Ok the quality of veneers here is now so bad and getting so feindishly expensive I've decided to go down the solid wood route. Before anyone says "don't, It will split" I suggest they do a little research. I'm building a pair of 12s using PD12SB30's
The solid walnut in question is this... Walnut Worktops
Designed for use as kitchen work tops. This stuff is 40mm thick! and I dbout will need any bracing whatsoever. We have thick 27mm solid beech bedside dressers that are over 20 years old and have never split, warped nor moved.
There are so much more possibilities and benefits with solid wood than veneers.
1. Vastly reduced labour time
2. much eisier to machine and work with
3. constructed properly, MUCH stronger and likely to last a lifetime.
4. can be easily repaired if scrached or dented.
5. Solid wood gives a real presence of quality and beauty.
6. Most if not all quality solid wood peices only increase in value with time, Veneered MDF is all but worthless the moment it leaves your workshop.
The walnut is raw and unfinished, I will be sanding it down to 1800 grit and applying a liquid beeswax finish as a moisture barrier and to create a near mirror like finish.
Some will say I'm brave, stupid but hey.... who cares!
The solid walnut in question is this... Walnut Worktops
Designed for use as kitchen work tops. This stuff is 40mm thick! and I dbout will need any bracing whatsoever. We have thick 27mm solid beech bedside dressers that are over 20 years old and have never split, warped nor moved.
There are so much more possibilities and benefits with solid wood than veneers.
1. Vastly reduced labour time
2. much eisier to machine and work with
3. constructed properly, MUCH stronger and likely to last a lifetime.
4. can be easily repaired if scrached or dented.
5. Solid wood gives a real presence of quality and beauty.
6. Most if not all quality solid wood peices only increase in value with time, Veneered MDF is all but worthless the moment it leaves your workshop.
The walnut is raw and unfinished, I will be sanding it down to 1800 grit and applying a liquid beeswax finish as a moisture barrier and to create a near mirror like finish.
Some will say I'm brave, stupid but hey.... who cares!
It sounds cool and I really hope it works out, should be beautiful
Those drivers look to be excellent quality, they should give good transient response with thier comparatively light cones and huge magnet system. How do you plan to implement them? Sealed/vented/LT sealed, or something else? These are designed for PA use and don't play very low in typical alignments, since they have high power handling LT sealed makes good sense
Those drivers look to be excellent quality, they should give good transient response with thier comparatively light cones and huge magnet system. How do you plan to implement them? Sealed/vented/LT sealed, or something else? These are designed for PA use and don't play very low in typical alignments, since they have high power handling LT sealed makes good sense
I'm going vented, did an MDF test first and they sound great. Vented, 20" x 20" x 17" (17 x 17 x 17 internal dimensions) external dimensions with a 22" x 19" x 3" solid walnut base!
MDF test boxes!
MDF test boxes!
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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Getting rid of vibration is darned difficult.
I've just built a test baffle from an old piece of Solid mahoghany 45mm thick 5 foot long 2 foot wide i have mounted one of the 4 skytronic 15 inch subs that I will be using open baffle (2 each side QTS 0.92 fs 30hz xmax 6mm ) and the thing rattles like mad with freq's below 50hz and this is with 20watts. Not thread stealing but it seems to me that clever bracing is the way to go.
I've just built a test baffle from an old piece of Solid mahoghany 45mm thick 5 foot long 2 foot wide i have mounted one of the 4 skytronic 15 inch subs that I will be using open baffle (2 each side QTS 0.92 fs 30hz xmax 6mm ) and the thing rattles like mad with freq's below 50hz and this is with 20watts. Not thread stealing but it seems to me that clever bracing is the way to go.
That thickness of mahogany should'nt rattle if you drive a bus into it!
Chances are its the god awful skytronics making the sound... Skytronic quality....... you may as well bash a kitten against the side of a van!
Tried it with a dayton dvc as well 15" same thing happened its definately the wood moving
These drivers do roll off quite early in a vented alignment (-10dB @ 48Hz simmed), but also roll off a bit slower than most, so factoring in room gain it should be possible to get decent extension. You'll certainly get good 'slam' with these around 60Hz
Do you notice any port noise with the test boxes? It seems quite a small port for a driver this size.
Do you notice any port noise with the test boxes? It seems quite a small port for a driver this size.
These drivers do roll off quite early in a vented alignment (-10dB @ 48Hz simmed), but also roll off a bit slower than most, so factoring in room gain it should be possible to get decent extension. You'll certainly get good 'slam' with these around 60Hz
Do you notice any port noise with the test boxes? It seems quite a small port for a driver this size.
Nope, perfect.... sorry I forgot to say, the PD12SB30's are custom, had them made with 4.5" coils and xmax is 17mm one way they are almost perfectly flat to 29Hz
VP, how did you get on with their delivery booking service, they were a PITA when we had our Iroko worktops delivered by them.
The sides of my ES14's are 18mm MDF, clad with another 20mm layer of MDF, epoxied together, with thick delfex pads glued to the inside- you can still feel them vibrate- just.
and that's in a box with 14L internal capacity and a crappy 7" mid bass unit. I'd imagine 40mm Walnut will still 'hum along'... ;-)
Should look awesome though.
The sides of my ES14's are 18mm MDF, clad with another 20mm layer of MDF, epoxied together, with thick delfex pads glued to the inside- you can still feel them vibrate- just.
and that's in a box with 14L internal capacity and a crappy 7" mid bass unit. I'd imagine 40mm Walnut will still 'hum along'... ;-)
Should look awesome though.
