Material to use for small speakers

[joeybutts]

My local lumber yard carries a wide range of baltic, i believe from 1/8" to 1"....

[SentinelAeon]

I was at the store today, buying paint and other stuff for speakers and other projects. I went to the wood department. Only to inspect since i went with bike and couldnt buy wood but i found awesome things:

4mm and 6mm plywood. Will buy them both and test if 4mm can handle the daytons, otherwise i will use 6mm, or even more if necesary.

Also i checked for wood for sides of speaker. So they have a nice wood that is 4cm wide and 1cm thick. This way i can stack 2 of them to get the desired width of the speaker of 8cm. Or for smaller speakers i can just use 1 to get 4cm. And its not very expensive.

[3rutu5]

Im located in central europe.

I have many tools and do with what i have. Tomorrow the stores open and i will go into the store and see how thin the plywood there is, 5mm would be great. Since i am making square boxes they are fairly easy to build. And i will take your advice and use a brace - might even make a brace a mm or 2 bigger than the width of the box - that will give the box a slight curve but more importantly it will make it real hard.

I will only use plywood for front and back side of speaker (where front side is where speaker is located). For other sides like i said, i will buy that precut long wood pieces that are roughly 7cm wide. Why ? Because that greatly eliminated the number of pieces i have to cut and therefor makes the speaker more even. I also use silicone (bathroom caulc) between all pieces. I use it to remove air gaps but am wondering if it also helps with the vibration (as oposed to using wood glue that would make sound easier to transmit and therefor vibrate).

I will let you know how it goes.

nice, to be honest, my last builds have been looking at what pine i can get, looking at a few different widths and then designing based on that so like you only cut a few items. get it close and clean up with a plunge router or sander. Also cant help with where to get timber from as i;m quite far away in Australia.

Good luck mate.

[SentinelAeon]

Im located in central europe.

I have many tools and do with what i have. Tomorrow the stores open and i will go into the store and see how thin the plywood there is, 5mm would be great. Since i am making square boxes they are fairly easy to build. And i will take your advice and use a brace - might even make a brace a mm or 2 bigger than the width of the box - that will give the box a slight curve but more importantly it will make it real hard.

I will only use plywood for front and back side of speaker (where front side is where speaker is located). For other sides like i said, i will buy that precut long wood pieces that are roughly 7cm wide. Why ? Because that greatly eliminated the number of pieces i have to cut and therefor makes the speaker more even. I also use silicone (bathroom caulc) between all pieces. I use it to remove air gaps but am wondering if it also helps with the vibration (as oposed to using wood glue that would make sound easier to transmit and therefor vibrate).

I will let you know how it goes.

[3rutu5]

Thank you for all your answers,

Right now i am using 4" Dayton TCP115 and 2.3L enclosure for 1 speaker gives good results. I checked some of the links.

In the meanwhile i also got an idea of my own. And that is, for front and back i will use a 0.5cm plywood. And for sides, in my store there are those long wooden parts that are very cheap and they are like 7cm wide. So that way i only have to cut them into correct length. So its minimal amount of cutting. And i can just use sander attachment to sand off the uneven edges.

And the second idea i am toying with is ... use the existing pvc square pipe. And then just use 1 sheet of plywood on front and back site. Or even use some cheap metal, i ordered from company that will cut them in the correct size. Or a metal square pipe.

Those plastic boxes look nice but with shipping they will be over my budget, remember, i am making super budget speakers here in the range of 60€. Since i spend hours making it, i want at least some profit for my work, even though the profit is minimal and i mostly do them because i simply like making new things and learning new things.

I wish there was a company that would cut plastic into pieces for cheap price. Then i could just order like 3cm thick plastic of the correct dimensions and order it. Sadly in the price range i am looking for, it simply wont do. I will keep searching though and will keep reading for more suggestions.

As for plywood, i think i can get it as thin as 0.3mm but i will have to test it if it can handle the basses.

Where are you based? I noticed you have been quoting metric measurements, although I think 0.3mm may be wrong. Sorry I only just noticed it wasn't imperial

[tomzarbo]

Do you have access to 1/8" HDF (High Density Fiberboard)? It is smooth on one side and kind of 'textured' on the other end. Two layers of that on a decent curve, with a brace to stabilize it will yield a fairly inert cabinet.



It doesn't have to be fancy, I'm just trying to illustrate the concept behind what I'm saying.
Maybe something wider at the bottom and narrower at the top, then a brace in the middle for the thin panels to press against until the glue dries. It is literally amazing how stable and rigid a few thin layers of this stuff can be when curved.

If I can be a little nibby, what tools do you have besides a jig saw to build with? That might help narrow down construction materials and techniques a little bit.

TomZ

[skatz]

If you need to damp vibration in the walls of thin plywood or PVC, you can apply non-hardening modeling clay to the walls. Should be available in hobby shops or art supply stores. Also plumbing putty like Mortite might work.

[SentinelAeon]

Thank you for all your answers,

Right now i am using 4" Dayton TCP115 and 2.3L enclosure for 1 speaker gives good results. I checked some of the links.

In the meanwhile i also got an idea of my own. And that is, for front and back i will use a 0.5cm plywood. And for sides, in my store there are those long wooden parts that are very cheap and they are like 7cm wide. So that way i only have to cut them into correct length. So its minimal amount of cutting. And i can just use sander attachment to sand off the uneven edges.

