Overnight Sensations: Build Thread

[WWWJD]

Cutting begins; and found a new favorite store!

Went to a new place called Woodcraft today... I drooled.. an entire corner dedicated to veneer.. so many to choose from. Wow. Tools? I think they've got all of em. I picked up a Jasper circle jig, which surprisingly fit my POS black and decker router. I still have to use my home brew jig for anything larger than 7" or so.. but so be it. Aside from that, I got three sheets of 3mm Baltic Birch Ply for the sides.. total wall thickness will be 9mm; more than enough from the feel of this stuff.

Got the top and bottom plates cut, then the front and rear. Used the Jasper jig to cut out vent holes and got them perfect right out of the box. Good day all in all.







So now I've got to figure out how to bend 3mm plywood around a 7.5" radius. Joy. Love first times. I sense lots of clamping in my near future.

More than likely, I'll wind up kerf cutting that plywood; set the table saw at a 45 and try to go a millimeter or two into the material.. yea. Sounds like a plan.

[Paul Carmody]

Re: Cutting begins; and found a new favorite store!

I kept staring at that picture wondering how you'd cut the curves so nicely, and why it appeared you'd used a router to do it. Then I saw the pivot holes off to the side; very clever!

And yeah, Woodcraft is a really amazing store. One could spend a lot of money there.

[dbe]

Re: Overnight Sensations: Build Thread

And one more thing; I don't know how many of you have tried this PC-7 epoxy, but these particular cans have been shelved for about 6 months. The consistency is awesome for component placement; very thick, and extremely sticky, and I'm certain it'll beat hot glue hands down, regardless of surface.

PC-7 is great goo! I recently used it to add stiffeners to, and reinforce the basket/magnet junction of, a Fostex FE 206 fullrange. Like you said: consistency is awesome for holding things in place and not responding to the clutches of gravity.

It also drills and taps well.

Dave

[WayneN]

Re: Cutting begins; and found a new favorite store!

Went to a new place called Woodcraft today... I drooled.. an entire corner dedicated to veneer.. so many to choose from. Wow. Tools? I think they've got all of em. I picked up a Jasper circle jig, which surprisingly fit my POS black and decker router. I still have to use my home brew jig for anything larger than 7" or so.. but so be it. Aside from that, I got three sheets of 3mm Baltic Birch Ply for the sides.. total wall thickness will be 9mm; more than enough from the feel of this stuff.

Got the top and bottom plates cut, then the front and rear. Used the Jasper jig to cut out vent holes and got them perfect right out of the box. Good day all in all.







So now I've got to figure out how to bend 3mm plywood around a 7.5" radius. Joy. Love first times. I sense lots of clamping in my near future.

More than likely, I'll wind up kerf cutting that plywood; set the table saw at a 45 and try to go a millimeter or two into the material.. yea. Sounds like a plan.

Hi Mark,

Nice Work!

I’ve been following both yours and Bill’s builds; it’s amazing to see the difference in cabinet and crossover concepts of the same design. Crossovers to me are complicated enough yours blows me away. With regards to your cabinets, will you be using some form of frame structure or just wrapping the Ply to the Top and Bottom plates?

For clamping you might want to try Ratchet Straps, I believe you would have more holding coverage overall?

We have a place in Canada very similar to Woodcraft, Lee Valley Tools, a hobbyist Paradise :D

WayneN

[WWWJD]

Re: Cutting begins; and found a new favorite store!

With regards to your cabinets, will you be using some form of frame structure or just wrapping the Ply to the Top and Bottom plates?


WayneN

I'm hoping that kerfing the ply will relieve some of the headache with bending, while maintaining rigidity in the finished piece; I'll be doing three layers per side, so with the gallon or so of glue it's gonna take to do that, I shouldn't have a problem with stiffness. If the kerfing doesn't work, then I may indeed have to make a third profile piece for the middle of the enclosure to maintain shape under clamping pressure. (eek!)

[djg]

Re: Overnight Sensations: Build Thread

If you have access to a big bandsaw, you might make a bending form out of thick insulating foam, soak the ply, clamp in the form and let dry. I'm talking about a big block of foam with a bandsaw cut of the radius of your curve, giving you a male and female piece with the ply as the meat of the sandwich. Just an idea. Similar to method of skinning foam core model airplane wings, except you are not gluing the skin to the foam, just prebending it. If no bandsaw, check out hotwire foam cutting. Simple.

BTW, biga$$ fans rock. Seen a few in local airplane hangars. Scary big.

[bobbarkto]

Re: Cutting begins; and found a new favorite store!

You should be ok bending that stuff.

