you have. Then I covered the hole on the inside with a piece of 3/4" ply. I drilled a pair of holes for binding posts and rounded over the exterior. It made a real nice terminal cup. With veneer, the roundover probably wouldn't work. But I'm sure with you're skills you could figure something out.

My Khans use the PE black anodized aluminum plates. Pricey but look nice. I'm sure your little CNC thing can cut them.

[CADman_ks]

First half of the evening...

I spent the first half of the evening sanding down the second coat of filler that I was quickly able to put in over lunch today. Since I didn't have any deep holes or cracks to fill at this point, I just used some wood filler type putty.

By this evening it was good and hard, and sanded very nicely. I probably still have a few screw holes that could use one more round, but at this point, I think that the glue that I'm going to use one the veneer will fill in those voids, so I'm not going over them again.

Shop dog (family outside dog) decided to come out and help tonite too. As you can see, she somehow managed to get sawdust all over her back:


Here's a pic of them all stacked up, sanded and blown off (not much different than they have looked the last three nites):



I've noticed as I've sanded on these that the corners are getting sharp, dang sharp. But, with MDF, you have to got be super careful that you don't ding up the edges, so I move them around with kid gloves. Here's a close-up of a corner:



(cont...)

[CADman_ks]

On one of my projects, I cut a hole like you have. Then I covered the hole on the inside with a piece of 3/4" ply. I drilled a pair of holes for binding posts and rounded over the exterior. It made a real nice terminal cup. With veneer, the roundover probably wouldn't work. But I'm sure with you're skills you could figure something out.
.....

Hummm... That's an idea. Actually, I'm NOT going to veneer the backs of these. I only have got (1) 4'x8' piece of veneer from the cabinet shop, and I knew that I was actually going to be short. I could do two speakers, but not the other two. So, at this moment, my plan is to paint the backs with the left over paint from my Stents. It will look very muck like the back of some of the commercial speakers out there. Maybe that's a bad thing, but I don't think that it will look all that bad. I have looked on eBay as well, and there are places that you can buy smaller veneer pieces from, for a fairly reasonable price. I still haven't decided if I want to do that or not yet, but that's an option as well.

...
My Khans use the PE black anodized aluminum plates. Pricey but look nice. I'm sure your little CNC thing can cut them.

Another good idea. You're right, our laser could indeed cut them out of aluminum or steel for that matter. If I did steel, I could have them powder coated black. If I did aluminum, I could polish them. My brother polishes aluminum in his spare time, so he has all of the tools...

CADman_ks

[CADman_ks]

Second half of the evening...

I spent the second half of the evening wrangling my 4'x8' sheet of veneer. It shouldn't surprise me that it was tightly wound, and it didn't want to unwind, but I didn't think that it would be quite so hard to work with. It didn't help that I didn't really have a spot in the house on the carpet big enough to totally unroll the whole thing.

Anyhow, I did finally get it all unwound, and cut up. At this point, I've cut it into strips that I will leave this size, glue up, and then cut down to the size that I need, right before I put them on.

It also took me a while to lay out a pattern that will be on the speaker cabs. I could have just cut it into 11 1/2" strips and been done with it, but it turned out that there was a seem right down the middle, and it was book matched there. I cut that, and then measured out from there 11 1/2" for the second sheets.

Now what I will have, if all goes to plan, are two sets of "book matched" speakers, that should have grain patterns that are mirrors of each other from speaker to speaker. Yes, it's overkill, but if it works, I'll think it's cool. No one else will even notice.

Here's what the unruly suckers looked like AFTER I cut them into the smaller strips:


It's hard to see from the next two images, but these are the two sets of "book" matched veneers that I'll be putting on the sets of speakers. This first image is from the center, where it was a TRUE book match, and you can see that it's a pretty close mirrored match (these are actually cut down the middle!):



And this is the second set, cut from the OUTSIDES of the two pieces above, and then laid together to appear to be book matched. These won't quite match as well, because one is further out on the log, and one is further in on the log:



After cutting everything, I laid them upside down and put some weight on them to hopefully try and get them to lay a little bit flatter. We'll see when I take them off.



CADman_ks

[CADman_ks]

You talked me into it...

...but now I have to cut my holes out bigger. I originally cut these with a boring bar.

