Statement II - The Remix

[kevinm]

Now you're getting to the hard part Both mentally and literally! Looking good, deewan

[Steve Manning]

Looking good deewan .... out of curiosity since you have some mdf in your cabinets what are you planning to use to prime/seal them with prior to the actual paint?

[deewan]

Looking good deewan .... out of curiosity since you have some mdf in your cabinets what are you planning to use to prime/seal them with prior to the actual paint?

The MDF (and the plywood) is completely covered by Bondo, sanded smooth and then primed and painted. I used this method on my curved Dynamics and it worked perfectly and that design has some major MDF seams where just sanding and painting would have been a train wreak. When the bondo seals the MDF, it doesn't soak up the paint and bloom and humidity isn't a factor.

[Steve Manning]

That's one way of getting that stuff sealed

[deewan]

No pictures with this update, but I have nearly finished all the bondo and sanding work. I have a few spots on the center channel that need areas filled and then sanded again, but the towers are good to go. Everything has been sanded with 60, 120, and 240 grit and is slippery smooth. The weather has taken a turn to the cool side again so I won't be able to think about painting until at least the last week in April.

I had some extra time yesterday so I began working on the center channel stand. Still deciding on the stands final design, but it won't need to be painted at the same time as the cabinets so I have some time to figure it out.

[Philzeemon]

Deewan...

The speed of your build amazes me, and it's lookin' good...real good. I have a crossovers question.. I spotted your crossovers in post 18 and it appears you have gone to the 12 watt mills resistors. Are some of them double value in parallel for 24 watts, but not all of them...If you could enlighten me it would be much appreciated...

Thanks, Phil

[deewan]

Deewan...

The speed of your build amazes me, and it's lookin' good...real good. I have a crossovers question.. I spotted your crossovers in post 18 and it appears you have gone to the 12 watt mills resistors. Are some of them double value in parallel for 24 watts, but not all of them...If you could enlighten me it would be much appreciated...

Thanks, Phil

Thanks. It seems like the speed of my build is traveling at half the speed of smell (SLOOOOWWWW!). But I guess it's all relative.
Regarding the resistors, depending on which crossover you are looking at, I believe one of the values is 2.7ohm. Instead of using two in parallel that equal that value, I used a single resistor of the exact value. This was because of some confusion I had on the crossover network and how I ordered the parts. After an email exchange with Jim (just last night) we believe this won't be a problem since it is on the tweeter network.

[deewan]

Well, the cabinets are just about ready for primer. One more day of bond and 400 grit sanding and they will be ready. Speaking of painting, the primer has been ordered. I always use good quality auto paints on my speakers. It bonds well with the bond and I know if the paint is durable enough to be used on a car, it's durable enough for my speakers.

I started to call in a few favors I have with auto body shops. The black diamond paint requires a gun that can shoot flakes, I don't have such a gun. So I figure once the primer is complete I'll leave the rest of the painting and clear coating to an expert in a completely controlled paint booth. It's got to be better than a garage and waiting for warm temps and low humidity.

[BBLV]

So you decided on the black diamond paint. Awesome choice. Can't wait to see these finished and in their final resting places. I've had 2 CTS-V's and every time I saw one with the black diamond paint I wished I went that route.

Amazing job with this design, I wish I had the skills to build these!

[deewan]

Bondo and sanding is complete. Now I just have to wait for the temperature to get around 70 with low humidity so I can prime the cabinets. The primer should be delivered tomorrow if the tracking information is correct. The cabinets always look like such a mess before they are primed and are one constant color.

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I also did a dry fit of the base. I'm on the fence if I love it or if they're just ok. I may mess around with another base design.



The good news is, the crossovers fit like a charm. The crossovers are sitting in their slot right now, once secured they would be upright (not leaning to the side).

[WLDock]

The shape looks like Polk LSIM a bit. The base on those is pretty streamline.

[deewan]

The top of my cabinets certainly do look like the Polks. I don't think the Polks have curved sides though. I honestly hate the base design of the Polks. The Polks look like they are sitting on pilings in an attempt to keep them out of rising water. I understand the cabinets are vented out of the bottom and so the cabinets need to be elevated, but it's a look I really don't care for.

Speaking of bases. I redesigned some bases last night. I added about 1.5 inches to their length (front to back) and increased the side curves to they hug the cabinet a bit more than the previous version. Once I have them sanded and prepped, I'll post some pics.

[WLDock]

Yeah, the Polks are more of a slight curve taper. That was a big deal for them and listed in their white paper as a means to help "reduce standing waves and internal resonance." Most of their previous speakers were straight boxes. The bases I'm neutral about but that is a Polk thing...the lifted bottom PowerPort they have been doing for awhile now.

Anyway, I'm sure you will figure it out...I like what you did with your last project.

[deewan]

Yes, curves cabinets are great for reducing standing waves. One of the reasons I like building them. But the main reason is because they are messy as heck to look at.

Here are the new bases. May not seem like a big change, but I like these A LOT more than my first version.

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[WLDock]

Man, I can't wait to see how these turn out.

