Pictures of my Thor project

[BrianGT]

Well, I have started building Thor with a couple of friends. I am building Thor by using .75" mdf covered with .75" oak. The internal dimensions are exactly the same and the external dimensions are .5" bigger on all sides.

http://brian.darg.net/thor

--
Brian

[BrianGT]

in various stages..

--
Brian

[BrianGT]

Post as an attachment instead, so that it downloads better:

--
Brian

[Peter Daniel]

You didn't burn your blade by any chance?

[BrianGT]

I guess so... I made all of the external cuts longer then necessary, and they came out looking great with the belt sander.

I have a couple of questions about Thor:
a) will spikes help the sound of the speaker? I have seen no finished Thor TL speakers that used spikes.
b) will the extra .5" on each side of the front baffle change the sound of the speaker that much? I read about baffle sound frequency, but will the sound difference be noticible?
c) anyone have any tips on finishing red oak?

This is my first speaker project, and first time since early high school, since I have worked with wood.

--
Brian

[Peter Daniel]

I am surprised it's coming so fast. I t looks good too.

I noticed you will have some closed cavities inside the box, you might consider filling them with sand. As to the spikes, or any sort of legs you'll have to decide for yourself by listening tests, because it also depends on the floor the speaker is standing on.
I wouldn't worry about .5" of a difference in size.
I'm not much expert on finishing the oak, but you might use some sort of stain and maybe water based laquer. Maybe the experts at your local Home Depot could shed some advice.

[BrianGT]

There actually will only be two small closed cavities, which are created on the bottom where the 45 degree angles used in the transmission are. I was thinking of filling them full of something, but I have not decided yet what to fill them with. The bottom part has inserts to make it easily to screw on and off, to adjust the stuffing. I have read that Thor will take quite a bit of adjusting the stuffing to get it to sound optimal. The crossover goes in the base, and I will mount the jacks to the base as well. (my friends are mounting his jacks to the back of the speaker, not the base). I have two weekends working on thor so far... basically 4 - 12hr days, and I am quite satisified with the progress so far. Basically now, I am held back a bit by the lack of clamps and waiting for glue to dry. (have one set of 6 clamps for gluing my speakers, and two friends have their own). My two friends started a week before me, so I was follow their lead, getting it done pretty quickly.

For finishing, I picked up a bucket of red oak stain and polyurethane. I am planning on getting them sanded down with 220 grit paper, cleaning off, and staining, then moving on the polyurethane, applying many coats.

They are quite heavy. The unfinished speaker (mdf covered in the red oak) weighs 70lbs without the base and speaker components installed components. I imagine that they will weigh in around 100lbs each after making a heavy base and finishing.

--
Brian

[fcel]

Brian ... enjoyed looking at all the pictures! What made you decide to built this particular brand/model since there are a couple thousand of brands out there? Total cost for a pair (excluding labor cost of course)?

[Peter Daniel]

Brian, saw the pictures. You didn't have access to the router?

[BrianGT]

fcel,

Well.. I like the idea of a transmission line speaker, and the Ariel seemed too hard for a first speaker. I looked at a few other designs. Finally, I saw an article in AudioXpress about building Thor, and they rated it quite positively, so I decided to give it a try. Also, I saw several other designs using the Seas Excel speakers, so that bolstered my support for Thor.

I have the article posted at:
http://brian.prohosting.com/nancy/thor.pdf

It was in the magazine in July.

The kit costs $960 without a cabinet from madisound.com and includes everything that you need in a nice kit: assembled crossover (will take pictures later), woofers, tweeter, Nordost internal cable, stuffing measured out in two bags for each part of the transmission line, cabinet jacks (i am not using them, as they are kind of cheap) and sealing material for the base.

Wood is up to you. I paid $14.99 at HD for a sheet of 4'x8'x.75" thick mdf, bought glue, screws and more, which was split 3 ways. As far as tools, I am using my friend's tools. Red Oak was $6 a foot, and I had to buy 18 ft for 2 fronts, 2 backs, 2 tops. The sides were cut from a 4'x8' sheet of .75" plywood with red oak on the outside, which costs $50 a sheet. Don't forget a can of stain and polyurethane.

I would put the overall cost of the project at $1300 for a pair assembled, but you could save quite a bit if you did not use red oak and stuck with plain mdf, but I wanted something that would look nice sitting in my room.

I am hoping that it sounds good.

--
Brian