My Statements build thread

[FroDaddy]

Hello, thanks for checking out my build thread. I decided to post a build thread for these because I made mistakes and I hope someone else could learn from them. I have already completed the Mini Statement Center, and the Statements will have the same finish. The center was my first completed DIY speaker:



The original plan was to build all 3 speakers at the same time starting Memorial Day weekend (May 24th), and use up 2 weeks of time off from my day job to get the speakers finished. A quick check of the date, and I overshot my original goal by quite some time! Now my finish date is, "when it's done", but I'm working hard to get them done in August. Going into this, I had no idea how much work was involved to complete a build. I have been humbled by the process, and I feel like a custodian to the speakers instead of their creator! ops:

So, here we go with the show and tell....

[FroDaddy]

Days 1-3

Note that for the first 3/4 of the build, the Mini Statement Center was brought along in every step exactly like the "big guys". Later in the project is when I branched off and finished the center; more on that later.

Day 1
I was lucky in that my father was able to acquire the use of a huge table saw to cut all the pieces of wood on Saturday, May 24th. It was a long morning, but we managed to get everything cut in about 5 hours. Most of the time was spent verifying measurements to make them as perfect as possible since the saw wanted to be off for every new cut. We had enough time to see Indiana Jones 4 in the afternoon, so it was a fun day for us overall.

Day 2
The baffles and tunnels were glued together with Titebond 3 and held together with Harbor Freight clamps.



After I took this picture, I had to learn to use a router for the first time. That took a few hours, but I managed to get a couple of cuts on pieces that weren't being glued.

Day 3
A long day cutting holes, I didn't get finished but I did enough to glue the braces to the rear baffles on the mains. The center was making progress with the bracing as well.



Here was my first mistake, make sure to set up the wood as flat as possible at all times. Later, the MDF was warped and I believe it was because I didn't have full length support on the long sides but instead chose to prop them up on the tunnels in this manner

[FroDaddy]

Day 5

Day 5
It took longer than I thought to cut the recesses and driver holes. I used a Jasper Jig and a straight cut bit from a set from Harbor Freight. A carpenters square ended up being my preferred measuring stick to line everything up. During routing, I broke the bit but luckily my father had an extra one. Here I glued the tunnels to the rear baffle for a few hours, and you can see the center channel was a little bit ahead of the mains. Make sure you route a recess for the tweeter on BOTH tunnels in the mains, and also the top side of the tunnel in the center channel. It's a good idea to drill holes in the tunnels for your speaker wire as well.



And then I mated the front baffles to the mains and the top to the center:



Just in case you're wondering, this is my father's workshop that he's letting me use to build the speakers. I joke with him that he has a mini Home Depot, so chances are if get stuck and need something, chances are he'll have something that will work :rofl:

[FroDaddy]

Days 8-11

Now that the cabinets were taking shape, it was time to work on the finishing. A considerable amount of time was spent sanding the surfaces. The center section was being prepped for paint, and the sides were being prepped for stain.

The vertical supports were attached, and they were modified after test fitting the sides several times. Mistake #2 was realized: I didn't take heed to the advice on forum by oversizing your last two sides so a roundover bit could be used. Good thing we took extra care in cutting the wood or it could have been worse. Once again, the bits in the Harbor Freight kit weren't up to the task so I had to buy a better, and bigger 45deg chamfer bit. This was used on the front of the side pieces instead of a roundover. The process was to clamp the sides to the center sections, and then use the chamfer bit to cut the edge.

During this test fit I also realized I had warped birch plywood sides, and then I messed up the MDF when I tried to do some finishing carpentry work. (I still haven't finished the speakers, so I'm not sure of the severity of those mistakes yet.)

Day 8
Here are the center sections sanded, and waiting for primer. I taped the exposed side edges down so I would have bare wood exposed when I went to glue the sides on later.



Day 11
A few days later, and I had the center sections primed and sanded.



Here is a picture of the sides basking in the hot Florida sun. They had iron on edge banding applied, Minwax wood conditioner, and a quick wipe on and off of the Minwax Red Mahogany. I was letting them sit in the sun because I read somewhere on here that it adds depth to the wood grain, and they were right. But, apparently I didn't learn my lesson from supporting long lengths of wood properly because later I discovered that the sides were even more warped than before.