[deewan]

Well, work on the cabinets has come to a standstill for a bit. I've been traveling for work and while the hotel suite I stay at has plenty of room, something tells me the hotel and other guests would not enjoy me working on speaker cabinets in the room.

The cabinets are in the garage, simply waiting for primer. My work travel ends this week so I am hopeful that within 5-7 days I will have some weather that will allow me to prime the cabinets. Then the wet sanding and final prep happens before the cabinets get final paint. I can't wait to get these completed and fired up in the theater.

[deewan]

Of course this week I am not traveling as much for work, and the weather has turned cooler and windy. The perfect conditions to NOT paint. But I've decided to work on the bases regardless. two costs of automotive primer to make sure all the small bumps and grooves are fixed.



I also decided I will make some top 'pucks' for the outrigger area of the bases. I wanted something similar to Paradigm's base.
Here is my inspiration:



I bought a 48" long dowel that is 1.5" in diameter. I trimmed off 12 pieces that are roughly .75" thick.



I then hand sanded them with 200 grit sandpaper, impaled a nail half way into their bottomed and prepped them for paint. two coats of black primer tonight and tomorrow they will begin the "chrome" paint job.

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Hopefully this long holiday weekend the weather will allow me to prime the cabinets and continue to finish them. I missing having speakers in my theater.

[deewan]

It's been a while since I had an update due to a crazy work schedule, travel for work and helping a family member with a bathroom remodel. I was able to finally get two coats of primer laid down on the cabinets. Now the hours of wet sanding starts so I can finally throw on some black diamond paint and satin finish. The wet sanding as been done in places, which should explain the differences in paint color seen in the pictures.

[WLDock]

The black color makes them look smaller. Keep it coming!

[deewan]

Black is very slimming.... even on speakers. I hope to have all the wet sanding done by this weekend. Then the real finish work begins and the finish line will be right around the corner.

[kevinm]

Are you still thinking about having someone do it? Or are you going to tackle it yourself?

[deewan]

I will need to let someone else paint the black diamond paint. I don't have the proper equipment to shoot the flake paint. Plus I have two friends that are amazing painters. One friend does high dollar automotive paint jobs and the other paints custom motorcycles and has been featured in magazines and did the paint job on a custom bike which was featured during a TV show. I think even if I had the proper guns to shoot the flake, I'd have one of those two pros do it for me.

[kevinm]

Ahhh, you're very lucky. Can't wait to see the finished result!

[deewan]

No picture updates, but I got both tower cabinets wet sanded last night with 600 grit paper. They are smooth. I'll finish the center channel tonight and then take a final pass over all three cabinets with 800 grit. They should be slippery smooth by that point and ready for final paint.

[JonMarsh]

Getting pretty close- that's a nice place to be at- best of luck with the painting!

[deewan]

Thanks Jon.

Today I was able to get some work done on the bases. Painted them a gloss black and then did one last dry fit of the crossovers and binding posts. Everything still lines up. I've decided to make sure everything is silky smooth I am going to patch a few small areas and then throw another coat or two of primer on. This will delay the finish date a bit, but it will ensure an amazing finish. Now for some pictures.

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[deewan]

Waiting on my second order of primer to be delivered. With any luck I'll have the last of the primer on this weekend. I began working on installing the speaker spikes on the cabinet bases, wiring the crossovers and installing the crossovers onto the bases.

The binding posts are fed through the tower cabinet base where a run of 10awg wire is fed into the cabinet and branches out to each of the three (woofer, midrange, and tweeter) crossovers. In this pic the tweeter crossover is not installed or wired.


My attempt at creating a metal looking 'puck' (refer to post #62) to mount on top of each base did not go as well as I hoped it would. I was having some problems getting a uniform metal nickle appearance on each puck. Lucky for me, I always had a backup if my DIY approach failed. While shopping with the wife, I noticed a display system that used a puck system to mount hangers or shelves to the wall. Those pucks appeared to be the perfect size, shape and color of what I wanted on my speaker bases. The pucks are 1 1/2 inches in diameter and 1/2 inches tall. After a call to a friend who managers a higher end clothing store, I was able to get my hands on a few metal pucks. She is shipping me 8 brand new pucks they had not used yet. To give you an idea of what the pucks look like I've attached the picture below. They should work perfect on my outriggers.

[WLDock]

The plot thickens! Man with your wealth of resources....why not go ahead with aluminum or steel bases? Would be very cool! Shaping up to something pretty interesting.

[deewan]

I do have a guy that could CNC the bases out of my choice of metal, but I enjoy making as much of these speakers as I can. While having something CNC'ed is great and ensures perfect alignment and exact duplicates between parts, I enjoy hand sculpting every piece. With the exception of the pucks, almost everything on these speakers will be manufactured by my two hands. From the crossover boards to the bases to the stand the center channel speaker will eventually rest on.

