New Tower Speakers Started

[vanapplebomb]

So I started some work on my speakers this past Thanksgiving Break. It has been a long process because I am a student at Michigan Tech, and I don't get back to Holland very much. Fortunately I was able to make some dust in my little shop in my basement over the 6 days I had off.

My design in a large-ish three way floor standing tower speaker with a separate mid/tweeter housing and a curved bass cabinet with a down firing port.

I started out by riping up some mdf panels and poplar braces for the main cabinet on the table saw. I used a band saw to cut the curved top and bottom pieces. I burnt up a Dremal cutting the hole for the port on the bottom of one cabinet, so I used a JigSaw for the other. Changed the brushes, still nothin. Bummer, RIP Dremal.

I also made a mockup mid/tweeter housing out of some hivi drivers I had laying around for visuals only. All it is is plaster over styrofoam. A little acetone takes care of the foam. That way the driver can be mounted in just enough to get an idea of what the final product will look like.

Here are some pictures of the bass cabinets with a bit of the bracing in place as well as my mid/tweeter mockup.

I welcome all comments.

[arlis_1957@yahoo.com]

look foward to seeing more picks after x-mas

[vanapplebomb]

Thanks!

I hope to make some progress over my Christmases vacation. I ordered some more parts for them including four dayton rs225-8 woofers. My next project is to add a few more braces for the sides, then lay the sides on. That will be a fun challenge. The sides are not a constant radius. The curve gets tighter and tighter as you measure from back to front. by the time it reaches the front, its a really tight bend. I will have to pick up a few more tubes of construction adhesive for laminating the 1/8 inch hardboard for the sides. Those sides should be quite solid once I get 6 layers glued up on those dudes.

It seams like an ambitious task to glue up all the sides over break, so I guess I will wait and see how much progress I actually make over break.

[vanapplebomb]

Well, I got down to Holland for the holidays. I had some quality time to work on my project again. I got half way done with one side wall. Thats three layers down, three to go. Its a time consuming process, but it sure makes for solid walls. Enjoy the pictures.

[PunkSweeper]

Someone likes B&W. Looking forward to the finished product.

[ReissM]

These look pretty cool so far. How are you planning on finishing these? paint? wood veneer? formica?

[rogoll]

So I started some work on my speakers this past Thanksgiving Break. It has been a long process because I am a student at Michigan Tech, and I don't get back to Holland very much. Fortunately I was able to make some dust in my little shop in my basement over the 6 days I had off.

My design in a large-ish three way floor standing tower speaker with a separate mid/tweeter housing and a curved bass cabinet with a down firing port.

I started out by riping up some mdf panels and poplar braces for the main cabinet on the table saw. I used a band saw to cut the curved top and bottom pieces. I burnt up a Dremal cutting the hole for the port on the bottom of one cabinet, so I used a JigSaw for the other. Changed the brushes, still nothin. Bummer, RIP Dremal.

I also made a mockup mid/tweeter housing out of some hivi drivers I had laying around for visuals only. All it is is plaster over styrofoam. A little acetone takes care of the foam. That way the driver can be mounted in just enough to get an idea of what the final product will look like.

Here are some pictures of the bass cabinets with a bit of the bracing in place as well as my mid/tweeter mockup.

I welcome all comments.

How do you plan to get the plaster/styrofoam smooth? I'd like to do some more unusual shapes, but I just don't know how to make items like you have with a good, smooth surface.

[vanapplebomb]

Someone is right, I do like B&W, and some of my inspiration drew from those speakers. Mostly, I just wanted to try something new, something that pushed my imagination a little bit beyond rectangular boxes.

Well, like I said, the mid/tweeter housing was just to get an idea of what a finished product might look like. Its not actually functional. The smoothness will be a trick. I thought about fiberglassing for a final product, but then decided against it because ever little ridge where a piece of matt starts or ends, would stick out like a sore thumb. I was at an art gallery and was looking at shapes that artists create, and I found something that stuck me as very curious. Remember when we were young kids, and we made crude figures out of cheep water/flower paper mache? Well, I witnessed some very fine works of art that were both very smooth and surprisingly solid!...just a little different from what we made when we were young kids. I gave one a knock (no touching sign? oops) to see how it sounded. High pitched to my surprised. I would be willing to bet that it was about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch think! That must have taken some serious time and patients! Supposedly, paper mache when done right with the right materials, is very durable. Sanding is all it takes to smooth it out. When soaked, paper goes down quite even. I might have to make an experiment to see just how strong this material can be. OH the joys of experimentation. Thats what I love most about speaker building!!! Im sure many others would agree!


At any rate. I have all the drivers in hand now. I had to wait for the mids because the TB W4-1337 was on back order. This is a really nice driver! Sonically, I can tell it has a slight metal cone sound, but its different from most I have heard. I'm guessing thats because the breakup is about an octave above what I am used to in a metal cone. With a combination of the lowpass xo and some top end compensation, it should be no problem at all. Who knows, maybe I could even do without compensation. The build quality is also nice. The drivers are heavy and rock solid, but an off centered phase plug on one made me a little nervous. I have not had any issues with vc rubbing, so it is not such a big deal.

next up is implementing a crossover. We are going with an active/passive set up. I have to get windows downloaded onto my Mac which shouldn't take to long. Then I have to install excel so I can run some true modeling spreadsheets. None of that textbook stuff. Once I get that set, progress should be on its way again.

As for finishing the Woofer cabinets, I am panning on using a chestnut burl laminate...that is if its still made. I found some in Menards and it is gourgious. It was a nice golden orange/brown base with both dark and light burls, quite realistic as far as laminates go. I looked on Pionites web sight for it a while back and it was listed. I, however, no longer see it listed, which makes me somewhat nervous. I'm sure I can still find some stock of it somewhere.

One more thing to put on the todo list. A nice three spike outrigger set up to raise the speaker a good 4 inches off the floor for the down firing port.

I cant wait to get downstate to do some more work on them. In the mean time, I will continue to drool over my latest purchases drivers. Hahaha.