Given were they are it is going to be problematic to change them if needed. What do you plan on using?
dave
Now I don't feel so bad thinking the same thing - perhaps the concern is expansion /movement
Would using solid wood and dowels restrict the movement as much as my first set, which were made of plywood and screws (which sound great)?
Wood expands and contracts across it's width not it's length, so you could have a problem where end grain buts up against long grain (Hope that's intelligible.) Also ply is much more stable, but I reckon if you acclimatise everything to the house before you glue up and seal all surfaces you might be OK. Good luck anyway, that's my two cents for what it's worth.
The side panel movement ... you trapped it. On the first page I tried to describe how to approach that.
Expansion in wood could be described with a stiff rubber band and a piece of wire. Rubber band representing cross grain expansion ... wire representing long grain expansion. Both have their own elastic characteristics and tendencies. As such, they can't be joined along their lengths/widths effectively. A good solid wood design chooses one spot ( when joining opposite grain directions) to keep as "cardinal" (A point of glue up that doesn't change in relation to the adjoined pieces. Movement starts here.). The balance of that part of the structure has to be allowed to move .. because it will, no matter what.
This is an aspect of our trade that needs to be understood better and is an understanding that gets lost in the forest of "engineered" products. Working with solid wood is different than working with panel stock. As a young fella starting out I encourage you to pick up some books on the subject and apply what you learn to your work. A good starting point would be any one of of Tage Frids' books.
So i have one speaker currently at my house to make sure everything comes together and sounds good. Before I explain what I am hearing, I would like to explain the difference between the two Frugel horns. The new one is made from solid cherry (as you all know), I used wool for the stuffing (my others have a synthetic stuffing) and the new ones are about .25 inches wider (i made the appropriate changes to the design to compensate for thicker solid wood). I will show some pics in the next few post. When you look at the pics you will see that the sweeter is sitting on a small piece of wood lifting it up about 3/4 of an inch higher, but i did this for both and found that there was an improvement on both speakers. You will also notice that the new has clamps on it, thats because i have yet to glue it shut.
I decided to test the speakers with my vinyl collection. A couple records were ran through both. I found that the new speakers, not finish or sealed all the way had, not more base, but richer base and I felt I was getting more mids as well. I was also filling the room more then my others. My others are made from ply wood, which is thinner.
I will be be adding a another piece of wood in the front that will make a nice clean solid look from top to bottom and i am going to add a piece on top to clean that up as well. I am thinking about adding a suprabaffle to it, and want to hear what people think about that?
I decided to test the speakers with my vinyl collection. A couple records were ran through both. I found that the new speakers, not finish or sealed all the way had, not more base, but richer base and I felt I was getting more mids as well. I was also filling the room more then my others. My others are made from ply wood, which is thinner.
I will be be adding a another piece of wood in the front that will make a nice clean solid look from top to bottom and i am going to add a piece on top to clean that up as well. I am thinking about adding a suprabaffle to it, and want to hear what people think about that?
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