Faux Pas

[DrewsBrews]

Yeah, now I'm wondering if I go veneer.. Maybe just go all out and do the front too. I've seen folks redo Forte's that way after chopping off the front border and it looks damn sexy.

I'd just be doing red oak, but I've got a couple step process to give it a walnut like tone that I'm interested to try again.

[DrewsBrews]

Cut out the terminal cup holes and got more router work done. Kinda messed up on the port holes and recesses. They are a little too small. My circle jig is just a piece of 1/2" ply screwed to he router base. I drill a hole at the appropriate distance and use a finish nail as my pin. I think I may have measured to the outside of the nail instead of the center. Would be a ton of sanding to fix the inner hole. I think I might just sand down the ribs on the port instead. Then pop the port in and run a box cutter or xacto knife around the outside to trim the recess larger. If I'm not messing something up and fixing it then I'm not breathing I guess.

Sorry about the extra clutter. I'm working on the house at the same time and have to move some stuff in this room to get it out of the way.

[DrewsBrews]

No work done on the project today, just finishing up on some wiring on the house and moving on to putting up drywall.

Though I am gearing up to do battle with the veneer. 4'x8' of red oak veneer ready to go. I ended up just biting the bullet and getting the gallon of weldwood. Still have to figure out resizing the hole and recess for the port and do some filling and touchups on the enclosure first.

[Steve Lee]

I'm interested in your brown red oak finish . . .

[DrewsBrews]

Here is a taste Steve. The photo was taken outside in the daylight so it appears a little lighter than it normally looks, but it really shows off the color variations that gave me a very walnut vibe. Though, the veneer on the plywood started much lighter tone than standard red oak.. I used the "B-side" of the panel, which seemed more interesting (typical for me lol) and I'm guessing might have been sapwood. I'm thinking typical red oak will end up darker with the same treatment. for examples: 2nd pic is before finish, and 3rd pic is of a remaining piece of that plywood I used for the baffle on another build that I'm still listening to, but haven't finished. You can see the unfinished but oxidized pine next to it looks much darker.

[Steve Lee]

Looks nice - I can see a bit of the red hue in the oak with the walnut stain which is desirable to me.

[DrewsBrews]

Squeezed in a little time this evening to chop up some scraps and glue em in for screw reinforcement. I intentionally placed the cabinet braces close so they would perform that function for the top and bottom woofer screws..

[DrewsBrews]

Feeling lazy, but outside is the only place I have for stinky finishes to dry. So the dropping temps are giving me a lil kick in the butt.

The woofer recesses were a bit tight so I sanded em out some. Then worked on the ports and port holes so they at least fit now.

[DrewsBrews]

Lil fillin n sandin

[DrewsBrews]

'Laid out the veneer Friday night and cut it up yesterday so it was a bit more space friendly. I did what I could to get it to flatten out but it probably is as good as it is going to get. The two on the left are sides and the right is a front. The grain pattern is a bit different since sides and front were two different sheets. I'm hoping the front will get visually broken up enough from all the driver holes to not look too out of place by comparison. Also a slight difference in color. This is a first time test run anyway. So a bit of learning the boundaries isn't a bad thing IMO. If it looks too bad after the finish is on then I guess I can always paint the front black...



Then did the third go-around of filling and sanding. Just finished spraying a single medium coat of paint on the front. Serves two purposes (in my head at least); One to be an initial darkening of the recess areas (to be touched up later if needed), and second to act as the final check if there are any spots bad enough to need more filing/sanding. Hoping the Weldwood won't have an issue sticking to it. Though the wood so porous and spray paint is so thin that it pretty much soaks up one coat anyway.

[djg]

I would check to make sure the contact cement doesn't react to the paint. It has a very high VOC content and might lift the paint, leaving you with a black mess.

[DrewsBrews]

Good thought. In that case, while I'm sanding the veneer edges I'll probably just keep going and sand off the majority of whatever paint is laying on the surface.

[DrewsBrews]

Getting the veneer on.. Initially I thought I'd try one of those razor knife type hand trimmers to see how it did just rough trimming it down. Now I see why they are awful. The blade is single ground so it wants to bend away from the tool as it cuts and gouge the base material. It really needs the overhanging section pretrimmed pretty close with scissors first to keep the side load down, and even then it still feels risky to use. I wasn't planning to veneer the bottom, but I had enough veneer leftover to do it as a test run first.. glad I did! Sticking to the router laminate/veneer bit, though I have a love-hate relationship with routers.



So I filled n sanded that out. Then took over half of the kitchen this afternoon to get the sides on. I'd love to do it outside instead, but I bet there would be all manor of flies and stray cats stuck in it before tacking up.







I suppose I should look into building the bases at some point here too.

[DrewsBrews]

Veneer on and trimmed. Threw the drivers in to make sure everything still looks alright. Doing that I realize I was a little overzealous on deciding to recess the port. The port flange is so thin that even flush mount it is hard to tell. I haven't trimmed out the veneer from it and I'm 90% sure I'll mangle it trying to do it by hand. Thinking of just squirting some glue in the void to secure the veneer and forget I ever thought of it .

[djg]

They look really nice.

[DrewsBrews]

I picked up some acoustic foam from Foam By Mail. I got 1" and 2" wedge style. I know I'm nowhere near time to install that yet, but just planning ahead. Was thinking of lining the sides and back with the 1" and top and bottom with the 2" to try and quell the typical tower height ~100hz quarter wave. Would that be too much? Should I be more strategic/frugal than that?

[johnny5jz]

I have found that some loose rockwool insulation works great in the bottom of a tall tower. At least from impedance measurements, that has worked best for me.

[DrewsBrews]

Alright. I applied some small bits of filler where there was some minor tear out on the veneer edge grain and sanded all veneered surfaces lightly with 220. Time for the stain. I adapted a 2-step finish process from Peter Rawlings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBKCewpH56A) with what I could find locally and techniques I work best with. The results were a bit different from his (he also started with white oak).

Essentially combating red oak's red/pink with a blue-grey stain. Then using the light honey color of oil based polyurethane to pull it back over to a warmer final tone. It is quite the transformation to watch unfold as the color shifts drastically each step.

Step 1 is two "coats" of Varathane Weathered Wood accelerator. I'm thinking it is mostly a regular water-based stain (though the details do say it reacts with tannins). Where Peter may have used more of a straight tannin-reactive stuff.

This is a bit dangerous for the veneer since it is essentially soaking it with nearly straight water. So must be careful to keep it from swelling too much and lifting off the paper backing. It is probably best to let the first coat fully dry out before 2nd coat to prevent too much moisture buildup all at once. My first try with this process was on pre-veneered plywood so I didn't have to worry as much.









Second coat doesn't change things much. It seems to even out the splotchyness a bit and maybe darken the grain a tad. But, it will be a bit uneven when you look up close no matter what you do. I think It is what creates the interesting color variations later so it isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Last pic is after second coat. The sun went down so lighting changed making it hard to detect the real difference.

[Steve Lee]

This is coming along very nicely, Drew - can't wait to see your final product.

[DrewsBrews]

First coat of spray poly on and, Well I think I messed up. I last did this finish a couple years ago. I remember testing a clear and a tinted oil based poly, and I could have swore I decided on the clear. But I must have used the tinted one. Starting to make more sense.

I doubt there is much saving it now. As, from my experience, tinted poly does most of it's coloring on the first coat that soaks in the wood. Hmm. that's a big bummer. I'll keep putting on coats to seal it, but might end up painting the whole thing. We'll see.