[Jim Holtz]

Excellent thread! :T

Thanks for posting it.

Jim

[FroDaddy]

Day 11 and Day 17

Day 11
Finishing the day up, I lightly sanded the stained sides and then wiped them with a rag soaked in mineral spirits. This added more richness to the wood, and I was excited how they were taking shape. This picture is with a single coat of Minwax high gloss polyurethane:



Another light sand and another coat of poly was all they needed. Things were shaping up... or were they?

----

A lot happened after the center sections were going for paint. The first mistake was trying to use a high pressure, high volume house sprayer to spray the material. The consequence was a full 9 hours of sanding down the finish on Day 13 to try again. The second mistake was I didn't fill any MDF edges and I lightly filled the seams; I thought the large amount of primer I applied would be enough to cover them. I was able to sand the primer smooth for paint, but to this day every additional application of material will show these lines no matter how smooth I prepare the surface ahead of time. The seams get less and less pronounced and were barely noticeable on the center channel finish, but the lesson learned was to do a full effort to fill the seams and edges.

I purchased a Harbor Freight HVLP gun for the follow-up paint coats. By this time my vacation had run out, so progress from here on out was going to be very slow!

----

Day 17
After learning the new gun, I applied a couple of coats of material to center sections. The paint dried, and I discovered the finish was horrible. I'm still not sure where the mistake was made, my application was smooth and the finish looked good on the test pieces I experimented with. I continued to use a latex high gloss enamel paint, so that contributed to the problem. Next time I will use an oil based flat black with the same gun to see if the problem was with the wrong material.

Overall shot:



Close-up:

[Hdale85]

Mistake number 1 Piano gloss black!

[FroDaddy]

Day 1 million, 300 thousand....

At this point is where I was disappointed and didn't document my progress. I broke away from trying to complete all 3 speakers at once, and concentrated all my efforts on the center channel. After spending several hours sanding the center channel down again and spending a week fixing areas where it was unavoidable to sand into the primer for an even finish, I shot some water based clear on it only to get nearly the same result as in the previous post! I was highly discouraged and was thinking it was "Mission IMpossible DIY" so I took an extended break from building.

Returning to the project, I had to sand down the center channel again. I was angry at this point so I ordered both press-on vinyl and iron on black melamine veneer from PE. I read a post where someone used polyurethane on the top of covering, so I wanted to do the same. After ordering, I took some spare melamine and contact paper from other projects and applied poly to them. It was satisfactory, but the center channel was daring me to apply some poly to the recently sanded flat black finish. Wow! This was the direction I needed to take! Luckily PE has excellent customer service and allowed me to cancel my order without any penalties.

I was going for a glossy black, so I spent another week finding the right method for the poly. A word of caution for those reading, yes I used oil based poly over water based paint. This CAN be done if the water based paint has fully cured. It had been over a month since the last coats of black were applied, and I had sanded off the other coat of clear so I was good to go.

Only the center channel, I prepped the surface with a final 2000 grit wet-sand then used 1 part mineral spirits, 1 part poly, wiped on fast with a blue shop towel, then a quick straight wipe to finish the coat, and walk away. It took some practice to get the right amount of poly on the applicator for the area I was surfacing, also factoring in the speed of application and the flash time of the material. For another coat, I found by trial and error that I needed to do a really light wet-sand with 2000 grit to knock off enough dust so it won't show through on the follow-up coat, and to level some of the faint streaks that are inherent with this method (they won't completely disappear, though). I did not sand on the final coat since I had to be in perfect light to see the blemishes. I'd say the finish is good enough for most of us DIY guys, and once I got the hang of this method it was much faster than what I've read about a true piano black finish.

So now that I had a method that worked on the center channel....

[FroDaddy]

Working on the "big guys" again

Today I started working on the "big guys" again. This weekend's agenda is to get both speakers sanded to a flat black.

I removed the painters tape from the sides, and my father and I rigged up this contraption for sanding and poly. The finish doesn't look too bad in the picture, but in person it is completely unacceptable.



