speakerstuff

I’m in the home stretch! The mains and stands have been sealed and have a single coat of polycrylic. The baffles are cut, primed, painted (black), and also have one coat of polycrylic. I’m looking to do at least two more coats all around.

I’m happy with how they’re turning out, but I have just one problem… the enclosures got taller by about 1/4″!! I’ve been keeping them inside to aclimate to the house and then took them outside for a couple coats of shellac. They were outside for about two weeks, which is when it started warming up a bit here and getting some humidity. So I dry fit the MDF baffles on the weekend and they fit, but they’re about 1/8″ short on the top and bottom. The MDF is stable so it didn’t expand like the mains, doh! I’ll be keeping the mains inside for a while to see if they shrink a bit, but I’m not too optimistic because the molding in my house has even expanded with the weather.

It’s too late now to do anything. I’m not going to recut the baffles out of MDF because the box will apparently shrink in the winter anyway and I’ll be right back where I started. If/when I redo the baffles, I’ll use a hardwood and position it so it will expand and contract vertically and hopefully the difference is bearable. But that’s a long time from now unless I’m really displeased with how this turns out.

I’m not really concerned about ruining the enclosures with the baffle (as happened with a previously mentioned build) since I’m floating the baffles by affixing them from the rear with a big hole and washer. If there’s any movement, it should slide.

Now on to the pics…

Baffles cut for mains and center.  For the mains, I’m using hurricane nuts in the rear to mount the drivers.

I know, grills suck, but there are lots of kids in the house and it’s not worth taking a chance.  When the kids grow up, I’ll take the grills off, but I don’t want to be stuck with grill guide holes.  So I used a drill press to drill holes in the back of the baffle so that it drills almost all the way through to the front.  Then I dropped in magnets and sealed the rear with silicon.  Now the front baffle will look nice and clean, but will still hold a grill.  I was going to built my own grills, but I ended up ordering a pair of PE grills when I noticed my box is around the same size as one of their enclosures.

This is a shot of the rear baffle taken from the bottom.  The two side by side holes are for the terminals, while the holes in the center will be used to affix the baffle with socket screws.

Primed all MDF with automotive high build primer.  I love this stuff!  Parts of the stands are in there but it’s kinda hard to describe what it’ll look like.

Here’s the dry fit front baffle.  There is a small gap on the top and bottom from the box growing a bit due to the humidity.  I can barely tell in person so I think I can live with it.  The translam now has 2 coats of Zinsser coat, dry sanded with 220 grit, then 1 coat of semi-gloss Polycrylic.  I’m planning on two more coats and then I’ll see if I want more.  The picture doesn’t really do it justice.  I’ll take some glam shots once everything is complete.

Rear shot