And the second idea i am toying with is ... use the existing pvc square pipe. And then just use 1 sheet of plywood on front and back site. Or even use some cheap metal, i ordered from company that will cut them in the correct size. Or a metal square pipe.

Those plastic boxes look nice but with shipping they will be over my budget, remember, i am making super budget speakers here in the range of 60€. Since i spend hours making it, i want at least some profit for my work, even though the profit is minimal and i mostly do them because i simply like making new things and learning new things.

I wish there was a company that would cut plastic into pieces for cheap price. Then i could just order like 3cm thick plastic of the correct dimensions and order it. Sadly in the price range i am looking for, it simply wont do. I will keep searching though and will keep reading for more suggestions.

As for plywood, i think i can get it as thin as 0.3mm but i will have to test it if it can handle the basses.

[3rutu5]

I made a wooden enclosure from leftover wood today and it wasn't pleasant. Sawdust everywhere, cutting with jigsaw trying my best to cut in a straight line. The good thing is that i didnt need to use glue much and its easy to open the speaker if something needs to be repaired. I will need to find thiner wood though as soon as shops open. And more importantly, plan ahead. I measured everything, cut it and ofcourse found out that i didnt account for the fact how sides go together (if u want speaker of 10cm x 5, that doesnt mean u cut 10 and 5, it means u cut 10 and 5-thickness of wood). Really sucks and i make the mistake every time. Also its really hard to make openings for like square wooden display and switch. In the end it was quite ok, would be much easier with nice thin wood.

What i am trying to say is, i will use pvc square pipe for smaller speakers and use wood for bigger ones until i find a proper fair priced square pipe. I did get some offers from some companies to make custom nice pvc pipes for me, but their price is such that i would spend more money on enclosure than i would on all other parts. Which is insane. The pvc pipes i got right now are dirt cheap.

One of my favourite tools in a 12v milwalkee circular saw and a speed square. you can just neatly but joint it and use a trimmer router with a flush bit or a sheet of low grit sandpaper and slowly work at the sides\edges. im crap with a jigsaw

what size drivers are you planning in something so small? 100x50mm is tiny, thats the size of one enclosure of my quarenteeny

[Drjay]

Let me put in a plug for Titebond Thick and Quick glue if your cuts are imperfect. It is amazing stuff; will fill gaps and will stay in position if you hold it where you want it for about a minute. No clamps needed and it is very strong when cured for just a couple of hours. It let me build a pair of small MLTL speakers with about 2 hours work time!

[Dukk]

Also could consider sheet ABS plastic. I keep 1/8", 1/4", and 3/8" around if I want to make something that needs to be waterproof or more stable than wood. It machines much like wood and can be glued with cyanoacrylates or ABS solvent.
Expanded polystyrene board works ok as well. I picked up a 3/4" thick, 10" wide 'board' from Lowe's a while back that I plan to use for an outdoor speaker. Bonus - "woodgrain" moulded in on one side It is not as dense as ABS sheet.

If you are hardcore, you can get pre-casted sheets of fibreglass or carbon fiber in various thicknesses and sizes. Epoxy and some internal joint reinforcement makes for strong waterproof boxes. Resonance has to be addressed though.

[fatmarley]

I recently built some speakers using foam core, tile backer board. It's very light but stiff and can be cut with a craft knife. For glue I used something called PU18 (used for ponds iirc). To finish I covered them in some vinyl flooring we had left over from when we had the kitchen done.

[tomzarbo]

Check out Plumbing and Electrical Junction Boxes: https://www.homedepot.com/s/Plumbing...20boxes?NCNI-5

This one for example: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Carlon-6...87RR/100404096

is 6x6x4 which comes to close to 2 liters. I don't know if the thickness is enough to handle a real woofer inside, but I remember seeing some plumbing and electrical junction-type boxes that looked fairly beefy; like 1/4" thick plastic material or close to it. It's $14 here.

Maybe not what you're looking for, just throwing out ideas. Also, there are some speakers out there made of cinder blocks and terra cotta pieces of pipe with wooden front/rear baffles.

I remember making boxes out of cheap wood using a jig-saw to cut it with... man, talk about frustration! Keep at it, and if you can get or borrow a circular saw and feel comfortable using it safely, it will really help with getting good cuts that mate up flush and airtight.

Good luck.

TomZ

[SentinelAeon]

I made a wooden enclosure from leftover wood today and it wasn't pleasant. Sawdust everywhere, cutting with jigsaw trying my best to cut in a straight line. The good thing is that i didnt need to use glue much and its easy to open the speaker if something needs to be repaired. I will need to find thiner wood though as soon as shops open. And more importantly, plan ahead. I measured everything, cut it and ofcourse found out that i didnt account for the fact how sides go together (if u want speaker of 10cm x 5, that doesnt mean u cut 10 and 5, it means u cut 10 and 5-thickness of wood). Really sucks and i make the mistake every time. Also its really hard to make openings for like square wooden display and switch. In the end it was quite ok, would be much easier with nice thin wood.

What i am trying to say is, i will use pvc square pipe for smaller speakers and use wood for bigger ones until i find a proper fair priced square pipe. I did get some offers from some companies to make custom nice pvc pipes for me, but their price is such that i would spend more money on enclosure than i would on all other parts. Which is insane. The pvc pipes i got right now are dirt cheap.

[hitsware2]

I have used these with some success .
https://www.polycase.com/dc-series