I might have to put them in the drill press and line up the hole as best I can (I still have the original plugs), and then clamp the thing down and hope for the best. I had thought that I was going to start veneering some time this week, but now I'm having second thoughts. The last thing I want is to mess up the veneer on the front face while I'm cutting this hole on the back...

On one of my projects, I cut a hole like you have. Then I covered the hole on the inside with a piece of 3/4" ply. I drilled a pair of holes for binding posts and rounded over the exterior. It made a real nice terminal cup. With veneer, the roundover probably wouldn't work. But I'm sure with you're skills you could figure something out.
.....

Hummm... That's an idea. Actually, I'm NOT going to veneer the backs of these. I only have got (1) 4'x8' piece of veneer from the cabinet shop, and I knew that I was actually going to be short. I could do two speakers, but not the other two. So, at this moment, my plan is to paint the backs with the left over paint from my Stents. It will look very muck like the back of some of the commercial speakers out there. Maybe that's a bad thing, but I don't think that it will look all that bad. I have looked on eBay as well, and there are places that you can buy smaller veneer pieces from, for a fairly reasonable price. I still haven't decided if I want to do that or not yet, but that's an option as well.

After cutting up all of the veneer into manageable pieces, I started thinking about these two posts, and what my original plan was. I thought that originally, I would take the somewhat easy route, and just paint the backs, as my excuse was that I didn't have enough veneer to do the backs.

Well, that's somewhat a lie, and I knew that it was, I was just trying to convince myself that it was the truth. I actually DO have enough, but I'm going to need to get creative to make it all go the distance.

I couldn't sleep last nite at all, as I kept thinking about different ways to do this, and if I had enough, yada yada yada...

Over lunch today, I double some double check measuring, and I will actually have enough to do the backs of all (4) cabinets. However, both sets will not be done the same, and that's fine. One set will need to have a full pieced back, and the other set will have a "center" panel, that looks like it has 3/4" banding all the way around it, so it will actually look more like a bona-fide box from the back.

So, I've decided to go ahead and do this for a couple of reasons:

• I have time to screw around with this, because remember, I'm not going to have main drivers until May 8, (could even be 2014) :cry:
• It's the back. If it's not perfect, or even that great, it's OK, because it's the back, and the only people that should ever see it are the people hooking up wires
• The back has to be done first, so that all of the other veneer lay lines come out right, since I'm using paper backed veneer
• Since the back must be done first, it gives me a great opportunity to practice before I delve into the "real" sides that people will see. And, since I have to do some splicing on these pieces, it's going to give me opportunity to really try out how this all works
• Ultimately, if it's just all loused up, I peel off (melt it off), and sand down the back and paint it, which was my plan originally

There's really only one downside that I see to this plan, and that is that IF I hose something up on one of the "main" sides, I will not have any extra to fix it with. I'll have some small pieces left, but I won't have any large areas to fix big boo-boos with. I'm hoping that it doesn't come to that. Time will tell.

I blame ALLof this on ---k--- for planting the seed that I could veneer the back, just ASSUMING that I WAS going to veneer the back. :W

It wouldn't be any fun though, if I couldn't learn something along the way.

Thanks for the idea ---k---! :T

CADman_ks

[---k---]

I blame ALLof this on ---k--- for ...
CADman_ks

Just wait until you get the drivers and things don't fit because you worked off my drawings.... :W

[CADman_ks]

Just wait until you get the drivers and things don't fit because you worked off my drawings.... :W

To late...

CJD already alerted me to this one:

One thing I just remembered about these particular Dayton drivers: make sure that they naturally seat fully - you may have to knock down the edge of the driver cutout as there's a small blip in the frame right before it goes to the basket.
...

:B

I did look at the drawings of the drivers, and it looks to me like it will work, but even if it doesn't, at least have I've been warned.

CADman_ks

[CADman_ks]

New terminal cups...

I got the terminal cups from Erse today, and they are the bigger hole, so now I need to make the holes bigger.

I currently have a 2.75" hole in there, and I need a 3.00 diameter hole in there, so only .125" bigger on the radius.

It's actually an OK thing that they are bigger, because I'm also going to modify these to add a fuse holder for protection. Bigger just gives the fuse holder a little more room in the cup...

CADman_ks

[CADman_ks]

Terminal cup resize...

Well, I figured out how to resize my holes so that I could get the larger terminal cups in there.

