Wavecor Ardent Journal - the first Builds

[JonMarsh]

Continuing one of the off topic topics, not much time to put into this, but on this cloudy morning I took a couple of test shots. With the magnification of this lens, and the narrow depth of field this 200mm macro has, using a tripod and using Live View with magnification is the only way to get at least part of the image in focus! But the overall characteristics seem to fulfill my expectations; this will require some further experimentation and tests to see how well it can do what I want. I expect to be able to use it as a conventional telephoto also; that may be a bit trickier, because focus at infinity is trickier for this type of lens than a normal telephoto.







As usual, Photo-bucket compression is degrading the image but what the heck... you can get the general idea. 100% is a lot nicer.... :B

[dar47]

Very Nice. :T

I'm glad that went very smoothly for you with your setup, really only 2 weeks for a Superior finish. Now you can enjoy your final assembly and soon it will be stereo pair.:B

Well we are all tried out up here today as we were up late celebrating Ben's wedding. Lots of his buddies are following the build and were asking questions throughout the night, most asked question was how did you get a guy in California to design them, ha ha.

[JonMarsh]

Yeah, I was wondering how the wedding went? I hope every one, especially the happy couple, had a memorable experience! Reminds me of one of my favorite romantic comedies years ago, "Four Weddings and a Funeral"...

well, you know, if you have to get someone out of the country to do your dirty design work, I'd say California's as good a state as any.... but then as WE all know, there's a long history behind this effort! I'm really curious now to see the grilles done and how much if any tweaking is needed once they're in place with the diffraction control. Of course, people down here are wondering how I got some Cannucks to do most of the work putting together a new pair of cabinets for me! :B

Today I've just been doing mundane chores of life, and listening to some new used CD's GF picked up at a garage sale, a rather good score of 6 CD's for 5 bucks, and they were all mint- flamenco/classical guitar, and the original Enya disk, and Nouveau Flamenco from Otmar Liebert, as well as a couple other people I hadn't heard of that are pretty good players -- so they're all ripped to the music server now, too.

GF had a good morning, was in the 5K part of the local "Devil Mountain Run" here (Diablo mountain) and placed 3rd in her age class. Of course, she's cheating, with her bionic hips... :W

Actually, I'm even a bit surprised at how well yesterday's work went- checking them today in the light, the surface finish has only the barest hint of any irregularity, may not really need as much "detailing" as I've planned. But I figure I should give them the extra duration for curing- but if they were in the living room right now as they look, no one I know would complain... :T

[benthe8track]

Yeah, I was wondering how the wedding went? I hope every one, especially the happy couple, had a memorable experience! Reminds me of one of my favorite romantic comedies years ago, "Four Weddings and a Funeral"...

well, you know, if you have to get someone out of the country to do your dirty design work, I'd say California's as good a state as any.... but then as WE all know, there's a long history behind this effort! I'm really curious now to see the grilles done and how much if any tweaking is needed once they're in place with the diffraction control. Of course, people down here are wondering how I got some Cannucks to do most of the work putting together a new pair of cabinets for me! :B

The wedding was a blast and thankfully no funerals. And after moving on Saturday I'm looking forward to returning to "normal" life. For the grill felt I used some 80 grit and that knocked off the crusty stinky stuff quite well. I did a little test cut so if we want to use a star shape an exacto works well enough, or a chisel or whatever. For the shape I still have the .dxf I used to cut the felt, I'm thinking we can draw the shape in cad then print out a little paper template so they are consistent. Although not to sure how much of an impact that actually has.

Also installed the Cardas binding posts today, ended up using a butane torch after a few frustrating attempts with a soldering iron. They just conduct too much heat away too quickly.

[JonMarsh]

Yeah, I was planning on some artful surgery with a Xacto knife after using one of my simple drawing programs to create a template guide for the cuts- better than free hand!

I can easily imagine the situation with the binding posts- that's why I usually use large ring terminals for connecting to the posts. In order to have sufficient bolt thread clearance for the Vampire posts I'm using,




I'm going to use a Forstner bit on the outside to counter sink the outside plastic cylinder so that it's at least 65% recessed in the back panel. I believe that will allow nicely for connections, while having enough threaded shank for using the 5/16" gold plated ring terminals from Parts Express on the inside to connect to the crossover.

The other technical point to investigate will the the size and shape of the vertical diamond diffraction control over the tweeter...