Ah right, well that's a bit different then! Sounds awesome
We do indeed like pics, good luck with the build
Ah right, well that's a bit different then! Sounds awesome
We do indeed like pics, good luck with the build
Thanx......... I won't be skimpy on the piccys
What booking service...... I just picked up the phone and ordered and paid and they sort the rest. They said 48 hrs.
Down but not out! DISASTER
Quick update,
Ok, so I recieved my 3m x 960mm x 40mm slab of solid walnut, all looked fine on delievery, no marks or bumps on the packageing. On unwrapping it I discovered that one end has been smashed hard (dented along the end straight edge and a whacking full depth split right down the middle for about 80cm long) After hissing and swearing by email to worktops express I realised that I could avoid the damage and split consigning the damage as an offcut.
So after that stress, all is fine for a while. I begin preparing the panel into the rough sizes I require using the jigsaw ready to go to a pro sawmill for millimetere perfect straight cuts and perfect 90 deg edges (so I thaught!)
I took the precaution of fully marking out the size of cuts on the panels themselves I required and even put arrows pointing to the straight edges marked STRAIGHT EDGE and told him I require perfect 90 deg angles (not too much to ask is it!)
All cut and ready to go I load the car up and get to the sawmill, the saw operator tells me to leave the wood with him because he had other customers jobs infront of mine and to return 3 hours later and It would be done...... Okay..... fine I don't have a problem with that.
On returning the place was mental (very busiy) and it was 10 mins to closing time. In all the hustle and bustle I loaded the panels back into the car, at first glance they looked perfect so I did'nt really thoroughly check them over and I left. I gets home and something looked amiss...... I quickly realised that the guy who cut my panels had the saw operating skills of an intoxicated mentally retarded, blind ferret with only one leg. The vast majority of the panels were ment to be 17" x 17", 8 of to be exact (how difficult is that when using a 9 metre wall saw heh?) Not ONE of those effing panels had a side measuring 17", some were nearly 18" and some as little as 15 6/8". Two of the panels had serious saw burns as if they were just left there against the spinning blade for a MONTH! The best panel.... GET THIS.... was 18 4/8" at one end and tapered down to 16 1/8" at the other, not only that it was cut at a 5 degree angle too (what a ********)
As you can imagine, I'm currently planning dispute with the morons at the sawmill.
So I've had to go out and buy a whacking great professional router with 1/2" collet and huge oversized bits to bore through the 40mm hardwood. Luckily I have enough wood to replace the panels that became too small. The new router kicks ***, big 1900w motor, I've corrected 2 of the panels up to now and they are smooth, perfect 90 deg and mm prefect.......... now why oh why did'nt I just do that in the first place eh!
Quick update,
Ok, so I recieved my 3m x 960mm x 40mm slab of solid walnut, all looked fine on delievery, no marks or bumps on the packageing. On unwrapping it I discovered that one end has been smashed hard (dented along the end straight edge and a whacking full depth split right down the middle for about 80cm long) After hissing and swearing by email to worktops express I realised that I could avoid the damage and split consigning the damage as an offcut.
So after that stress, all is fine for a while. I begin preparing the panel into the rough sizes I require using the jigsaw ready to go to a pro sawmill for millimetere perfect straight cuts and perfect 90 deg edges (so I thaught!)
I took the precaution of fully marking out the size of cuts on the panels themselves I required and even put arrows pointing to the straight edges marked STRAIGHT EDGE
and told him I require perfect 90 deg angles (not too much to ask is it!)All cut and ready to go I load the car up and get to the sawmill, the saw operator tells me to leave the wood with him because he had other customers jobs infront of mine and to return 3 hours later and It would be done...... Okay..... fine I don't have a problem with that.
On returning the place was mental (very busiy) and it was 10 mins to closing time. In all the hustle and bustle I loaded the panels back into the car, at first glance they looked perfect so I did'nt really thoroughly check them over and I left. I gets home and something looked amiss...... I quickly realised that the guy who cut my panels had the saw operating skills of an intoxicated mentally retarded, blind ferret with only one leg. The vast majority of the panels were ment to be 17" x 17", 8 of to be exact (how difficult is that when using a 9 metre wall saw heh?) Not ONE of those effing panels had a side measuring 17", some were nearly 18" and some as little as 15 6/8". Two of the panels had serious saw burns as if they were just left there against the spinning blade for a MONTH!
The best panel.... GET THIS.... was 18 4/8" at one end and tapered down to 16 1/8" at the other, not only that it was cut at a 5 degree angle too (what a ********)As you can imagine, I'm currently planning dispute with the morons at the sawmill.
So I've had to go out and buy a whacking great professional router with 1/2" collet and huge oversized bits to bore through the 40mm hardwood. Luckily I have enough wood to replace the panels that became too small. The new router kicks ***, big 1900w motor, I've corrected 2 of the panels up to now and they are smooth, perfect 90 deg and mm prefect.......... now why oh why did'nt I just do that in the first place eh!
Damn! That sounds like a terrible job they did on it, it's expensive material too. The saw operators at B&Q or Homebase have never been more than 1mm off in my experience when cutting MDF etc, so how a so-called professional mill has done this I don't know. The saw they use should do 90 degree angles naturally, that's what it should 'want' to do. I certainly think you're within your rights to complain!
The router will get the job done, but it's expense in your case (it will be useful later though, roundovers and driver recessing possibilities) and takes a lot of time, makes a mess in your work area and if you're using bearing guided bits be prepared to get through a few of them.
Keep going with it! I hope it's smooth sailing from here
The router will get the job done, but it's expense in your case (it will be useful later though, roundovers and driver recessing possibilities) and takes a lot of time, makes a mess in your work area and if you're using bearing guided bits be prepared to get through a few of them.
Keep going with it! I hope it's smooth sailing from here
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