Ellis 1801 conceived

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Ready to glue and clamp but my clamps are too short. Doh.
 

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oops

Got some larger clamps yesterday and clamped the first one together. I was having a hell of a time getting the thing square. I ended up using a clamp between opposite corners to square it up.

This morning I pulled it part and suddenly realized why. I glued one end on backwards! My top and bottom pieces are mirror images and the braces are offset slightly. I even marked the top/bottoms to avoid this mistake but in my haste to get everything glued and assembled before the Titebond set, I failed to realize my oversight.

The cabinet diagonals differ by 3/32". Oh well, I hear sloped baffles are the way to go.
 

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Hi UltraChrome,

I have had too many glasses of wine so probably shouldn't be posting, but......... something has been bothering me, and it hasn't come up yet.......

Where exactly is the baffle? I can't envisage from looking at your cabinets where the drivers are going to go! My intuition tells me on one of the narrow faces (parallel to the braces) but since you have allready glued these on, I'm not so sure any more.

Sorry if this is a really dumb question, but I'm stumped :)

Tony.
 
Where's the baffle?

Pick a side. Let's just say that the solid side facing the picture is the front.

After gluing on the sides (scheduled for tomorrow), the plans recommend veneering the sides and then gluing a nice piece of lumber to the front.

However, I'm not too confident in my abilities just yet and given my assembly error I am considering using black laminate on the sides and a piece of oak for the baffle. Seems like the quickest, safest, and least expensive approach to getting nice surfaces.

Laminate and oak isn't my favorite but it should be fine for a first attempt. And given that there is a chance I won't rebuild them, I better make them look decent.

I now have 12 clamps. Four of each length. 12", 24", and 36".
 
Here's the final result of gluing the ends on backwards. About 1/16" over 13-1/2".

I'm trying to decide whether this cabinet is good enough to spend the cash to veneer and glue on a hardwood baffle. Any opinions?

An old colleague and avid woodworker told me on the phone recently that you don't strive for perfection as much as you strive for the illusion of perfection.
 

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ultrachrome said:
An old colleague and avid woodworker told me on the phone recently that you don't strive for perfection as much as you strive for the illusion of perfection.

Perfection doesn't belong to mankind it's a phantasm for paranoid... :(
The interesting challenge could be now :
"I have enough skill to hide this small defect and to finish my masterpiece". ;)
 
Well, I am finally able to admit the error is only perceptible with a framing square. Perfectionism is a crippling disease that I suffer from.

Assuming I don't find any other glaring geometry problems, I think I'll go check out veneer and hardwood pricing and if reasonable, I'll finish the speaker properly. If nothing else this speaker will have been an excellent primer in cabinet construction and veneering.
 
Are both sides sloped? If not, put the sloped one on the backside of the speaker ;)

Still I would recommend to rebuild one cabinet. It won't be THAT much work now.. and maybe nobody else will notice.. but you will see it everytime you look at them ;) because you KNOW it's there

Nice job though :D they look really firm
 
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