It will be a subset of this, which may be hard to see the contrast between the felt and the tweeter.




Worked the same results on the original Ardent as it did for the old M8a "book shelf" project

[JonMarsh]

We pulled the cabinets in for examination after a week of drying/hardening, and removed the driver hole shields. Everything is looking fine, and the paint shop supervisor (shown in pic) agrees they should be ready for final sanding and rubout next weekend...





Hopefully tomorrow we'll make some progress on the crossovers and new crossover base construction... it's not out of the range of possibility to be actually assembling these next weekend, as I have put in for Friday off as well as the Monday Memorial Day holiday, making for a 4 day weekend!

[5th element]

I read that then scrolled down and went Awww That's one cute dog.

[dar47]

That dogy looks hot, he should be up here pulling a sled. Maybe not, we got our hottest day of year 23 C.

I took advantage and finished spraying my bases black before dropping Ben off at the airport, going to miss him. I'm going to try and cover one of the grills to see how tricky it going to be. I also see the C79 went up $40 each, boy that driver just increases in price with time.

[5th element]

It's rained here all day.

[dar47]

Well the grill (system) seems to work, it was a bit tricky tucking the edges in but doable. I just ran a utility knife around to trim the cloth.



the magnets grab nice, I'm happy.

[TEK]

Nice!
But you have to get some kind of logo on that grille ;-)

[JonMarsh]

Looking good! :T

I've been debating between working on this or the bases today- but I should really do the latter. Also, it's laundry day... What a thrill!

I'm going to be doing a recall on the sub I built for GF, and she wants the new one in cherry...

[JonMarsh]

Danger: HD Resolution files ahead- dial up NOT recommended!

Well, per my avatar, Back to the Future!

I used to use Virtual Avenue exclusively for uploading picture files to use online, including here at HTG; I've also used the built in service for the upgraded HT Guide, and have used Photo-bucket a lot the last year, but I'm really getting tired of the automatic degradation of JPGs to save bandwidth charges. With Virtual Avenue, what I put up is what goes up and goes out. I'll just probably pay a bit more bandwidth with them in the future.

Points in case- a pic taken with my 4x5 cabinet yesterday that didn't up load well....




And reposts of the original upload for the macro shots.









OK these may be just a leetle too big for some folks, but even at normal display size, Photo-bucket just compresses JPEGs too much for me.

/RANT OFF. :W

[dar47]

Nice!
But you have to get some kind of logo on that grille ;-)

Logo Ha, I think Jon should sign his initials and send it to Ben, his business partner can make this. Maybe a logo contest, with a fancy "A" for Ardents? I'm sure there are some closet graphic artists lurking the forum that have some ideas.

[benthe8track]

Logo Ha, I think Jon should sign his initials and send it to Ben, his business partner can make this. Maybe a logo contest, with a fancy "A" for Ardents? I'm sure there are some closet graphic artists lurking the forum that have some ideas.

Easy as pie. I have a graphics guy I use in Winnipeg too, maybe when I get a bigger queue of stuff for laser cutting.

[5th element]

Jon your cabinets really are looking more impressive with each post you make. Once rubbed out a little they are really going to 'pop'.

[JonMarsh]

Thanks for the kind words- what I'm getting geared up about is when they start making music!

I've been tied up with domestic chores, but getting some music server maintenance and file conversion done today, too. that is working just as hoped and expected, uploading new artwork, and High res versions of albums by direct network transfer. :T

[5th element]

I saw your other thread with the NAD equipment. Even if the ripping is very streamlined, it's still going to be very time consuming when you consider how many CDs you've got to copy.

It was probably mentioned in the other thread, but I am assuming that you're using the NAD as the source and feeding what it does into other boxes of digital tricks. What boxes is it that you're going to be using with it?

[JonMarsh]

The NAD M50 has a great ripper built in. I've already stuffed hundreds of CD's into it, and it creates pretty compact FLAC files- I just checked today and my usage out of 1968GB is 180GB - there's 6586 songs in the index currently. That includes a lot of albums where there is a whole symphony that's just four songs!