First off, just so that you get a picture of why I couldn't just re-drill the hole, this was the tool that I used to drill the original hole:



This thing likes to kind of make your part walk around when you're drilling, and I did NOT want my cabs falling off of the drill press, so I had to find something else.

I measured my existing holes, and they needed to get bigger by almost exactly .125. I measured my rabbeting bit, and it was 1.25. So, I thought, how could I attach something to the bearing on my making it bigger, or could I "fabricate" my own bearing? (I got the idea to attach something to the bearing on the router when I saw a link (that I cannot find right now) about someone who wrapped electrical tape around the bearing on their bit to decrease the offset. That sounds like a GREAT way to fine tune speaker rebates).

So, the biggest bearing that I have for my rabbet is .625. I didn't really feel comfortable wrapping .375 (.1875 / side) to my original bearing, so I started looking for ways to fabricate my own. I found a washer that was EXACTLY 1.00, which would set up my .125 offset per side. Now, I just needed to figure out how to make it spin.

Next, I found a nut that just barely fit in side the inside hole of the washer. I drilled out the hole in this nut so that it would fit over the threaded shank on my bits arbor. Luckily, that nut was slightly thicker than the washer. That meant, that all I had to do was just find another washer that was sized right for the arbor, and was bigger in OD than the ID of the washer. This would keep the washer from falling off.

These are the pictures of my new bearing arrangement:

Sort of a "bottom" view, or side closest to the bit:



Sort of a top view, or side furthest from the bit (in this view, you can sort of see the nut sandwiched under the smaller "keeper" washer"):



And here's a view of the whole thing kind of "exploded" on the arbor shaft:



Looking inside the router after the first initial test cut, checking the overall size:



(continued)...

[CADman_ks]

Terminal cup resize (continued)...

After making the first test cut, I realized that my washer was a LITTLE bit too big, and I needed to take it down a little bit to prevent me from needing to sand off a lot.

I don't have a metal lathe, but I have drill press. I made an arbor out of bolt and nut, and sandwiched the washer on there. I turned my drill press down to the slowest that it would go, and then I GENTLY used a metal file until I got about .015 off of the diameter which should make me closer.

Here's the arbor setup on the drill press:



Here's the file against it:



You can see in the last picture that the washer wasn't exactly centered, and there was no real good way for me to do that. But, when I was only turning at 250 RPM's, it was going slow enough that I could easily keep the file on there, and keep it from bouncing around. One other thing that I realized as I started filing on this washer was that this is a special hardened flat washer, like grade 8. That made filing a little slower, but that will be perfect for a bearing, because it should take a little more abuse, and it did.

Here's what the holes looked like after I took the "bearing" down as far as I could. I was about .125 short of going thru all the way:



I don't have a top bearing trim bit, so to clean them up, I put a small drum sander in the power drill, and sanded the lip off, CAREFULLY:



This was actually pretty easy to control, and get just to the diameter of the hole. But, will all of that being said, I probably still should have taken more off of my washer, because the terminal cups wouldn't quite fit in there.

But, rather than turn the washer down more, I just reamed them out a couple of rounds with the drum sander, and if needed a couple more, and so on, until I just got the cup to drop in.

Here's a cup dropped in, just for proof:




All-in-all, this actually worked pretty well. The bearing was NOT spinning on the shaft, and was staying stationary against the MDF This is NOT a method that you would obviously want to do on a regular basis, but it did work in a pinch.

CADman_ks

[---k---]

Wow! That made my head spin.


After seeing that, I'm not going to tell you how I would have done it...

[---k---]

Someone at PE has a similar problem... You might not want to look.

http://techtalk.parts-express.com/showpost.php?p=1820248&postcount=9

[CADman_ks]

Wow! That made my head spin.


After seeing that, I'm not going to tell you how I would have done it...

LOL.

Isn't that part of DIY though? Sometimes you have to invent the absolute most hard way in the world to do something?

I could have used Paul's way as well, but this worked. I don't have a Jasper jig so it takes me a while to dial in my homemade jig which may have actually taken longer in the long run.

CAdman

[CADman_ks]

...

I don't have a Jasper jig so it takes me a while to dial in my homemade jig which may have actually taken longer in the long run...

It took me less than an hour to do all four of these holes including figuring it out and setting it up. That doesn't sound too bad to me...

CADman_ks

[CADman_ks]

Time out...

