First Speaker Build

[radiorich]

hello JDCrae,
well the cabinets look great As far as the cross overs I use terminal strips .
Sincerely Rich

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[tomp]

Fantastic job! When you say wet sanded and polished could you give more details on the finishing. I usually sand and then use Watco oil. The final coat of oil is spread using 0000 steel wool to smooth out any nibs that may have come up during the process. After a few months and periodically thereafter I polish with Briwax to bring up a luster.


Tom

[JDCrae]

Thanks all for the feedback.

Rich - I looked for terminals like the ones you showed, but could not find them to save my life. Ended up just having the wires coming straight off the crossover. Luckily I planned for this so I made sure they were long enough to reach the drivers.

Tom- Happy to explain what I did with the finish. To be honest, I am not completely satisfied with how the finish came out. I made some interesting choices which then determined subsequent choices if that makes any sense.

For the finish I wanted to used a spar urethane. One, because we get a lot of sunlight in our living room, and SU has good UV protections, but also for the fact that it is a bit thicker of a material, thought it would help hide future dings easier.

Well the problem with spar urethane is its way too thick, so I had to thin it to get it to move the way I needed it to. This however works against you if you are trying to do more than one side at a time. The sides that were vertical the urethane ran down and built up on the edges. Because its clear, this wasn't that noticable until after the 5th or 6th coat. To combat this, I had to use a razor blade to try to cut down the build up, which unfortunately made it stick out more. The only way I knew to get the surface even was to wet sand the entire thing until I couldn't feel any ripples, etc. Took a long time. After that of course, I have a dull surface, so I had to polish it with my DA and a couple of different compounds until it literally was as smooth as glass. After the compound and polishing, I put on a coat of Carnuba Wax, and buffed that out as well.

I ended up treating and handling my Cabs as if it were a boat. The finishing techniques I used were the same that I would use if restoring an antique boat. While it did not come out perfectly, it would have been much worse had I just tried to leave it, and stripping all the urethane off was not really an option either.

Hope that explains it lol

Last edited by JDCrae on January 7th, 2015, 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Roscoe Primrose]

I never worry about finishing speaker cabinets until I'm done tweaking the design. Of course, I've never actually gotten that far with a speaker

Roscoe

[tomp]

Thanks for the finishing info.

Tom

[Guy]

Yes, the finishing sounds like we're working on an auto!

[rock4016]

Finish? Isn't that a country or something?

[Guy]

Finish? Isn't that a country or something?

Kyllä

[Guy]

Thanks all for the feedback.

Rich - I looked for terminals like the ones you showed, but could not find them to save my life.

JD, I know it's too late, but you can get strips like this at http://www.mouser.com for $2.50 each (Keystone #854.)
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Keystone-Electronics/854/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMsQtlBhqKq43SlbTqGCP%2fPo

Or these: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Keystone-Electronics/817/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvz8LftK4jerkUaD0IcaHDhHpkXpfvzp08%3d for $1.26, more spacing

[JDCrae]

Thanks Guy! That's actually a huge help as I will be building 3 different sets of speakers in the coming months. I have been asked to build another set of the Core's for my brother in laws 30th birthday, a set of Overnight sensations for my workbench downstairs, and a set of sprite separates for our bedroom to replace some old Nakamichi speakers. Hopefully once that is all done, I can get down and listen to Charles' LX Mini's as I do think that will be the next pair I will be building for myself.