hardwood

[kiteohoi]

Does anyone have experience with building cabinet of hardwood? I am going to India, and I was playing with the idea of cutting out pieces for a cabinet in hardwood there.

Unless it is a bad idea...

[Cal Weldon]

Unless it has been sitting around for about 10 years, it might not be stable and can split.

[fastbike1]

Then again it might not. Too many variables for a definitive statement. Environment, size of cab, construction details, wood species, to name a few.

[Cal Weldon]

Yes of course. I was simply offerring worst case scenario. Not too many speakers are made from hardwood for a reason.

[chrisb]

no consensus here either:

Speaker Box Material — Solid Wood or MDF?


so it's either an absolute no-no, or not, depending on, gee a lotta things

if you're very comfortable working with solid wood, and it's been properly dried and seasoned as Cal noted, have at it

I know of several very pretty enclosures made solid VG fir and Cedar that look gorgeous, and certainly have a different tonality than the same design in plywood.

Dave can dig out some photos of Bernie's work

Long term (i.e. years ) durability of the joinery is another matter - the jury's still out on these

[Cal Weldon]

SCD made some out of 100 year old fir yes?

[planet10]

Originally Posted by Cal Weldon

SCD made some out of 100 year old fir yes?

Indeed he did. A number of them. One of them did crack.

Here is Bernie's Mar-Kel70wT (started out as Mar-Ken12T)



dave

[chrisb]

Originally Posted by planet10

Indeed he did. A number of them. One of them did crack.


dave

and Scotty does know his way around a piece of wood

[Cal Weldon]

Indeed he does.

Brother from another mother.

[markre]

The problem with solid wood is that while it expands several percentages in the direction against the grain even with small changes in humidity and almost not at all in the grain direction. If you can join the wood so that the grain directions are the same there is no problem but in a usual box construction you end up with joints where the grain direction is a problem. When the expansion is bigger than the flexibility in the wood something happens- in the wood or in the joint. That’s why for example solid wooden doors traditionaly has been constructed in a clever way that gives room for the expansion.
The bigger the length of the joint with different grain directions the bigger the problem.
On these pages I have seen many constructions that after a while may have big problems. It may not happen the first winter but only time will tell. As a hobby I´m sometimes teaching in an academy of fine arts (I’m a professional artist). Several times I have pointed out problems in constructions students have made. Usually they think I´m only painting devils… some years later the often admit that I was right (It is not always a happy thing to be right).
One way of dealing with the problem is to seal the wood (paint etc.) but then you have to do it also inside the box.

Mark K