It's going to be raining here over the next couple of days, and that's a good thing, so I'm not complaining about that. But the temperature outside is going to be cold enough that I'm not going to be able to glue my veneer out there.

I thought about glueing and the ironing on the veneer inside, but then I have to take them in and out a bunch of times to trim them. I think that it's better to do that all in a place where I have to move things less. The more that I move things around, the more of a chance that something bad will happen with one of the cabinets.

But, the good news is that the weekend is supposed to be nice. Hopefully I can back on them then...

CADman_ks

[JonP]

If you have trouble with the veneer laying flat, and trust me, it probably will want to move and curl when you put the glue on... the moisture tends to do that... you might want to try a veneer softener beforehand. I haven't tried it before gluing, but it should help to relax it then. I've mostly just taped it down to cardboard or heavy paper, and that held it from curling without the softener, but some tried really hard to curl up. Try on a few test pieces first...

You can buy some from several sources, Rockler or various veneer suppliers, or find a recipe and DIY it yourself.

[CADman_ks]

If you have trouble with the veneer laying flat, and trust me, it probably will want to move and curl when you put the glue on... the moisture tends to do that... you might want to try a veneer softener beforehand. I haven't tried it before gluing, but it should help to relax it then. I've mostly just taped it down to cardboard or heavy paper, and that held it from curling without the softener, but some tried really hard to curl up. Try on a few test pieces first...

You can buy some from several sources, Rockler or various veneer suppliers, or find a recipe and DIY it yourself.

JonP, Thanks for the tip!

Over in my thread about veneer suppliers I linked to another website about general how-to veneer with some great information. But in that link, he has another link to the place where he got the information about TiteBond information on using it as a veneer glue:

http://www.webherrera.com/blog/2009/04/19/titebonds-franklin-internationals-iron-on-instructions/9/

There's a lot of great information there, specifically regarding the glue that he received from the manufacturer directly.

According to Franklin International (TiteBond), these are the steps (which are very similar to all of the other posts with some noted additions):

Steps:
1. Before applying the glue:
· Applying a coat of shellac to seal the back side of the veneer will prevent bleed-through. Allow the shellac to completely dry before applying the glue. This step is optional.
· Apply tape to any cracks in the veneer. This will help to prevent bleed-through. Hold the veneer up to the light to see all of them. This step is optional.
2. Applying the glue:
· Apply a heavy coat of the glue to the back side of the veneer and the core material.
· Spray the face side of the veneer with water to avoid curling of the veneer. This step is optional.
3. Allow the glue to completely dry.
4. Iron the veneer onto the core:
· Place veneer on the core with some overhang. Limit the overhang to 1/8”.
· Use iron to reactivate the glue (see table below)
Place a paper towel between the iron and the veneer to avoid scorching the veneer
Work from the center out
Press firmly, with steady pressure
Move slowly
If veneer has curled, blistered or bubbled, use the steam function on the iron to flatten out the veneer

I thought that I would try without water first, and if that doesn't work, I'll add water, and IF that doesn't work, I'll look into some softener or making my own. I'd like to go without water / softener unless I really need it. I read somewhere that the extra steam tends to make the veneer want to expand too much and then it cracks when it dries. I don't know if that's true or not, since I have NO experience, but the logic sounded good.

I was originally thinking that I was going to lay all of my veneer out and glue all of it at once, so that part was done. Since then, I've decided that probably doesn't make a lot of sense, so I'm going with baby steps...

[CADman_ks]

Pluggin' away...

Since it's still raining and somewhat cold here, I still can't get started on the veneer.

Tonight, I worked on some of the other little stuff that needed to be done at some point. I put all of the ends on my crossovers so that they are ready to hook up to the drivers, if they ever get here.

I also wanted terminal cups w/ fuses, and originally, I was going to get these:



But, when I decided to get my caps, resistors, and inductors from Erse, I noticed that they had a pretty good deal on some smaller cups, that that didn't have fuses. Since I'm a cheap bastage, I scoured eBay, and I found some inline fuse holders for less than a $1/ea delivered. If I bought the cheaper cups, and converted them myself, I'd save a couple of bucks per cup. Like I said, I'm a cheap bastage.

Erse ended up not having those, so I had to go up in size, which ironically, is the exact same size as the one from PE above. It even looks like the same cup to me! The cups ended up costing $1/ea more from Erse, but I'm still ahead of the game a little bit by doing the conversion myself, and at the end of the day, all I have is time anyway.