I knew it was going to be a hard day's work! I estimated 8 working hours for each speaker cabinet, but luckily it was only 7 working hours. I used the flash on this picture so you can easily tell the difference between the two cabinets. The one on the left is the product of today's work, and the right speaker is what I am correcting. Tomorrow will be another long day to get the 2nd cabinet to a smooth, flat black.

[FroDaddy]

Excellent thread! :T

Thanks for posting it.

Jim

Thanks Jim! Hopefully the end product will be on par with the finish I have with the center.

[FroDaddy]

Mistake number 1 Piano gloss black!

No kidding! All I wanted was an even, glossy black... it is so simple to say :lol:

[wackii]

Great looking speakers. Good job. I wish I had time and money to build the statements. You've went through a lot with the gloss black finish like myself I spend lots of hours sanding and you know what... My two nephews 10 and 11 years old had just scratch my speaker pretty badly... I was so pissed off... steaming hot that day... the poor kids are afraid to touch my speakers now hehehe Well, I just sand down my center speaker again... damn... I'm going to re-finishing it again...

Al,

[Blktre]

Wow, this thread is gonna get some hits.....I see building the Statements myself a year or so from now. Great work and thanks for detailing your build mistakes and fixes. So far, they look fantastic. Hopefully Stangbat and I will get to hear Jim's on the way to/from Iowa DIY.....Keep em coming Daddy!!

[Hdale85]

I would not attempt a gloss black like that without an HVLP sprayer and some very nice clear coat and of course very good rubbing compound

[Ezcl]

Interesting... It's painting-horror stories like this that make me hesitant to paint my sub at all... Is painting other colors as finnicky as this piano black is?

[---k---]

FroDaddy,
Great thread. :T I wouldn't feel bad about making mistakes and taking twice as long as you planned. We've all been there. I'm still not completely finished with my Khans (need to finish the finish on the feet) and it has been almost a year! My threads are littered with mistakes. I think you should be very proud of your efforts!

Ezcl,
Paint is only finicky if you want a shine that you can see your reflection in. My Khans just have a rolled on black paint. Two coats of that, and I got a very even, black finish. It has a bit of texture and isn't silky smooth. It isn't anywhere near as impressive as other speakers you see here, but my wife and I think it looks good. I'm just not into the finishing aspect of speakers.

[FroDaddy]

Thanks K! Things are definitely looking up today! (I didn't mean that to rhyme, but oh well : )

Today I finished sanding the other Statement in 5 1/2 hours. The paint on the back of the cabinet had dried much harder, and was thin as well. I usually use 320 grit as the first step, but it wasn't working. I had to go with 220 and tried to use finesse, but it was inevitable to have sanding errors. A second reason I don't like using 220 because it leaves deep scratches that are hard to sand out afterwards. I decided to try wet sanding with 600 grit, and it did a good job removing the 220 leftovers.

Luckily the front baffle on this cabinet was the easiest yet, so it was done much faster than I originally thought. My standard 320 pressing hard, 320 light, 1000 pressing hard, 1000 light, then two passes of 2000 light worked. This sounds like a lot of steps, but the 320 levels everything out so the remaining steps only take 30 minutes combined. Here are the two speakers sanded to a flat black with 2000 grit (the one on the right was done today):



The rear of this speaker had some bigger problem areas than the front. I had the same thing happen on the center channel and have a procedure to fix them. I use a layering process in which I use a foam brush that barely has enough material in it, and then apply it to the areas that need repair. I let it dry, then sand smooth, then repeat the process until there is no trace of the problem. Some areas on the center channel were finished after 2-3 layers, but some of the trouble spots took at least 7... after that I stopped counting. It's not that difficult, just a test of patience. Since the layers are thin, it is possible to sand after 2-4 hours of application. Here is a closer picture of the sanding errors where I went down to the primer; look for white spots around edges. After I snapped the picture I applied a layer over the problem areas. This will keep me busy for a few days!

[here.now]

My arms hurt just reading all of this!