I'm using the AES/EBU output, feeding a Brainstorm DCD8. this is a word clock synchronizer used in studios and movie soundstage studio setups; primary purpose in a studio is taking a reference signal input and generating synchronizing word clocks to distribute to other pieces of gear in the studio, so everything is synchronized by one clock. However, another neat thing it can do is full reclocking in the audio signal path- if you supply a Rubidium 10 MHz master clock on one of the word clock inputs, it will use that as an ultra stable low jitter timebase for clocking all of the digital signals and fully reclock all the out going bits, not just align the word boundaries and create a uniform word clock. It's main limitation is requiring two wire AES mode above 96 kHz, as much pro gear does (that way timing transitions are a smaller part of the total bit time), and so I'm converting my higher resolution stuff to 88.2/24, which still has much of the benefit in terms of nicer time behavior of HF filter (I'm using the mastering filter controls of Triumph to setup minimum phase style filters with minimal pre-ringing).






The output from the DCD8 goes to a TotalDAC-D1 dual, which is the full balanced version of the DAC, with individual DAC channels for each phase- made in France, still not sold in the USA normally (I had to get mine via some European friends used for transshipping it).





I had one of the first ones using the solid copper baseplate for EMI/noise improvement- I picked it up in early 2013.





It is the most utterly natural and lucid sounding piece of digital hear I've ever heard; my friend and I in Munich listened to a lot of high end DACs, including Meitner, EMM labs, and the MSB Platinum signature, before settling on the TotalDAC-D1. It's an R2/R ladder DAC, using discrete Vishay 0.01% foil resistors. He has two, and one of their music servers, besides. He also uses the DCD8- this is something we'd figure out for him back when he had Antelope Zodiac Golds, as they imaged better and sounded more articulate and smoother at the same time with the DCD8 in the path.


Vincent doesn't publish a lot of technical info about it; a fairly revealing plot (in my opinion!) about the low level resolution is this spectrum plot when reproducing a -100 dB sine signal with 24 bit data; highlights both the low level linearity and very low system noise.




People use these as a direct drive preamp even with very high efficiency speakers (like Vincent does himself!) with no hum or spurious noise.

[5th element]

It's a real shame that manufactures aren't doing R2R dacs any more. I'd figure that they could probably do very nice 24 bit 192 devices but that they'd cost a fortune compared to the D/S equivalents.

You're right in saying that there isn't too much objective data on the D1, but from what I could find, it indicated that it had pretty poor distortion performance. At least with 2nd and 3rd harmonic. Higher orders were well out of the sight mind you, but still for that price I'd expect technical perfection. Maybe making a discrete DAC has its limitations, but I am sure that I've seen at least one with superb measurements all round.

I am currently using an ES9018 in my DSP and it is definitely a step up over the PCM1792s that it replaced. If there were R2R chips available that would work at 192kHz, and be sympathetic to an 8 channel requirement, I'd give them a go in a heartbeat. ARDA tech were supposedly working on one, but that has now disappeared after being in the preliminary stages on their website for a good while.

[dar47]

Jon, it's all quiet on the Western Front, wondering if you managed to get your weekend off?

[JonMarsh]

Jon, it's all quiet on the Western Front, wondering if you managed to get your weekend off?

It's not been a very entertaining week, but I do have the weekend off- base fabrication and crossover construction will be some priorities.

Lacquer is still hardening, hope it will be in good condition for sanding by next weekend. Has Ben gotten moved to Calgary? Doesn't he start work out there next week?

The media bridging router for creating a hardwired network node with the digital audio gear arrived yesterday. Also got a new "working drive" for audio editing and prep with Thunderbolt and USB 3 at the Apple corporate store today.

But maybe the biggest news is starting a new cheap sub build for my GF, to replace the one I did last year that isn't really up to snudf in my estimation. Problem is, I was trying to be penny wise, and keep the size reasonable, and I just wound up being pound foolish. New one will have a 15" Dayton UMC woofer (instead of the 10" from the same series), be built from a bundled knock down cabinet kit, and veneered the old fashion way in cherry -also ordered. And I'm saving lots on the plate amp this time, because I'm not going to use one, just one of the Klipsch / Aragon Palladiums I have on hand...

Will do a short post on that if it turns out well, otherwise you'll not see me mention it again!

[JonMarsh]

Had quite a few Honey Do's this weekend, things we needed to get done around here, but had some time to make a bit of progress on the bases. One time consuming part was rabbeting out the Maple, an eighth of an inch at a time- you don't rush this kind of hardwood- it's not MDF! This was to make the rabbet that the crossover plate/top base sits in.



Then it's a matter of sizing the pieces needed and cutting them out step by step...