So, here's what they looked like before I started:



All they needed was a hole, and the fuse holder would drop right in. As it turns out, the "optimum" shape for the hole is not a hole, but rather a double "D" shaped hole. Originally, I thought that I would just drill a hole and superglue the things in there, so that they wouldn't turn. But, as I started measuring the double "D" shape, I realized that the large part of the diameter needed to be a .56 or 9/16" hole. I don't have a 9/16" drill bit, so I decided to drill them as a 1/2" hole, and then use the Dremel to make the double "D" shape. Everyone needs a little bit of Dremel practice now and then anyway!

Here's what the holes looked like after I was done, and they all actually fit rather nicely, and don't spin when you loosen up the fuse cap:



After a quick solder on the back to join the positive to one side of the fuse, and the other with a pigtail that will connect to my crossovers, they are done:

... from the back ...



... from the front ...



I didn't really save any money doing this, but it didn't really cost me any money either, so I guess that's a wash.

At least now I should have protected speakers when they are out of my site, and I can't control how loud they are played... :T

[---k---]

Fuses? What are you planing on doing with these?

[CADman_ks]

Fuses? What are you planing on doing with these?

I'M planning on avoiding this phone call:

Daughter: "Dad? There's something wrong my speakers."
Me: "What do they sound like?"
Daughter: "All crackly, and there's not a lot of sound coming out"

... and so goes the conversation...

I'll start with a small fuse, and if it blows all the time, we can move up. Cheap insurance, I say...

[BeerParty]

After a quick solder on the back to join the positive to one side of the fuse, and the other with a pigtail that will connect to my crossovers, they are done:

One down, five to go (assuming I counted all your parallel projects correctly).

[CADman_ks]

One down, five to go (assuming I counted all your parallel projects correctly).

Just four, and I have all of the cups done, and the crossovers done, with the exception of the one that's still missing a resistor that Erse didn't send me. I'm hoping/thinking that it will be here either today or tomorrow. Then, I will have all of the internals done.

I just need to finish the cabs, and start the waiting game.

Waiting until 5/8/2012 before drivers are in stock at PE...

[CADman_ks]

Veneering has begun!!!

The weather has finally warmed up here, and the rain has quit.

I couldn't quite get into the shop as quickly as I would have liked because we had a TON of yard work that had to be tended to after all of the rain and warmer weather.

Frickin' phone wasn't cooperating, and I didn't have the camera with me, so I'll have to post pictures later... :M

[CADman_ks]

Backs are veneered...

I would have to say that so far (knock on wood), my first experience at veneering is going rather swimmingly. I didn't think that I was nervous about this, but I noticed that several times today I found my hands shaking, especially when I was cutting. Maybe I was a little more tense than I originally thought. :B

Here's a shot of the glue-ups that I did on the panels. I would keep them in larger pieces, so that they were easier to glue, and then cut them after the fact. The two tape idea did work pretty well, and they were pretty flat:



I was concerned about how to joint the edges of veneer, and I had several pieces that needed to be jointed. With the grain isn't really a big deal, but cross grain is. I tried using an X-Acto knife, but it just doesn't really cut smoothly across the grain, and then you don't end up with a perfectly straight cut.

I saw this video on youtube.com about how to joint veneer. I thought that this method looked like it would work good, but I was concerned about how it would work with paper backed veneer. I reckoned that paper wouldn't "sand" too hot. I borrowed his idea, but I put a motor behind it. I used my router to do the same thing.

I started with (2) 2x10's that I jointed one side on. Then I put these in my Workmate, and slid the two pieces that needed to be jointed in there:



Then, I would stick about 1/16" above the boards (or last cut), and clamp everything tight. Then I used a bottom cleaning router bit, and I would route into the 2x10's about 1/32". Here I stopped half way thru, to see the setup, and what the cut looks like:




Here's what it looked like when the router was sitting on the jointer bed:



This really cleaned the paper up nicely.

Here's a picture of what one of the resultant jointed edges looked like:



While there's still a small gap there, the gap is at least the same width across and even. The might be because of residual glue from the first panel holding out the banding.

(continued)...

[CADman_ks]

Backs are veneered (continued)...