Seriously awesome job on the set. I wish too I could find the time and finances to undertake a huge project like this! Good luck on finishing the beasts, looks like we've got a new expert to go to for the infamous piano black.

[impala454]

Fro, great thread, awesome finish on that center, and seconded on the "don't worry about making mistakes". My center channel was 2/3 done and I measured wrong and put the hole for the mid tunnel port a whole inch off... scrapped it and started again though! Hey in the end it's just wood, time, and learning experiences.

[FroDaddy]

Quick update

Nothing big to report, but I'm still working on patching the sanding areas. I'm finding it difficult to get motivated after last weekend's sanding extravaganza, so it's going slow. I keep toying / playing with the statement center, so that's not helping this project

The problem areas are patching quicker than the center channel did, but the "big guys" cabinets are bigger, and there are two of them, so there are more areas that need repair. Best case would be this weekend finishing the repairs and then the poly application can begin.

[FroDaddy]

My arms hurt just reading all of this!

Seriously awesome job on the set. I wish too I could find the time and finances to undertake a huge project like this! Good luck on finishing the beasts, looks like we've got a new expert to go to for the infamous piano black.

I made sure the center looked great for the picture, so there is some camera trickery going on :

[FroDaddy]

Fro, great thread, awesome finish on that center, and seconded on the "don't worry about making mistakes". My center channel was 2/3 done and I measured wrong and put the hole for the mid tunnel port a whole inch off... scrapped it and started again though! Hey in the end it's just wood, time, and learning experiences.

Thanks, I was following some of your progress and I'm keeping tabs on your build thread now It's definitely a learning process, and the mistakes don't bother me too much; it's the consequences (fixes) that are painful! :M

So does your car get some DIY attention too?

[impala454]

Well my online name (which I use everywhere) comes from a drag car my dad built when I was really young. That car is long gone but he's built a couple others and his drag car right now is a '62 vette. Once I get my own garage and I get the HT projects somewhat complete, I'd like to find a good project car to get going. I like the 65-68 Impala fastback and 67-71 Chevelle. Probably won't go all out race car so much as a fun street/strip hot rod.

Here's the one I got my online name from. 1970 Impala with stock 454, I was brought home from the hospital in it in 1979, and when I was about 3 years old he gutted it and turned it into this (ran 11.80s in the 1/4):

Image not available

[Johnloudb]

That is a great photo! I'm a muscle car fan myself. I'd think finding those old cars in good shape now days, without paying a fortune could be difficult. Though I haven't really tried. I've always been partial to early Chevelles. I'm shutting up now. If this turns into a muscle car thread Thomas will be pissed. 8O :W

BTW, Frodaddy, terrific work on those Statements. I wish I had those kind of wood working skills.

[Hdale85]

Hmm......all I want is a 1962 Lincoln Continental hardtop


So where's the update on these cabinets? :B looking pretty good from the last pics. Just keep sanding!

[fire01]

Wow,nice build!Where did you get the Statement cabinet plan and crossover design?

Thanks.

[Hdale85]

https://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28728

[fire01]

Thanks Dougie085 :T

[Hdale85]

No problem. There are lots of designs in the mission accomplished section.

[FroDaddy]

impala454
Wow your Dad has quite the setup! That is a true race car he's built, and he's got the goodies to go with it; dualie, trailer, etc. That's cool how you got your screen name, too I've got a '99 vette street car that's been modded. I paid it off last year (yay) which has given me a chance to do other stuff like these DIY speakers. Here's the picture page and a video of my best 11.72 run at the track. Subsequently, a couple months later I had to replace the differential after all the track abuse. ops: Needless to say, the car probably won't see the track again.