The DeWalt DWS-760 did it's usual stellar job doing all the tricky cuts with impeccable accuracy (any errors were my own...)





Getting some of the angles was a little tricky, as my battery powered angle reader crapped out (probably not much shelf life with the included batter), but between the manual tool and GF's Jeppeson protractor left over from her flying days, I was able to sort things out OK (remember, I only play a woodworker on Television...) (and on a forum or two).







I made these out of Maple with the idea that I might want to finish them natural, (in spite of the time that would take) but after pondering the first set of Ardent's with natural maple bases, I'm thinking black may be better, as well as much faster.

Four day weekend scheduled next, so with any reasonable effort, and no unexpected issues, I expect stereo noise by Sunday or Monday!

[5th element]

The end is finally getting within sight!

[dar47]

Ah I see, I wasn't sure if you were facing the board down or having it sit in the the cab.:T

Those maple bases would look nice either way but once the grills are on I like the black. Your bases are taller though so it will be more black.

[JonMarsh]

Your cabinets are looking fine! :T

That's another part of what I need to work on next weekend- the grilles and diffraction control, as well as mounting the Vampire binding posts. Hopefully four days will be enough for everything! I'm jazzed about getting these running (also planning some evaluations and tweaks of the Isiris crossover- still haven't installed the new midrange crossovers, and I'd already simulated an update on those...)

[dar47]

I'm with you it seams one thing leads to the next. Sold my 15" down firing sub in the tempest box and now I'm planning getting the front stage of my room cleaned up. I have to build a rack to get the electronics out of the way, add a new center channel stand and I have started planning for the new IB. I think 2-18's in a manifold crossed to the Ardents at 60hrz for theater and maybe 40hrz for music is going to be bliss in my smallish room.

[JonMarsh]

I'm with you it seams one thing leads to the next. Sold my 15" down firing sub in the tempest box and now I'm planning getting the front stage of my room cleaned up. I have to build a rack to get the electronics out of the way, add a new center channel stand and I have started planning for the new IB. I think 2-18's in a manifold crossed to the Ardents at 60hrz for theater and maybe 40hrz for music is going to be bliss in my smallish room.

Sounds to me like you're doing exactly the right thing- if some's good, more is better, and too much is just enough. GF doesn't realize yet that assuming this single 15" build for her works as expected acoustically, I'll likely slip another one in the system along with the second Palladium. I ordered veneer to cover building two of them. I do plan to upgrade her mains and center channel, too- I've got most of the stuff lying around to build another set of Modula MT's XE's and a NeoD CC for the center.

[benthe8track]

Amidst unpacking I found a little time to work on the speakers. I assembled one grille, assembly was surprisingly easy. I'd like to buy the DIYer who first used window spline to hold the cloth a beer.



Also installed the woofers, I'd recommend those socket head cap wood screws, they gave it a nice touch without having to mess with t-nuts and the like:

[JonMarsh]

Your walnut burl is just looking better and better, Ben! :T

Calgary reminds me a lot of Bouder, which I used to live in- hope things work out great there for you and your wife!

[benthe8track]

Thanks Jon for the kind words. I think the finish is just about where I want it to be, another few weeks and I'll give it a slight wet sand to take out a few runs and hit with some wax then call it a day.

The bases look like they are coming along nicely. Did you use the same hole template for them?

[JonMarsh]

Yes, I'm using the hole template you guys supplied- don't reinvent a wheel that works, you know. It looks like I will be off on Friday through Monday, so in my spare moments I'm trying to figure out what order of things I want to do- will probably go like this:

• Finish the crossover wiring on the second base plate (Friday)
• Epoxy up both crossover baseplates and base plate sides (Friday)
• Mark hole locations for base plate inserts in cabinet base (Friday)
• Drill binding post holes in cabinet backs (Friday)
• Paint grille panels (Friday)
• Modify felt pieces, and cut test pieces for diamond tweeter diffraction control (Friday or Saturday)
• Install grille cloth on grille panels (Saturday)
• Test felt diffraction setup effect on tweeter response (probably alone without grille panels, then with)
• Double Check base insert hole markers with crossover baseplate for alignment
• Drill and install magnets for grille panels in front panel, using epoxy (Saturday)
• Final prep with pigtails for cabinet wiring (Saturday)
• Cabinet wet sand, 400 grit (Saturday)
• Cabinet wet sand, 1000 grit (Saturday or Sunday- other stuff going on Saturday!)
• Cabinet wet sand, 2000 grit (Sunday)
• Cabinet rubout with pads and 3M rubbing compound.
• Install binding posts in cabinet (Sunday)
• Sand Base plate/crossover assemblies (Sunday)
• Paint Base plate/crossover assemblies (Sunday)
• Final assembly- Monday

