Jensen 1071 Build

[Steve Manning]

Slow Progress continues ......

Still making some slow headway ........ Bondo work and sanding is mostly done. Between traveling for family events and sickness, both me and the guy who's going to paint the cabinets, it looks like the end of April for actual painting, I'm hoping it does not slip any more than that. I decided to add a little something fun to the cabinets, a name plate, After seeing them on the Wilson speakers and liking how they looked I decided to give the idea a go myself. After getting the artwork done and a bit of looking around I found a place that could make what I wanted from what I had laid out. DISCLAIMER ...... Keep in mind this is in no way implies me taking credit for Troel's design, I just thought it would look cool to add.


Made a template for the router first .....







Pocket after routering ....

[Steve Manning]

Look at this way ....... once there inside the cabinet no one will ever know:W And with this build I've gotten a feel for expensive, I can only imagine the bill for yours, especially with all that pretty Kimber Kable your using to hook things up!!

[JonMarsh]

Thanks Jon ...... I'll bet your final versions are pretty nice though!

That's the problem, Steve- my final versions are the last tweak on the prototypes! ops: These things are expensive to build, you know! :rofl:

Troels does these nice build layouts-

[Steve Manning]

Thanks Scott ...... I'm hoping to have the bondo/sanding done this week, so far it's taking a lot longer than expected or desired, then I get to see if I pass inspection as it were. The guy doing the painting is going to come check them out and I get to fix what doesn't make the grade for painting. Once that's fixed he gets them and does his thing, hopefully his schedule is not too backed up to fit them right in.

[Steve Manning]

Thanks Jon ...... I'll bet your final versions are pretty nice though!

[sdl2112]

In between coats of bondo and sanding I've managed to get one of the crossover boards put together and done a test fit in the cabinet. Have to terminate cabinet wiring to length yet but things fit more or less as planed. Now back to sanding .........

Great work Steve :T When do you expect to have the cabinets painted?

[JonMarsh]

Very nice looking!

All those superior Z caps cost more than some peoples whole speakers :E

Very nice looking- much better than my prototype crossovers! :T

[Steve Manning]

Thanks Jim ..... yep those things are not cheap, which is one reason I did not use them for the 110 uf on the mid-range, that would have added another ~$700 just for that. I went with Troel's recommendation and used Obbligato's instead, which still brought the bill to painful. 8O

[jim1961]

In between coats of bondo and sanding I've managed to get one of the crossover boards put together and done a test fit in the cabinet. Have to terminate cabinet wiring to length yet but things fit more or less as planed. Now back to sanding .........


[ATTACH=CONFIG]21601[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]21602[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]21603[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]21604[/ATTACH]

Very nice looking!

All those superior Z caps cost more than some peoples whole speakers :E

[Steve Manning]

One Down .....

In between coats of bondo and sanding I've managed to get one of the crossover boards put together and done a test fit in the cabinet. Have to terminate cabinet wiring to length yet but things fit more or less as planed. Now back to sanding .........

[Steve Manning]

One more time .......

I was also able to get a little bit of work done on the crossovers.

This is after the Goop set up on the 110 uF of cap that Troels calls for on the mids .......



A couple after getting things cleaned up and soldered in place ......

[Steve Manning]

OK lets try this again since it didn't work yesterday ....

Got a little time on the speakers this weekend. For the most part got the majority of the bondo work and sanding done on one cabinet. I got some good advise from the a local auto paint supplier here in town. I was going to pick up some more bondo and was talking to one of the guys that worked there and he suggested switching to U-Pol Fibral Lite, instead of regular bondo. Apparently it's a short hair fiber glass paste that is a lot easier to work with. It goes on very smooth and can be built up more and is stronger than straight bondo, it sands up very smooth as well. For any other body work noobs like me out there, this stuff is pretty nice to work with.

Since I do have most of the bondo work done on that cabinet I went ahead and got the threaded inserts in place for the cabinet feet .......



I was able to get a pretty good deal on a couple of sets of these .....

[Steve Manning]

Oops no pictures, I will have to fix that later when I get home.

[Steve Manning]

I was also able to get a little bit of work done on the crossovers.

This is after the Goop set up on the 110 uF of cap that Troels calls for on the mids .......



A couple after getting things cleaned up and soldered in place ......