Because I decided to do the backs, the two back designs between the sets of speakers are not the same. I had to do it this way to maximize the veneer that I had. Two of them just have solid backs, with a split about 4" from the bottom. Nothing really there, other than I used that jointer jig to joint the edges which worked nice.

But the other set, looks like it is built out of 3/4" boards, and you can see the end grain on the perimeter boards. To accomplish this, I cut a piece the EXACT size for the middle. Then I ironed it on, where it was supposed to go, leaving 3/4" of all the way around it.

Then I laid 1" strips that I cut from scrap all the way around. BUT, I overlapped the corners, for post trimming:



Then, I took a utility knife blade, and I broke off one of the angled ends of the blade, so that one end was basically straight up and down. I wanted to do this, because I wanted to be able to hammer directly above where I was going to place the blade:



Then, I would line the inside corner up with the outside corner, and tap blade thru with a hammer (I did move my finger before I started hammering :P):



This is what the finished corner looked like BEFORE final trimming. Notice that one side is longer. This method really works great, because it doesn't matter if one angle is 47, and the other is 43. They both line up perfectly, because the sum is 90 or 89 or whatever the angle of your box is:




Again, there's a little bit of gap there, but I'm zoomed in pretty far here. These are also on the back, so it's not something that I have to be as critical with. Remember, I was originally going to paint the backs black, so this is definitely a step up from that.

Here's one of the finished joints. Joint appears to go from corner to corner:



More sides to come...

[---k---]

Looks like good progress. :T

I did some glueing up of my boxes last night where I'm trying to use miter corners w/ plywood in order to eliminate end grain and veneering.... I'm not going to be posting pictures... :E

[CADman_ks]

... I'm not going to be posting pictures... :E

I hope that you do realize that what you're attempting to do is NOT easy, or at least I don't think that it's easy.

I liken it to doing trim work in your house. It's not that "hard" to do, but it ain't easy to make it look good either. At the same time, it isn't hard to make it look good either, it just takes a LOT of time and practice, and probably more of the latter than the first...

[oneplustwo]

Looks like good progress. :T

I did some glueing up of my boxes last night where I'm trying to use miter corners w/ plywood in order to eliminate end grain and veneering.... I'm not going to be posting pictures... :E

Is it worse than my 1/8" gap? BTW, I did the same technique (masking tape) without the biscuits on another project yesterday and it turned out almost perfect. The box was about the same size... But I think it would have worked just as well with a bigger box. Forget the biscuits for miters!

[CADman_ks]

... Forget the biscuits for miters!

LOL!!!

When I bought my biscuit joiner, I bought it for this very reason: biscuiting mitered corners together.

At the time, we were making all of the outside corner blocks for the trim in our house, and I thought biscuits would be a good way to hold them together.

After about (5) screwed up blocks, and the accompanying frustration, we quit using biscuits, and I built a jig that we built them in. We glued them, and then brad nailed them, and set them aside. It went much much quicker...

[---k---]

Is it worse than my 1/8" gap?

Probably.

I hope that you do realize that what you're attempting to do is NOT easy, or at least I don't think that it's easy.
.

Yeah. And I make it worse because I'm not good at taking my time and practicing. I tend to just wing it. I tell people that I'm a good rough carpenter, not a finish carpenter.

I think it is still going to come out okay. I made the inside of the box pretty stout and I'm not a perfectionist when it comes to appearance. As long as it looks decent from the sofa.

I plan on impressing everyone with finished photos. A little wood putty and some darker stain...

[CADman_ks]

...
I tell people that I'm a good rough carpenter, not a finish carpenter.

...

Somebody has to do that too. My father-in-law is more of a finish carpenter, and he absolutely drives me crazy whenever we've framed together.

I ask him to measure something, and he comes back with a measurement of something like 129" and 1/64 over 13/16.

My head almost explodes trying to figure out where all of those marks MIGHT be on my tape measure if I had them. I try explaining to him that 129 3/4" would be JUST perfect, AND I KNOW that it will go in there. With his method, we cut it off three times before we get the "perfect" length.

IT'S ROUGH FRAMING FOR CRYING IN A BUCKET-HOLE!!! The word ROUGH is in there for a reason!!! :M

[CADman_ks]

... And I make it worse because I'm not good at taking my time and practicing...

I'm not always the most patient and good at practicing either, until I screw something up, and them I'm peeved that I didn't take my time.

I'm learning more and more to just take my time up front. It will get done eventually...