[TEK]

+ one to that
It's something special about doing stuff yourself.
Then you do of course still have several levels to go. Came over one "real" DIY'er.
He started by chopping down the tree in the wood, cutting and drying it. Fro that perspective using MDF and other pre-produced wood sheet is "cheeting". I'm not going there anytime soon :W

[deewan]

HA! I guess I should have posted photos of me chopping down the large MDF tree in my backyard, hand cutting and planing the tree into the 4x8 sheets I used to create my cabinets.

That level of DIY is waaaaay beyond my level. But it would be cool.

[Steve Manning]

+ one to that
It's something special about doing stuff yourself.
Then you do of course still have several levels to go. Came over one "real" DIY'er.
He started by chopping down the tree in the wood, cutting and drying it. Fro that perspective using MDF and other pre-produced wood sheet is "cheeting". I'm not going there anytime soon :W

Hopefully he was doing all this with only a Swiss Army knife as well.

[TEK]

Steve: I think it was with a knife he hit out from a rock
Dewaan: MDF tree? :alol:

[WLDock]

While having something CNC'ed is great and ensures perfect alignment and exact duplicates between parts, I enjoy hand sculpting every piece. With the exception of the pucks, almost everything on these speakers will be manufactured by my two hands.

CNC is great...but one could always get a piece of aluminum or steel and cut it to shape. Then send it out to be polished or chromed or finish it themselves.

[deewan]

CNC is great...but one could always get a piece of aluminum or steel and cut it to shape. Then send it out to be polished or chromed or finish it themselves.

Very true. But the pucks are much easlier and..... FREE (besides shipping)! Always good to have friends.

In other news, I spoke to my friend who will apply the final paint. Turns out the Caddy Black Diamond paint is a special order and will cost about $220 for a quart. While I love that paint color and I told myself this build would not have a budget, $220 for paint after spending ~$80 for primer is a bit much in my mind. In good news, he believes he can come very close to a Black Diamond finish by using small silver flake with a black base, and a clear coat with a pearl finish. He said the differences will be small and for that paint my cost would be roughly $40 and a case of beer for his labor. DONE!!! He is busy for the next two weeks, but we are planning on applying the paint on or around June 20th. And since we will have access to a real paint booth, the paint will bake for about 40 minutes at 160 degrees and then I'll be able to take the cabinets hole the same day and install the drivers. The end is near!!!

[TEK]

Hmm, will the wood and glue handle 160 degrees?
(Hmm 2, what kind of degrees are we talking about, C or F? I would assume F?)

[buffhr]

Hmm, will the wood and glue handle 160 degrees?
(Hmm 2, what kind of degrees are we talking about, C or F? I would assume F?)

Paint booths are usually 65-75C so I would most def assume Fahrenheit here...

[deewan]

Sorry, I forget this is a worldwide forum sometimes. The paint booth will be 160 F. The glue should hold, it did during my last build but I had never thought of it as a problem. Now I'm a little worried that I may have just gotten lucky last time. The other thing that may help is all the joints that are glued also had brad nails run through them. So the glue, nails, and bondo would all need to break for the seams to fail. But now I'm worried. Perhaps we will take another drying approach.

[buffhr]

Sorry, I forget this is a worldwide forum sometimes. The paint booth will be 160 F. The glue should hold, it did during my last build but I had never thought of it as a problem. Now I'm a little worried that I may have just gotten lucky last time. The other thing that may help is all the joints that are glued also had brad nails run through them. So the glue, nails, and bondo would all need to break for the seams to fail. But now I'm worried. Perhaps we will take another drying approach.

Should not be a problem really, had many self made furniture go through a paint booth in Canada at 155F and never had a problem with glue(wellbond/titebond and regular carp yellow glue). I beleive for extended periods of time see 4-8hrs it might become a problem, however for a short time like 30-60 mins should be no issues. Heck black speakers/tables/furniture often get close to those temps just sitting outside or near a window and for prolonged time frames.

[deewan]

Thanks for the insight and you make some very good points. I am sure they will be fine, but all of a sudden I got a little concerned.

[TEK]

160F is about 70C and for a short time I think there should be no real danger for the wood trying to much.
Also, at least for cascol wood glue, it states that draying temperature up to 70C will cause it to dry faster.
I was just thinking about Iron-on method for veneer, where heat is used to make the glue "soft" and if you want to remove old veneer.
But that was when wondering if you were planning to bake them at 160C - I would not have done that ;-)

From buffhr's insight you should be good-to-go, sorry if I made you worry for no reason

[deewan]

No, you brought up a good point and an item that should be discussed. And now that the discussion is over, I feel safe again. That's why I enjoy these forums. Things I don't think about can be discussed and options can be made (if needed).

[SaltyPaws]

Can't wait for the listening test with the "original" statements. Is there any purposeful orientation of the drivers? E.g. in post # 25 I can see that the cutout for the poles of the mid are oriented in opposite ways. Any reason why you haven't mounted with both poles up or down?

[deewan]

When it comes to cone drivers, there isn't an up or down. So while the binding posts for the midrange drivers will be pointed in opposite directions, that will not impact the sound.

[deewan]

The tower bases are complete. Speaker spikes and all wiring installed. Still waiting for the final paint.

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