Heading for Texas

[Steve Manning]

I've started a build for a customer that is not a member of the forum, but I figured I'd share some pictures for the entertainment value.

It's going to be a 2 way design that's a little over .5 cu ft. He's requested a translam cabinet based on a build I did a number of years ago.

Here are some renders that I did for him to reflect the general concept.









The main cabinet will be made from Baltic Birch and the baffles will be from rock maple piano block.

[JimS]

Those look amazing Steve!!

[theSven]

This is going to be a good project to follow. We haven't had a translam build in quite some time that I recall. What wood will be used for the baffle?

[JonMarsh]

This is going to be fun to watch... especially considering some of the other details!

[Steve Manning]

Thanks gents .... Sven the baffles will be the same stuff we used for Jim's Ardent's. I just went with a dark color for a little contrast in the renders.

[Steve Manning]

The saw dust has started .....

Breaking down the full sheets of Baltic Birch for the CNC.







Gluing up double thickness slabs for the ribs.

[JonMarsh]

Mmmm, BB ply! Tasty!

I've gotten so spoiled by that stuff, I was shocked when I checked out some normal or "premium" standard ply at Home Depot a couple of weeks ago... I bought a couple of pieces and took them home, took a close look, and....

[Steve Manning]

Well speaking of Baltic Birch ..... I made some sawdust today with some.

Got started on machining some ribs for the cabinets. First up were the dowel holes.



Then the profiles.



Prior to removing the tabs.



Pinned the first batch together after some lite sanding.

[Steve Manning]

Some progress to report. I have ~90% of the ribs cut at this point.









Even got started on gluing up the first batch of parts.

[JonMarsh]

Pretty fun looking cabinet in progress- I'm also wondering if this might be a good fit to a basic PTT6.5X04 paper two way... main issue might be figuring out a vertical port coming out of the bottom. I've been so swamped with other stuff that it's been many days since I've had a look at what's happening here- still not caught up!

[Steve Manning]

Pretty fun looking cabinet in progress- I'm also wondering if this might be a good fit to a basic PTT6.5X04 paper two way... main issue might be figuring out a vertical port coming out of the bottom. I've been so swamped with other stuff that it's been many days since I've had a look at what's happening here- still not caught up!

I was having similar thought's ......

[Steve Manning]

Speaking of ports, the one's for these cabinets have been requested on the rear of the cabinets.

I thought I could get this done with two different sized forstner bits. I quickly discovered end grain of Baltic Birch had something to say about that idea. More or less the middle finger! Even with a brand new bit it would barely cut the surface.



After much head scratching I went for a combination approach that required some templates and Jon's favorite toy, a router.





I had to increase the inside diameter by a 1/4" and used a template along with a forstner bit since the router would not fit.



Having removed most of the material allowed the forstner bit to handle the remaining material.

[Steve Manning]

Amongst other things, both cabinets have been glued up and some rough sanding has commenced.



First cabinet sanded to 120 grit







After the second cabinet is cleaned up, baffles will be next on the agenda.

[JonMarsh]

Looking pretty nice, Steve- the recipient of these should be pretty jazzed! Unless, of course, he is "rocked"!