[CADman_ks]

Verneering complete!!!

It's been a while since I've posted updates. High school spring sports are now in full swing, and that's been occupying a lot of our time.

I didn't want to start on the other (3) cabs until I could find a day that I could do them all, non-stop, because I only wanted to set up to apply glue to the veneer panels once. I thought that day was actually NOT going to be until next Saturday, but we had an evening commitment that got cancelled, so I decided to bang this out this afternoon and evening.

All-in-all, the actual veneering process has gone pretty smooth. I've had a few issues with the paper backing not always trimming clean, but it's typically cut right off with a knife of some kind. Also, I do have the lines that come with paper, but they are worse in some areas and better in others. I actually think that I'm also seeing a little bit of glue in there as well. I put a LOT of glue around the edges, to ensure that they were sticking down, and there were probably times when I over did it a bit.

Here's some tips that I would pass along:

First, I noticed that as the glue gets drier, it takes longer to get the glue to melt. When I first started, even though the glue was dry, it would not take very long to actually melt the glue on the veneer and the substrate together. Towards the end of the day, it was taking probably double what it took in the beginning. I was using original TiteBond, and it is supposed to have a seven day window of reheating. That may true, but I would think that you're really going to have to iron on it for a while to get it to melt back together.

Second, I think that for beginners into veneering, ironing is the way to go. While I have not personally contact glued veneer, I have contact glued Formica, and I would assume that the process here is very much the same. The biggest down side to contact cement is that you get that one shot. If you're not right, you've got troubles. With the iron on method, you have a chance to move it around get it right where you want it, and then iron the middle to get it to stick. If for some reason you didn't like it, you could still get that piece off because only a small area of it is stuck at the point, and not the whole darn thing!

Thirdly, be prepared to be patient, and be prepared for it take a while. I think that I've spent as much time on the veneer as I've spent on the cabs up to this point. It does take a while, and it's not really something that you rush. Take your time, and enjoy the ride!

The only real problem that I experienced was de-lamination of the veneer on the edges. This happened to me twice, and one time I was actually able to heat it back together, and the other time I wasn't. I think that I'll try wicking some super glue into there to get that gap shut. It's not a very big gap, only like a 1/2".

I'm very happy that I took the time to work it out so that the speakers are "book" matched, at least as much as I could make it with the veneer that I had. The veneer that I had appears to be flat cut, so there's not a lot of cathedral in it, but it is still the same from side to side, more of less as they sliced into the log. I'll be the only one that will ever know they are book matched, but I will know.

Here's some shots of the first set of cabs.

From the top, and you can see that the tops are book matched:



Here's a shot from one of the sides:



and the shot from the other side:



(continued...)

[CADman_ks]

Verneering complete!!! (continued)

This is the other cab.

From the top:



From one of the sides:



From the other side:



I started this veneering project with a 4'x8' sheet of veneer. Now that I'm done, I have this much left! Not too bad:



I have to put the front accent pieces on now, and then stain, lacquer, and paint the accent pieces.

Feels good to get this far, and it feels good to have this sort of behind me. I was a little bit nervous about how this would all go...

[---k---]

Looking real good. It is a shame that there is going to be ~8 feet between them and the book matching won't be as appreciated. I appreciate the tips. Though, I think your third tip just scared me off from ever trying veneer.

Did those photos get squashed? Those boxes look short and fat? Maybe optical allusion.

[CADman_ks]

... Though, I think your third tip just scared me off from ever trying veneer.
....

LOL! I put that in there, because I think that people should be aware that you're going to have a hard time with veneering if you're not a patient. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to be a patient person to be successful at veneering, because I am NOT patient in the slightest bit. But there is a time and a season for being patient without getting frustrated, and this is one of those times.

I actually enjoyed it when it was all said and done, and I enjoyed the process as well. I encourage you to give it a go at some point!

...

Did those photos get squashed? Those boxes look short and fat? Maybe optical allusion.

No, the photos are not smashed, anymore than parallax might have done with the camera.

However, my boxes are shorter in height and wider, because I have that accent piece that goes on there yet, which is the size of the original front baffle. My internal volume is the same as the original design, though.

Here's a pic of my plans that show that the front accent piece is the same size (width) as the original:



It's too late now, but cjd promised me that it would be fine.

It's going to be fine, because I'm not starting over!!!