Yeah, that's probably optimistic, but if I can keep to that schedule, or real close to it, I should be able to confirm the crossover design for you guys before Memorial Day is over! :B

Notice there's no time for BBQ or other foolishness allotted- fortunately GF likes doing that on the gas grille, so maybe she'll do it while I'm working on the cabinets- she would like to see these finished and her family room go back to normal soon, anyway!

If all this comes to pass, then the last step will be documenting the crossover section builds in a way so that you guys can replicate them without difficulty- probably some simple CAD layout drawings with wiring/schematic superimposed.

Esthetically, I like the bases you guys made quite well- but I'll be very pleased if I can fit the whole crossover into this taller version and keep it outside the working cabinet.

[Wayman]

Hi, you guys have an amazing build! An international one at that.
I was looking for a 3way design but this is to much for me. However, in post #375 there is pic of the original Ardent that looks a bit smaller.
Is the original Ardent a published design?
Thanks and again great job!
Cheers, Wayne

[JonMarsh]

Hello Wayman, and welcome to HT Guide!

Thanks for the kind words- but the irony of your comment is that the outer cabinet dimensions of the Wavecor Ardent and the original Ardent are essentially identical- the former uses larger woofers that are much more expensive in a sealed alignment, whereas the original used either 6-1/2" or 7" woofers- I was in the testing phase for 7" Scanspeak Illuminators when the Wavecor's became available, and considering the relatively small price difference, they mad a lot more sense...

Here's a link to the original Ardent thread. IF you'd like cabinet PDF's for the design, send me a PM with your email address; I can email them to you- they're fairly similar, using the same midrange driver, and in the end, the same tweeter.

https://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?33995-Ardent-Speaker-Camp

Wavecor version (just for driver testing, unveneered)



the older ones look skinnier, but they're not. They're on taller bases, and of course there's the difference in the woofer diameter and positioning.

The crossover in the newer version is simpler and lower cost, and much smaller physically. I stole from myself from the NatalieP design. The concept would be adaptable to the older driver configuration, BUT, being an opened ported cabinet, you have to deal with the vertical column resonance, so there's an extra LCR that would be required. Really, the new configuration is much better, IMO.

For something a bit more reasonable in cost to build, take a look at Chris's Nebbiolo. I don't think he's quite finalized the crossover details, but I think he's getting close...

[Wayman]

Thank you for the reply. The drivers "look" smaller and less expensive.

I will take a look at the links.

Cheers, Wayne

[JonMarsh]

You know what they say about best laid plans of mice and men!

Well, I did get the 2nd crossover wiring finished- then I was ready to start on the baseplate glue up, but all three tube sets of Loctite Marine Epoxy from Home Depot were bad- the hardener was literally hard, and couldn't be pushed out the plunger- this is a frequent problem with this product from Loctite.

Well, I took a run down the Ace Hardware in Danville/Alamo, just to see what they had on hand, and they did have a few sets of their own house brand Marine Epoxy which seem to be made by Devcon. I picked those up, and they worked fine, and better than the Loctite stuff does when it is working- of course, there wasn't enough at that store, so a run up to Walnut Creek to another store was needed. That worked out OK, in the end, but put me way behind my self imposed schedule.









I can hear the comments now, this is what happens when you let a wires and sparks guy loose and you wind up with high grade epoxy and Gorilla Duct tape for clamping... because he doesn't have the right miter clamps on hand and doesn't want to drive 40 miles to pick them up from at home...


Sneak Preview Department:

Starting on assembling the knock down cabinet for the Dayton UMC 15" for GF; no instructions, but I think I can figure it out.... :W



It's just 3/4" MDF, but the bracing design looks OK, the front panel is two layers, and the MDF is better quality than you can buy locally... at Home Depot or Lowe's.

Will do a short thread on this, quick and dirty sub box build... with measurements.

[5th element]

I usually find that 'hunting' for parts/equipment/supplies you know you've got and not being able to find them where you think they are, or not being able to find them at all, is the no.1 thing that slows me down.