You probably will need to kerf it, but that won't hurt the integrity of the finished box. Doubt you need another support in the middle. It's a short span.
I'd make the first layer a little bit more flexible than the outer two. If you glue that first and let it set before adding the outer two layers you'll find it's a much easier go. And the outer two layers probably won't need nearly as much kerfing (maybe none). Kerfing is tedious to say the least.

Strap clamps are pretty much a necessity. ~3 or 4 per box, augmented with some regular clamps at the edges if needed. You can get ratcheting tie down straps at the big box or sometimes at dollar stores, often for less $$ than the cheap woodworking strap clamps. They hold better and apply more pressure too.

Titebond glue sets up quickly. You might want to go back to Woodcraft and get some powdered urea resin glue.
It has a long open/working time and sets up to a hard/no-creep glue line. Perfect for bent laminations.

Also, if the front and back edges don't pull in nice and flush to the back and baffle (if they look wavey) then add some battens to spread the clamp pressure. They'll also give the regular clamps a flatter surface to grip. It's aggravating watching clamps pop off while the glue is setting.

Just a few things I've learned along the way, hope they're helpful.

I'm hoping that kerfing the ply will relieve some of the headache with bending, while maintaining rigidity in the finished piece; I'll be doing three layers per side, so with the gallon or so of glue it's gonna take to do that, I shouldn't have a problem with stiffness. If the kerfing doesn't work, then I may indeed have to make a third profile piece for the middle of the enclosure to maintain shape under clamping pressure. (eek!)

[WWWJD]

Tonight's progress; started some minor assembly

Oh how the weekends fly. I did manage to get some light assembly work done. One of the challenges of the day was holding these little pieces of 1/2" material together.. I've got a few clamps in my arsenal, but nothing spectacular. Then I looked over in the corner and discovered that I had some 1/4" dowel stock at my disposal.. and viola. These things just kinda build themselves don't they?


I started off my clamping the bottom and top plates to the ripping fences on my table saw (are they vertical? ehh.. close enough). I then held the front baffle in place while drilling a #36 pilot hole, then chasing them with a 1/4" bit. After that? Glue, pin and hammer. I felt like I was building a desk from Wal-mart.


A finished joint. Wash, rinse, and repeat.


Twins!!


And that's about all she wrote for Sunday.

As far as the birch ply bending thing goes, I think I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill on that. I'm gonna grab some huge wire ties we've got laying around the warehouse tomorrow; one of them should make it all the way around the circumference of these little enclosures. I'm thinking 4 or 5 of them per enclosure.

I tried kerfing that stuff, will little to no success.. just got too brittle with a missing ply or two, even with a good soak in warm water. Voting for brute force tomorrow!

[Hal H]

Re: Overnight Sensations: Build Thread

Bending wood requires steam. I've never bent plywood, but I imagine it would have to be outdoor grade. Something that the glue used on the plies would hold up to a good deal of moisture. I've made several violins where wood is bent, but it's not ply and the bending iron turned the soaked in water to steam to aid in the bending. It bent very easily to the shape I needed.

Too bad the kerfing didn't work. that would seem to be the best way to bend plywood. Maybe if there was a way to heat it up to make the water steam?

Hal H

[WWWJD]

Volume knob(s) solid model done..

Uber cool...

Time to print it!

[WWWJD]

Re: 3D printing done.. pretty cool!

Small Update before I hit it again hard this weekend... I'm thinking this is gonna look great when all is finished.



I'm going to fill it with Bondo and sand it down before a coat of paint..

[williamrschneider]

Re: Overnight Sensations: Build Thread

VERY cool!

I want one of those machines!

[john trials]

Re: Overnight Sensations: Build Thread

I hope those are press-on knobs, because if you have to tighten a set screw, it's going to be tough!

I wish I had access to a machine like that, too. I could machine a piece like that out of aluminum, but it would be easier to just 'print' it (I don't have a CNC).

[WWWJD]

Re: Overnight Sensations: Build Thread

I hope those are press-on knobs, because if you have to tighten a set screw, it's going to be tough!

Nope.. they've got set screws.. but I'll run the screw in till I barely make contact on the flat of the pot shaft.. then RTV silicon them in place.. they won't go anywhere, but if I need to get them back off, a good yank should do it.

[WWWJD]

Slowly but surely; Progress...

The whole heavy duty cable tie thing worked out pretty well; 6 per enclosure, per layer.. a quick way to burn up 36 cable ties. Tonight I took a stab at cleaning up the edges, and cutting a clearance hole for the volume controls (chased with another 1/2" MDF panel, for a baffle thickness of 1").







My joints aren't nearly as clean as I would have liked, but overall, the shape is pretty appealing. Which brings me to a question:

There are some pretty good mis-licks I made with my router; how well does bondo take to MDF in your experience? I can't imagine there would be any drawbacks.. but it never fails to ask before I start slathering it on there.