Dougie085
I had something that resembles an update a few posts back, but nothing big to report. I thought about taking pictures, but it would just be the white spots are now black :lol: Once I start the poly I'll snap more pictures.

fire01: You've already seen the link that Dougie posted, so that's where I got the plans from. But, I am changing thing up a little bit. I built the cabinets with 4" shaved off the top (51" in height now); which doesn't effect the tweeter height. I did this because I didn't want the Statements to be quite so high in my room. I think the look of the cabinets also turned out nice having about an inch between the top of the cabinet and the start of the top woofer recess. Curt signed off on this change for me, so it shouldn't effect the midrange hardly at all if any. After the change, the cabinet size came in around 90.5L instead of the original 100L. All this means is that the -F3 modeled to be 1.5Hz higher; barely anything. The port length will change some, but I don't have that info in front of me right now. I'll post up that info later.
A second change is that I'm making the bases similar to what ahaik did here. I believe Jim referred to these as the "3d bases", so that's what I'm calling it. I haven't built the collar yet, but the bases themselves are probably 40% done. You can see them standing on their ends in the last two picture updates in this thread. I'm going to finish the cabinets first, then I'll be able to decide if the 45deg angle cut on the ends need to be any deeper. More on that later, though. :P

[Hdale85]

Won't that cut off portion have an effect on BSC and what not?

[FroDaddy]

Won't that cut off portion have an effect on BSC and what not?

I asked Curt about it, and he modeled it and told me it would be okay. I don't have his e-mail in front of me right now (I'm at work), but I'll dig it up once I get home. Nothing like creating a little suspense... <insert suspense music here> :B

[Hdale85]

Well I guess it wouldn't do to much damage as the nearest driver is a woofer.

[impala454]

impala454
Wow your Dad has quite the setup! That is a true race car he's built, and he's got the goodies to go with it; dualie, trailer, etc. That's cool how you got your screen name, too I've got a '99 vette street car that's been modded. I paid it off last year (yay) which has given me a chance to do other stuff like these DIY speakers. Here's the picture page and a video of my best 11.72 run at the track. Subsequently, a couple months later I had to replace the differential after all the track abuse. ops: Needless to say, the car probably won't see the track again.

awesome car :T , I'd love to buy a vette some day

[FroDaddy]

awesome car :T , I'd love to buy a vette some day

Thanks, I read on here where someone said it was interesting how a lot of people on this board are into audio and cars. Your user name was a dead giveaway :T

[Hdale85]

I think we're just about all into audio and cars And some of us even car audio haha.

[---k---]

Yep. Lots of car people here. CJD used to do autocross, JonW races. JonMarsh has an NSX. I got a Mazda MX-5 that I dream about doing autocross in. I just think it is that people with wives understanding enough to let us make big messes building speakers also understanding enough to allow us to have expensive car hobbies.

[FroDaddy]

Patchwork update

There is a big lesson I've learned here, DON'T try to take shortcuts! Next time I will use oil based paint on MDF, and use flat black! :M

I'm estimating I've spent around 20 hours fixing the sanding errors so far and I have a lot left to do. I have realized that many of errors were inevitable to begin with, and just a bad deal overall from using water based glossy paint on MDF. The paint is uneven so it is impossible to tell how deep I can sand in an area, and it swelled slightly so the surface isn't perfectly flat either. The MDF soaked up the water based paint, the paint dried unevenly, or a combination of both. (My application was fine on the test pieces I did, so I'm not sure why things were different on the actual cabinets.)

To patch the paint up, the process has been to patch an area, sand carefully, patch more spots from the sanding I just did, then repeat, and repeat... (and repeat) .. .. . .. .. (and repeat) :rofl:

The light at the end of the tunnel is one of the cabinets has two small areas left to layer up. I will be very disappointed if this cabinet isn't finished patching up after tomorrow's efforts. The other cabinet is probably 5 layers or so away from being done, however.

So I've had to change my plans somewhat. Once the good cabinet is finished patching, I can begin the poly application on it while I work on finishing up the bad cabinet.

Even with the change of plans, I doubt these will be finished by the end of this month. It's taking longer than I thought to get this far, and everything would have to go perfect to finish by the end of August. The goal is to get it right from this point on and not to take any shortcuts.

[FroDaddy]

the project is stalled

..The light at the end of the tunnel is one of the cabinets has two small areas left to layer up. I will be very disappointed if this cabinet isn't finished patching up after tomorrow's efforts.
.
.