[JonMarsh]

I usually find that 'hunting' for parts/equipment/supplies you know you've got and not being able to find them where you think they are, or not being able to find them at all, is the no.1 thing that slows me down.

+ 1 on that; this is especially true for me because of my remote storage units in home town, and now doing most of the work at GF's. Still, what can you do? Just a step at a time. Eventually it gets done, but rarely on the schedule hoped for.

I'm working on the grille panels and cabinet installation for the magnets- right now I'm putting together a multi-angle drill guide that I bought that is more like a kit than an assembled product! At least I found one- hard to get locally, as usual, Amazon came through. i don't like this dependence on Amazon....

[5th element]

I'm pretty much 100% dependent on the internet for getting me the supplies I need. Even living in a Metropolis of sorts the local stores are rubbish for electrical parts nowadays. Tools are okay, providing you're happy with buying what they've got, but sometimes you really need to hold something to know if it's going to be a good buy or not.

[benthe8track]

The bases look like they are coming along nicely. I like the tape clamp trick.

Do you anticipate any crossover revisions? I wonder if we are safe ordering off that BOM you posted a while ago.

[JonMarsh]

Progress with grille panels yesterday- magnets epoxied in and panels ready to paint.
Magnets embedded in cabinets now-
Additional work on bases done- including a little bit of fill work with epoxy. Crude, rude, but strong.

Had a couple of shopping trips for materials slowing me down yesterday- but I've already started on the lacquer fine sand and rub out on one of the cabinets. Getting a pack of 50 of the 400 grit disks was the right move- wet sanding, they get clogged quickly, but no worries, just pull it off after doing a small area then slap another one. Have 1000 grit and 2000 grit plus rubbing to do.

Horsing around the cabinets hasn't helped my lower back or knees any, though! :W


As much as I went over the sims and thought about things and tested the reverse phase behavior, I think we're in pretty good shape- might need some small resistor trims- but I'd suggest holding off until next weekend - I'm not sure that I'll get to the measurement phase this weekend.

Reviewing the initial result, my concern is to see how things look after the diffraction control (should take care of the dip in the top end) and grille cloth (will lower level 1-2 dB above ~8kHz).



That may leave us with a very slight dip in the 2-3 kHz area (not very close to a BBC dip) and for most people with most electronics and modern recordings, it's probably best to leave that in... Then, if my thinking is right, we'll have a pretty smooth flat transition from the mid to the top end.

I will measure these outdoors, and its my intention to be ready to do that by next weekend. At this point, if anything changes, it's likely just to be a series or shunt resistor, which likely COULD be tuned just by adding a high value resistor in parallel. SO, if you're getting itchy, it's likely pretty safe to order now (I'm not planning on changing any of the major components after my initial measurements and listening). But safest of all is just to wait another week.

This has been my Home priority to get wrapped up, and it's good to be closing in on the final results...

[5th element]

Looking good there. I mirror your experience with sanding lacquers etc, buy bulk sanding pads and simply discard a clogged pad. They do clog alarmingly and frustratingly fast.

I also echo your experience with dips in and around the 1-3kHz region, definitely leave them in, unless gross. Speakers wont sound less detailed for it but are simply much nicer/easier to listen to in the long run.

[JonMarsh]

Appreciate the feedback! :T


I've got one cabinet sanded with 500, 1000, and 2000- quite a difference in the feel and look- it's a bit more satin, though that will change in all likelihood with a coat of wax. Not looking bad at all- but not stopping now for pictures! :B



The Mirka and Abralon pads are expensive, but they are so worth it, from the viewpoint of productivity and quality of the result! :T

[benthe8track]

I'll have to look for a source of those pads. I had been doing all my sanding with wood block like a sucker haha. Was 500 enough to take off any little runs? I left all of my sand paper in Winnipeg so I'll need to grab some more.

I'm not in any hurry, I just caught up from the wedding so I can get the other parts now. I still need to pick up a proper soldering station, I used a butane torch for the binding posts but it's pretty much terrible to try to use it on anything more delicate, even with the small tip attachment.

[JonMarsh]

The 500 grit takes care of shallow runs fine- I get the Mirka and Abralon stuff from Woodcraft or Amazon- it's really hard to buy local, the hardwRe stores and big box stores just don't have stuff like that! The Poerter Cable orbital sander has been worth it's weight in gold!

For soldering I'd recommend something like a Weller WESD51 temp control station, with one of the larger tips. Amazon or eBay, in all likelihood.