[Steve Manning]

Got a little time on the speakers this weekend. For the most part got the majority of the bondo work and sanding done on one cabinet. I got some good advise from the a local auto paint supplier here in town. I was going to pick up some more bondo and was talking to one of the guys that worked there and he suggested switching to U-Pol Fibral Lite, instead of regular bondo. Apparently it's a short hair fiber glass paste that is a lot easier to work with. It goes on very smooth and can be built up more and is stronger than straight bondo, it sands up very smooth as well. For any other body work noobs like me out there, this stuff is pretty nice to work with.

Since I do have most of the bondo work done on that cabinet I went ahead and got the threaded inserts in place for the cabinet feet .......



I was able to get a pretty good deal on a couple of sets of these .....

[Mark_1042]

Thanks Mark ....... Having lots of fun with bondo and sanding these days .... not. Though I did switch it up a little last night, I had some fun with Goop instead ..... started on gluing up some caps for the crossovers. We are supposed to be getting some warmer weather this weekend so I'm hoping to open up the garage door and try to bang out the bulk of this bondo work ..... we shall see.

Right :B - I'm at the same point in my build with the bondo. Its pretty nice out here too, but supposed to rain tomorrow, and here I am burning daylight.

Good luck with the weekend work, it will be cool to watch this build as it progresses.

[Steve Manning]

Thanks Mark ....... Having lots of fun with bondo and sanding these days .... not. Though I did switch it up a little last night, I had some fun with Goop instead ..... started on gluing up some caps for the crossovers. We are supposed to be getting some warmer weather this weekend so I'm hoping to open up the garage door and try to bang out the bulk of this bondo work ..... we shall see.

[Mark_1042]

Wow, I see I've been missing all the fun here. Looking great Steve!

[Steve Manning]

Nice Steve...keep it coming. As far as attachments...with my latest pics I just went to manage attachments and selected the files from my computer...that's it. No relinking necessary...it goes in the body of the thread so you can still add descriptions to the pic. No double attachments showed up.

Thanks for the idea Scott ..... I played around with going that route but what I discovered was that it drops all the pictures in the post as one attachment which, it appears, you cannot edit and add text in between pictures which you could before. I'll keep looking.

[sdl2112]

OK, so how do I not get the full sized attachment pictures to show up with this new software?

Nice Steve...keep it coming. As far as attachments...with my latest pics I just went to manage attachments and selected the files from my computer...that's it. No relinking necessary...it goes in the body of the thread so you can still add descriptions to the pic. No double attachments showed up.

[JonMarsh]

Got me... no idea... something to research. Sometimes the size auto adjusts, too...

[Steve Manning]

OK, so how do I not get the full sized attachment pictures to show up with this new software?

[Steve Manning]

Still making some slow progress. Got the second bubinga trim piece done and attached to the second cabinet. Was able to get the bolts to line up better the second time around.




Now we're having fun with bondo and lots of sanding .......







Also trying out some seam sealer in a few locations. The guy who is going to paint the cabinets recommended it as an easier solution to seal up joints over bondo.

[Steve Manning]

There are guides like this General Tools Accuguide that make a big difference drilling with hand held drills when you need to control the angle. Woodcraft, among others.



As usual, looking very good so far, Steve!

Thanks Jon .... I actually have one of those guides which I used for pilot holes from the outside. I ran into a little bit of grief when I drilled the recessed holes for the screw heads on the inside. Since the holes were so close to the sides I had to use a 90 degree chuck with a spade bit, less than optimal to control
A couple of the holes ended up a little offset as a result. I'm thinking about how to go at it on the second cabinet to get a better alignment.

[JonMarsh]

There are guides like this General Tools Accuguide that make a big difference drilling with hand held drills when you need to control the angle. Woodcraft, among others.



As usual, looking very good so far, Steve!

[Steve Manning]

Painfull Fiddly Bits

Have not been able to spend much time on the speakers for well over a week, got side tracked with an upgrade to the home theater setup. Finally got DirecTV to cough up new hardware for whole home HD/DVR, which turned into a new TV and receiver and a rewire of the whole system.

Was able to spend some time on the speakers tonight and started on threaded inserts to hold the bubinga trim in place.

Whole placement for the bolts ....



After transferring the holes I started into getting some inserts put in place .....



I had to trim the length of the inserts due to the thickness of the trim, inserts were too long, this is after I did some initial trimming......



Had to flush trim with a file and sander, royal pain .....



A few more in place .... this is going to take a while since it's a time consuming process. The biggest issue is keeping everything square with having to drill everything by hand.

[Steve Manning]

That, my friend, is known as serendipity- or plain dumb good luck!

