Bit of a kit market research.

[R-Carpenter]

Bit of a kit market research.
Hey guys and gals. As some of you may know from my introduction, I am a pretty good furniture maker with a few years behind my back. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a few hundred square feet of exotic veneers such as Ebony Macasara, various kinds of Rosewood, Birds Eye Maple and Ice Birch. I am thinking of putting a few speaker box kits on ebay and want to see what you think about it and if there’s any interest at all. I am attaching a kit picture in Burl Walnut. Joints are 45* miter, ready tape and glue. Shipping, assembled or disassembled?
Thanks for your opinion.

[c2cthomas]

That's some great looking wood!

Are you going to design your own speaker box's or are you open to "custom" work orders from customers that provide a drawing?

At the moment I'm looking at Open Baffle types (can / will you be doing those) - but I also have some ideas about some large TL's that I might want to have knocked up and was thinking about doing them myself for hiring a local cab maker.

What experience do you have with speaker cabs?

[R-Carpenter]

Well, the nature of my business is custom work. I’ve recently built the most expensive TV stand ever made. LOL.
Anyway, the reason, I’ve made this kit in a first place is to make a couple of $ for Revelators and bail out DIYs who don’t have a full blown woodworking shop, wish to invest in a good table saw or stupidity to spend money on cheap crap from Home Depot. Veneer has to be applied properly in a press and joints have to be nice. The drawback is that you have to figure out your crossover and design prior to putting it all together. Perhaps build a model to tweak it. I am approaching from the cabinet point of view as a commercial manufacturer would. This kit is 10.25, 8.25,15.25 that makes it a 21-liter enclosure.
I have a fully photographed step-by-step ProAc 2.5 build up done by me in my shop, also building a 4ft3 cylindrical sub, so I have some experience. Internal bracing of the cabinet with cut outs, dado…ed in to the sides and each other fantastic. I find that cutting the holes for the drivers should be done after trial piece, drivers don’t always match the specs and I always do it on the scrap first. Just don’t like to have an ugly 1/16 of a gap between the basket and cut out.
I am open to custom work or can recommend a tooling and an approach to the project from the woodworking point of view. Just pleas, don’t ask me if you could use contact cement.

[c2cthomas]

I'm well aware of what it takes to get quality wood work done - plus good veneer work is an art in itself! I can knock together stuff out of MDF or ply - but doing the 1st class stuff is beyond my equipment (cheap Craftsman T/S and a decent plunge router). So I am capable of doing prototype stuff and playing around - but the really nice work - I can contract it out or spend a few grand to get decent equipment. If I was going into the business of building cab's for $$$ then it would be considered a business investment. If I spend a few grand (more like about 10 - 20K really) then I would have to go into business!!

So your service for "custom" work could be attractive. The shipping cost could be nasty tho -

Do you have any plans for a website or some way for people to contact you for bids and / or your speaker cabs?

[BHTX]

I need a good source for quality cabinets as well, although my only concern is shipping. Sure wish I could find someone locally.

[R-Carpenter]

I don’t think shipping cost would be a problem. I think shipping damages could be a problem, so everything would have to be bubble wrapped and double boxed. Large speaker could be shipped assembled in a crate by a common trucker. I am not really approaching this thing as a big business opportunity. For me it would be fun to do and make a few $ but I already have a business. http://www.tasdebois.com/
I would do it more for fun on a rainy weekend.
Anyways, I see that there’s some interest and we should talk more about it. I’d like to see more of not only kick *** sounding speakers out there but also kick *** looking!
Regards: Roman.

[c2cthomas]

Hi Roman!

YGM!

[R-Carpenter]

http://cgi.ebay.com/speaker-box-kit-...QQcmdZViewItem

I just listed it on ebay if anyone is interested

[jupiterjune]

At that price I think they are a bargain. PE has prefinished cabinets, but they don't have the exotice veneer.

What is your recommendation for finishing them?

JJ

[R-Carpenter]

I will do a separate thread on finishing.