What is the best wood for speaker enclosures?

[Bill poster]

Originally Posted by planet10

We've played with that stuff and did not come to the same conslusion.

dave

wd love to know why
apart from the weight, solid-surface offers many advantages over mdf; I recommended a friend use (thermoformed)corian for his monitor build and the results were excellent

[MJL21193]

Originally Posted by planet10

if you are going to use it a butcher block is much less likely to give you problems

Originally Posted by Daveis

Butcher block construction would probably be ideal. As the width of a solid piece of wood increases so does the chances of cracking. Glue many 2" wide pieces of wood together and the glue joints in between the wood will give a little bit and reduce the chance of cracks.

Butcher block is strips of wood glued together - this is not much different from a solid piece, as far as expansion and contraction go. If they are the same species of wood, both will expand and contract equally.
Laminated lumbers (butcher block) real advantage is warp and twist resistance - it will stay flatter. Oh and it uses up a lot of scrap wood that is pretty much useless for anything else.

[tvi]

I hope this counts a fair use?
From Hobby Hifi Jan 2002, they tested of a few different materials, how it relates to different brands of mdf ???

rgds
jms

[Boscoe]

Okay thanks people I think that the veneer sounds about the best option although when I get some wood I'll make some out of solid wood too to see what happens!

[Daveis]

Originally Posted by MJL21193

Butcher block is strips of wood glued together - this is not much different from a solid piece, as far as expansion and contraction go. If they are the same species of wood, both will expand and contract equally.
Laminated lumbers (butcher block) real advantage is warp and twist resistance - it will stay flatter. Oh and it uses up a lot of scrap wood that is pretty much useless for anything else.

This is a good point. And as I reflect on it, even 2" strips of solid wood edge glued didn't prevent cracking entirely. Any attempt to engineer floating panels into the basic box would probably not be air tight. This is acceptable for furniture making, but not speakers.

And brings up another important point. You can start off with a perfectly flat piece of solid wood and if you leave it in a garage over the summer within a few months it will start to warp.

I think I've read about products claiming to stabilize wood by penetrating into the pores. These products talk about having to soak the wood for an hour per inch of board.

I aso wonder if coating all faces of the wood with polyurethane would provide enough moisture barrier to prevent splitting. I've always thought it was more the humidity changes than temperature changes that caused splitting.

I have a friend who attempted to use solid woods in his speakers. They would be fine until winter came. In the summer he'd run air conditioning if the temp got above 80 degress and run heat in the fall and winter to keep the apartment to 68 degrees. The temperature swing couldn't have been more than 12 degrees year wide.

[MJL21193]

Originally Posted by Daveis

I aso wonder if coating all faces of the wood with polyurethane would provide enough moisture barrier to prevent splitting. I've always thought it was more the humidity changes than temperature changes that caused splitting.

I have a friend who attempted to use solid woods in his speakers. They would be fine until winter came. In the summer he'd run air conditioning if the temp got above 80 degress and run heat in the fall and winter to keep the apartment to 68 degrees. The temperature swing couldn't have been more than 12 degrees year wide.

Humidity is the killer. Winter is much drier than summer and wood will lose moisture to the air. In summer it absorbs moisture. This is seasonal expansion and contraction.
Sealing the wood does go a long way to minimizing this problem but no sealer is 100% impervious. The best strategy for using solid wood is to select properly dried stock, let is acclimate to the area where it will be used and seal as much of it as possible (inside and out). Design to allow for this seasonal movement (this is very difficult with speakers).
I've seen some recent comments about air drying being better than kiln drying - this is pretty much false, unless whoever is using the kiln dries the wood too rapidly. This is easy to see - the ends of the boards are split ('checked'). Air drying just takes longer.

[Charles Darwin]

"Winter is much drier than summer…"

That might be the case in Canada, over here it is the other way around.
In fact the last few years it was damp all year 'round except the two weeks of Wimbledon in June. The rest of the time and especially in winter it tends to rain… a lot!

[Cal Weldon]

Not trying to be too picky here but to make sure you guys are identifying the same things: Butcher blocks (good ones) are end grain. End grain is used as it feels good, sounds good and doesn't dull your knife as quickly.

Laminated cutting boards (good ones) are edge grain and cheap ones are off-edge or flat grain.

This is assuming we are talking standard hardwoods like Maple and not bamboo.

[MJL21193]

You are making a distinction that doesn't exist, Cal. 'Butcher block' can be either end grain or long grain.

[MJL21193]

Originally Posted by Charles Darwin

... and especially in winter it tends to rain… a lot!

Ok, wet season and wetter season...better?