I'll take what ever I can get

[JonMarsh]

I knew it was going to be some shade of grey/silver after seeing the color on some of the Wilson speakers. When I ran across the M3 pictures I went that's the color. Turns out the guy that's gong to do the painting for me can get the exact paint. :T

That, my friend, is known as serendipity- or plain dumb good luck!

[Steve Manning]

I knew it was going to be some shade of grey/silver after seeing the color on some of the Wilson speakers. When I ran across the M3 pictures I went that's the color. Turns out the guy that's gong to do the painting for me can get the exact paint. :T

[JonMarsh]

cjd ....... I'm sure if you put in an order we could fix you up with some candy apple red or something else a little more shiny ........

I love shiny! But I also love gray, especially shiny gray!

[Steve Manning]

I must be one of the rare people that finds grey to be... boring, uninspiring, and bland.

The contrast will be nice and it should look good, to be sure. Just not my thing.

Of course, I'm at all unfinished birch still...

cjd ....... I'm sure if you put in an order we could fix you up with some candy apple red or something else a little more shiny ........

[Face]

This looks awesome... Wish I had the skill to do something like this!

I never used a router, table saw, or circular saw until about 4 years ago. With some patience, you'd be surprised how easy it is to learn how to excel using each.

[ellisr63]

Thanks ellisr63 ...... practice, practice, practice, just keep at it and the skill set starts to build over time. I also think pre-planing helps a lot especially if you don't have the innate skills to just wing, which I don't. Asking others and research ideas and methods helps me as well. Also work into your build plan/budget tooling, this helps out getting stuff to use on other projects down the road.

Steve

I usually just wing it... Currently I am assisting a contractor building my pond and 2 story sunroom. I think if I was the contractor I would hate a customer like me... luckily he is a friend.

[cjd]

I must be one of the rare people that finds grey to be... boring, uninspiring, and bland.

The contrast will be nice and it should look good, to be sure. Just not my thing.

Of course, I'm at all unfinished birch still...

[sdl2112]

Here you go Scott, this is the color the cabinets will be painted ...... Paint Color

Nice choice!...now I really can't wait to see it.

[Steve Manning]

With a finish...especially an automotive type finish I think these speakers are going to pop! Can't wait to see it. Keep up the good work Steve :T

Here you go Scott, this is the color the cabinets will be painted ...... Paint Color

[Steve Manning]

This looks awesome... Wish I had the skill to do something like this!

Thanks ellisr63 ...... practice, practice, practice, just keep at it and the skill set starts to build over time. I also think pre-planing helps a lot especially if you don't have the innate skills to just wing, which I don't. Asking others and research ideas and methods helps me as well. Also work into your build plan/budget tooling, this helps out getting stuff to use on other projects down the road.

Steve

[JonMarsh]

Actually, guys like Scott, Steve, and Colorado Tom all remind me why I'm a pretend electrical engineer, not a woodworker! :W

[sdl2112]

With a finish...especially an automotive type finish I think these speakers are going to pop! Can't wait to see it. Keep up the good work Steve :T

[ellisr63]

This looks awesome... Wish I had the skill to do something like this!

[Steve Manning]

Looking very good, Steve- yes, roundovers on hardwood can be a real pucker factor operation- the only thing that works for me is multiple passes with gradual depth increases and tool bit changes in radius. A little good hand work goes a long way...

Thanks Jon ...... I did the multiple pass thing and this stuff still wanted to chip close to the ends, so files and sand paper seemed to be the route to go. Did not think about changing radius size though.

[Steve Manning]

You're hiding that on the back?!

That looks incredible. Very nice work. Can't wait to see the rest shape up.

C

Thanks cjd ..... your right, it does seem to be a waste having that beautiful wood hiding doesn't it. When I worked the initial design out it just seemed to look better rather than just on the sides.

[JonMarsh]

Looking very good, Steve- yes, roundovers on hardwood can be a real pucker factor operation- the only thing that works for me is multiple passes with gradual depth increases and tool bit changes in radius. A little good hand work goes a long way...

[cjd]

You're hiding that on the back?!

That looks incredible. Very nice work. Can't wait to see the rest shape up.

C

[Steve Manning]

One down, one to go .....

After the dry fit looked good I went ahead and made a template and got things rough cut,flush trimmed, and then glued up.




Putting the round over on the edge was a major pucker factor with how the bubinga was chipping. I decided to stop the trim short of the ends and shaped the remainder by hand, which worked pretty well.



I'm really liking how the grain looks even with just some rough sanding. Can't wait to see it with a clear coat on it .....