Last night the good cabinet didn't patch up properly, and the bad one got worse. My patience finally ran out, so the project is now stalled. Any expectations I put on myself to get this done by the end of August is gone. :cry: I don't know when I'll have the motivation to try again; days, weeks? All I know is I was thinking about learning how flammable MDF was :M So here's the forecast:

Plan A - Take a break, then continue patching like I was doing before with the glossy black. It worked on the center channel so I might be able to finish it like this. The procedure that I listed earlier in the thread doesn't work consistently. I am using the same paint so the patches blend perfectly.

Plan B - Use a different paint or viscosity for patching. Last night I applied some flat black from a different brand of paint to see if this will help me out any. I have about 10% confidence that it will blend perfect. Another option is to thin the glossy black so that it might make blending easier.

Plan C - It would take more time to do this versus doing the patching: Sand the cabinets down with 400 grit and shoot two coats of water based flat black on the cabinets. Sand the cabinets down in steps to 2000 grit to get ready for the poly, but I doubt I can apply it right away without letting the water based paint fully cure. I don't like this idea since I believe part of the problem is the MDF is soaking up the water based paint, so I might be worse off than I am now. I'm afraid to try shooting two oil based coats on top of the water based paint.

Plan D - Start over from scratch and build new cabinets. I'd have to scrap not only the MDF that I'm working with, but also the birch sides that I've already finished since they are cut to fit these cabinets.

Plan E - Pay someone to finish the paint. This is the last option for me because I'd rather start over than give up completely.

So that's the jist of it. Tonight I'm going to try thinning the glossy paint to see how that goes. :g>

[wackii]

Sorry to hear that you have so much trouble. Sometime taking a break will clear verything up. Since you've already got a flat surface to work with. I will sand everything out and start over. I don't have a paint gun or anything. I did my center speaker using spray cans. Large speakers might be difficult with spray cans but I think it could be done.

Take a lil break, it's summer and a good time for vaction I'm heading to Vegas again in 3 weeks to get my money back Good luck with your build.

Al,

[FroDaddy]

Thanks Al, the good news is that my test area for the flat black test might have done the trick. If it does turn out to be the solution, then I'll be really happy because it blends super easy; 1 minute versus 10-20 minutes :E

Man Vegas sounds fun! I'll bet that you'll be on your vacation before these speakers are done though :P

[wackii]

Thanks Al, the good news is that my test area for the flat black test might have done the trick. If it does turn out to be the solution, then I'll be really happy because it blends super easy; 1 minute versus 10-20 minutes :E

Man Vegas sounds fun! I'll bet that you'll be on your vacation before these speakers are done though :P

Hope it turns out good for you. Have a lil patient and enjoy the process instead of rushing it I had to re-do my center twice not because of my mistakes but because of my nephews f**k it up...

Not vacation, I'm just going up there to get my money back It's the weekend's job... MGM and Flamingo Casino owed me $500 and I want it back :B

Al,

[FroDaddy]

Progress has been slow, but I'm doing some work on them again. I tried using some flat black water based paint to layer up the patches, and I'm still unsure whether that was a good idea or not. The bad cabinet is still bad and needs a lot of patchwork:



The good cabinet had the backside get two coats of poly, but it needs to have a third coat. The front is still trying to patch up, and I can't poly the top of this cabinet until the front is patched since one of the patches is on the edge adjacent to the top. I used the flat black to layer the front spots and then a few layers of gloss was still needed since the flat black does not blend well. One of the spots is having trouble; somehow the flat black is still showing through even after a few thick layers of gloss.

Here is a picture of the backside of the good cabinet after one coat of poly had a good wet sanding with 2000 grit:



Here is what the backside looked like with wet polyurethane, the picture was taken about 30 seconds after application. (This needs another coat since more debris than I'd like settled in the finish; the gloss level was satisfactory though.)

[FroDaddy]

I managed to finish the patchwork on the "good" cabinet, and I applied a coat of poly on the front & the top. I'll need to apply at least one more coat to each side, though.

The "bad" cabinet is still being patched up and it has quite a ways to go.

[jagman]

One down, one to go. Thanks for posting your progress... especially your mistakes. Not fun to publish, but many noobs, myself included, will hopefully learn and not repeat. Maybe getting it off your chest is therapeutic. Sorry you have to go through this.