Cabinet finishing ideas

[duronboy]

For my dad's little p.a. system he's putting together, I designed and built some subwoofer cabinets with the help of several techtalk forum members. Bill Fitzmaurice, Chris Roemer, Brian Steele, your advice steered my design into something better than it might have been.

I made the cabs out of pine plywood and of course it's soft. First outing and there were some minor dents and scrapes. As expected. I haven't finished these at all, yet, so they're still bare wood. I'm aware of many popular options including duratex and carpet.

I think the first line of defense will be cabinet covers. Still leaves them open to damage after setup, but reducing travel damage should help a bit. Hobby Lobby has fabric as cheap as $3 for 58" x 36" so all I need is something else inexpensive with some small amount of cush. Felt is pretty cheap so that sandwiched in a couple layers of fabric should be effective against most travel sliding damage short of blunt force trauma. Open to more ideas on inexpensive material.

One of my ideas for finish is matte polyurethane. I saw a video where a woodworker took a can of satin poly and let it sit a while, then carefully poured off the top layer. So he was left with poly that had a concentrated amount of the pariculate that removes gloss. The result was pretty nice. What's your experience with repairing poly with a recoat?

Another idea is simply not applying a finish, but only applying india ink. What I like about india ink rather than spray paint is that it's much easier to get an even black finish without worrying about getting too much. And it's way, wayyy faster. No VOCs, either!

[billfitzmaurice]

DuraTex.

[mtr369]

Another option is Warnex

warnex speaker cabinet paint link:


https://www.pennelcomonline.com/en/u...oaAsJUEALw_wcB

As you mentioned, pine is soft, so coating durability is a must.

[billfitzmaurice]

Another option is Warnex
.

Not in the US.

[mtr369]

Not in the US.

I just chatted with them and they ship here and have warehouses in several states.

(Not trying to contradict anyone on my first post!!)

[duronboy]

Warnex doesn't seem to have a price advantage, and Duratex isn't exactly cheap at $75+shipping for a gallon. But cost isn't the reason we're not planning on using it at the moment. My dad doesn't like the look of many of the cabinets he saw with Duratex. Some people seem to really get the texture wrong, and I wouldn't put it past myself to make the same texture he doesnt' like. I could be wrong, but cleaning it could be an issue? It just seems like with that texture it would be a real snaggletooth on paper towels or whatever. Plus I saw in the reviews and in other posts that it sticks to itself sometimes. I do not need that. Has that happened to anyone, here? If I have to make provisions so cabinets don't glue themselves together in the heat, I may as well use latex house paint at $20 or less/gallon.

I'm planning on the india ink a bit later today. They'll go just like that to their weekend gig. Maybe next week we'll figure something out. If we did just do flat house paint, we could just be sure to stack them with parchment paper or wax paper between them. Although I know with poly I wouldn't have to mess with that.

[mtr369]

One reason I was going to use Warnex was the texture was more what I was looking for.

I have used cabinet paint on speakers, too, and they never chipped.

I am building pro cabs, this time, that's why am using Warnex.

[duronboy]

I feel like duratex might eventually happen to these since my dad said he'll store these indoors in climate controlled space.

I did read that duratex can be thinned and a regular paint roller used for a less aggressive texture. So that's good news.

They do look pretty cool with just the ink. With no finish, the sheen is unpredictable where the spackle was more prevalent. If these weren't p.a. subs they'd be acceptable right now if I'd used solid wood edge banding.

[billfitzmaurice]

I just chatted with them and they ship here and have warehouses in several states.

That's news to me. One might even say that if PE doesn't carry it they're not in the US market. In any event from what I understand it's pretty much the same as DuraTex.

[ejh2854]

I did read that duratex can be thinned and a regular paint roller used for a less aggressive texture.

Yes- with a little practice, a smoother 'pebbly' texture is possible and much less of a dust magnet.



.

[Brian Steele]

While it might prevent the odd scratch, I'm not sure how well Duratex will protect a speaker box made of soft wood from dings.

For my little PA (the Blastoramas and either the POC3.1 or POC6, depending in what I feel like using at the time), I just use flat black latex paint, and touch it up when necessary. I have considered using Duratex, but haven't made the jump yet.

Nice build, btw. Are those the 8" or 10" RSS drivers? You might want to put a grille on those things to protect those metal cones...

[duronboy]

Yes- with a little practice, a smoother 'pebbly' texture is possible and much less of a dust magnet.
.

That's not bad. I've seen some that look gritty like sandpaper. And some not quite sandpaper, but weird.

Nice build, btw. Are those the 8" or 10" RSS drivers? You might want to put a grille on those things to protect those metal cones...

You're too kind. It's the 8" version. As for grills I'm not 100% confident with what I have so far, which is small squares with or without grill cloth.



Anything's better than nothing and that's better than a round waffle grill. I mean, those are the worst. I was thinking about doing something similar to what Cerwin Vega does for grills on their pro stuff, like the CVA-28. ...except all black, no silver paint. And I have to be careful not to change the port tuning. I'll have to draw it up in sketchup and see if what I have in mind looks good. It probably won't, and it's hard to get an idea of what things look like in sketchup, anyway.

[duronboy]

Kept seeing stuff like in the video and decided to get the ugly plastic corners and just go with house paint. I actually wanted to make a template to drill one or two inch forstner holes in the tops and bottoms of the cabinets. Then put one or two inch dowel cut-offs in the bottom holes. That would keep them from sliding and touching. But he ordered like 90 of those damn plastic corners, and they're his, so whatevs.

Anyway, the paint I got is advertised to be specifically for porch and patio floors, claims it's scuff resistant. Interior/exterior. $30 a gallon as opposed to lower to mid-20s. The sample paint dab on the lid didn't seem all that impressive right after it dried, but today it's quite a bit better. I'll have to do a side-by-side with regular paint.

I'll try to post a pic when they're all done. And I still need to make the grills...

[anotherTodd]

I have a q. for anyone that has gotten a "pebbly" finish as @ejh2854 or smoother. I have some spraying experience. What process is done with the Duratex in order to achieve a smoother-than-Lunar-surface finish? If someone could break down the thinning process that might prove helpful. Might, not nec. will. TIA!

[billfitzmaurice]

The texture is varied via the nozzle size on the sprayer gun, not by thinning the product. If you want it really smooth, however, don't use it. It's called Dura TEX for a reason.