I use sandpaper attached to a tool!
Oil or wax??? Now you are getting into wood finishing which is an entire subject in itself and depends on many, many factors and what end-result you are looking for.
Sanding, grain-filling, staining, oil / varnish / wax / lacquers / sanding sealers / wood-types / protection / preparation / environment / etc. etc. the list goes on & on.
There is a hell of a lot of myth and confusion with regards to wood finishing and use / application thereof. An EXCELLENT book on this very subject: Bob Flexner's 'Understanding Wood Finishing'.
Andy.
Oil or wax??? Now you are getting into wood finishing which is an entire subject in itself and depends on many, many factors and what end-result you are looking for.
Sanding, grain-filling, staining, oil / varnish / wax / lacquers / sanding sealers / wood-types / protection / preparation / environment / etc. etc. the list goes on & on.
There is a hell of a lot of myth and confusion with regards to wood finishing and use / application thereof. An EXCELLENT book on this very subject: Bob Flexner's 'Understanding Wood Finishing'.
Andy.
Let's see,
Project 1) Glossy red like this Eenvoud van de open baffle luidspreker - Audio Creative, de site voor audio hifi zelfbouw
Project 2) One of these two: depending on cost/difficulty: DTQWT-Valery
DTQWT-Carlo
Project 1) Glossy red like this Eenvoud van de open baffle luidspreker - Audio Creative, de site voor audio hifi zelfbouw
Project 2) One of these two: depending on cost/difficulty: DTQWT-Valery
DTQWT-Carlo
Good Lord, you are nothing if not ambitious!
#1- A professional spray shop would be handy for this!
#2- Carlo; many layers of birch(?) ply. Very nice, hard to get even, LOTS of glue.
#2- Valery; probably more practical, as the grain of the wood can hide small imperfections in the finish. Does need an attractive wood surface to start with. The carcase appears to be birch, some people like it, personally I don't, nicely finished though. I would veneer it with a different wood, but then I have no problem with that.
Veneer is not really that hard, you can even get iron-on, the corners are the tricky bits IMO.
Often the hardest part is getting the surface prepared for your chosen finish. And for me, picking the best look; I can make but not design!
What is what? K15+4"?. Its a Karlson project with a 15" bass and coaxially mounted using pieces of wire, a 4" tweeter cone.
If the blotchyness is giving you grief try a wash coat of sealer before the stain step. Cut the sealer enough to provide an even stain coat of the color depth you want. You'll have to test on some scrap ply to see.
Cut some sealer 50% ... apply it and let it dry thoroughly. Sand with 220gt till the surface is baby *** smooth. Try your stain. Adjust the sealer mix according to your results.
You can spray stains but I've found that when they're sprayed, the stains don't adhere to the surface as well. I'm a brush and rag man.
... and of course, always use products that are compatible with each other.
^ I may just try that! Never thought to apply the sealer then stain.
In Bob's book, he recommends the application of "Gel Stains" for porous woods (such as pine and Ply-board), applied using a rag.
However, after a googlie-eyed look from my local hardware staff, I realized this is an American book. Could not find an alternative here in Blighty.
I did however successfully apply a cheery-red stain (using a lightly soaked rag) to ply-board which I then spent many moons french polishing with shellac. Good result, but not worth the effort even for my small speakers I built from Planet10 designs.
I think for any future speaker build I will definitely be using veneer... but the stuff is SO damned expensive!
The Devil is always in the detail.
Andy
In Bob's book, he recommends the application of "Gel Stains" for porous woods (such as pine and Ply-board), applied using a rag.
However, after a googlie-eyed look from my local hardware staff, I realized this is an American book. Could not find an alternative here in Blighty.
I did however successfully apply a cheery-red stain (using a lightly soaked rag) to ply-board which I then spent many moons french polishing with shellac. Good result, but not worth the effort even for my small speakers I built from Planet10 designs.
I think for any future speaker build I will definitely be using veneer... but the stuff is SO damned expensive!
The Devil is always in the detail.
Andy
Great post Cal - thanks so much!Cleats are what you see on the inside corners of the attached box. A finish nailer is an air tool that fires small, almost headless nails. You install the cleats on one panel using a scrap piece for a spacer, using your nailer and glue and by the time you've done them all, it's time to assemble the whole box. Glue by using big clamps to hold the panels while you fire your nails on the inside through the cleats and you can release the big clamps because the little nails are holding it now and go onto the next panel. You need only a few clamps, you can assemble faster than any other way, you have no exposed fasteners except on the back panel (and only if you're lazy or it's too tight to fit the nailer inside the cabinet's woofer holes.)
I used to dread making even the test cabinets but no more. Gone are the screws, biscuits and all those other headaches. Perfect alignment of panels, no heartaches, no oop's or ah sh!7's, no extra bleeding, nada. Me and my air nailer are in a long term relationship.
I've been meaning to get a nailer - now I see I have a genuine need.
Everyone more or less seems agreed on this. And yet, those LS3/5a speakers that are still sought after, particularly for their midrange have a screwed front baffle, and what many consider the best incarnation of them, very early 15ohm ones had a screwed back as well!
And food for thought is the expensive Audio Note 2 way reflex boxes where the front baffle is neither screwed or glued, but incredibly accurately made and when it is supercooled just fits inside the carcase of the box when it, then expands as it goes up to room temperature forming a glueles/screwless bond. In my opinion they are superb speakers. And that is a lot of trouble to go to.
And food for thought is the expensive Audio Note 2 way reflex boxes where the front baffle is neither screwed or glued, but incredibly accurately made and when it is supercooled just fits inside the carcase of the box when it, then expands as it goes up to room temperature forming a glueles/screwless bond. In my opinion they are superb speakers. And that is a lot of trouble to go to.
It may be true that the LS3/5a used screws but I would be careful about generalizing that that must be part of the magic of the design.
I have certainly always heard that a strong box comes from the glue joint and that fasteners are there, for the most part, to hold things together until the glue dries.
On the other hand there is a school of thought that a looser coupling between panels of a speaker would reduce the strength of resonances and be to the good.
A relevent paper that we have discussed on another thread talks both about some production issues with the LS3/5a cabinet and also shows curves of a cabinet made with "loose fillets".
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1977-03.pdf
David
I have certainly always heard that a strong box comes from the glue joint and that fasteners are there, for the most part, to hold things together until the glue dries.
On the other hand there is a school of thought that a looser coupling between panels of a speaker would reduce the strength of resonances and be to the good.
A relevent paper that we have discussed on another thread talks both about some production issues with the LS3/5a cabinet and also shows curves of a cabinet made with "loose fillets".
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1977-03.pdf
David
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