[hawkeyejw]

I've been working on building out a pair of X-Statics and an X-Voce for the last several weeks, and thought I'd share some photos of the process. I've been doing this with budget level tools and while my grandfather, uncles, and father all are/were cabinet builders, I went a different direction in my career and am squarely in the novice category when it comes to woodworking. I've made plenty of mistakes and learned a lot through the process.

That being said, I'm really happy with how these are coming together and thought I'd post some photos as a way to help others with less experience feel more comfortable taking on one of these projects. Apologies in advance for the rather haphazard photos, I decided after the fact to make a post of the build so this is not really a full fledged build thread. I also noticed I don't really have progress pictures of the X-Voce cabinet, but I'll get some finished photos up this week as I finish and assemble.

First up, the X-Static baffles which I made by cutting four pieces from 3/4" MDF and then laminating them together into pairs to make full length 1 1/2" baffle width, which I believe matches the original AV123 build approach.








Since I don't have an easy way to cut circles through 1 1/2" of material, I started by aligning and clamping each pair together, then I measured and drilled pilot holes for the Jasper Jig through both boards, to ensure proper alignment. Somehow I ended up with less than perfect alignment once all the holes were cut, but I was close enough to be able to laminate using wood glue and clamps, and then use the trusty flush trim bit to get them perfectly aligned on the sides once that was complete. This did result in the baffles being slightly off from the original 8.5" width, which was not great when dry fitting to the boxes. Some sanding took care of that issue relatively well.

Next, some in progress clamping pics for the X-Static enclosures.








Clamps. Not pictured: more clamps.






Enclosures trimmed out and rounded over. I noticed after the fact that I mounted one of the top braces on the wrong side of my mark.  Good thing it's in the inside where nobody will be able to see it!









Dry fitting with bases, looking pretty good. Speaking of bases, I made another mistake there - I forgot to account for the extra depth due to the full length 1 1/2" baffle and ended up with a base that was not deep enough. Luckily I had some 2x12 scrap that I ended up liking better anyway.








Spraying the flat black. I have a Graco airless gun that I bought for larger jobs like repainting the fence that worked fantastic for this. Really happy with the finish. Getting to this result took a LOT of sanding and a trip to the hardware store to replace the junk old belt sander I had, and to add a nice random orbital to the tool box. That random orbital made this job a LOT easier, I can't recommend having one enough if you plan to paint your project and want a nice smooth finish.







Applying veneer. I chose ribbon mahogany which I was able to get for a very reasonable price. I used the iron on method to apply this, which went pretty well overall. I need to invest in better files to make cleaner edges possible, but they still came out nice. Having the long straight grain of the mahogany made applying over the 1/2" radius no problem, luckily. I'll have a bit of touch up on the edges of the countersunk holes for the tweeters but otherwise I'm happy.









Test fitting all of the drivers in the X-Voce baffle.




Stain applied. Once dry I'll do several coats of wipe on poly, and move on to application of no-res and assembly.




That brings us up to date through this AM! I'm hoping to have time to apply the poly this evening/tomorrow. Hope to have the panels glued on by Friday and assembly done Saturday. Stay tuned!

[hawkeyejw]

P.S. if anyone knows how to rotate my images 90 degrees that are showing up sideways, please let me know.

Edit: Fixed.

[Captainhemo]

Great job,  you're going to  have     beautiful set of speakers  that will sound  great and serve you  well.

For theh pics,  I always just  throw them in a graphics editor  then reupload

jay

[Hobbsmeerkat]

These are looking great so far!

[hawkeyejw]

Thanks guys. I’ve really enjoyed the process building these.

[corndog71]

P.S. if anyone knows how to rotate my images 90 degrees that are showing up sideways, please let me know.

  If you go to your gallery and then to each pic you can rotate them.  Edit your post here with updated links.

[hawkeyejw]

  If you go to your gallery and then to each pic you can rotate them.  Edit your post here with updated links.

Thanks for the tip. They now look correct in the gallery but aren't updating here even if I delete completely from the post, save, then come back in and re-add and save again. I'll just let it be for a while and see if that fixes it. 

[AlexH]

Those are looking great. But wait until you here them

P.S. if anyone knows how to rotate my images 90 degrees that are showing up sideways, please let me know.

Some websites don't not recognize your camera or phone settings so here is a program I use.

https://savolai.net/software/jpeg-autorotate/

Each time you add pictures to your folder you are filing them in you have to right click on that folder and you will see your autorate program. Click on it and it will add an extension so your photos will look right on the website.

[hawkeyejw]

Fixed it by creating a new album in the gallery, uploading the pictures, then rotating them BEFORE linking them in here. Thanks everyone for the suggestions. We can now return back to discussing audio. 

[Danny Richie]

Looking really good.

[tomlinmgt]

Thanks for sharing this...just purchased a kit and will be starting my build within the coming weeks.  Great to have some pictures of a build in progress to give me an idea what I'm up against as I'm pretty much a rookie woodworker myself.

For the sealed enclosure...is it best to make the round over cuts before or after the box is glued together?

Also, I see you cut a round over on the sides of the front baffle but not the top...was that just a design choice?

Thanks,
Michael

[hawkeyejw]

Thanks for sharing this...just purchased a kit and will be starting my build within the coming weeks.  Great to have some pictures of a build in progress to give me an idea what I'm up against as I'm pretty much a rookie woodworker myself.

For the sealed enclosure...is it best to make the round over cuts before or after the box is glued together?

Also, I see you cut a round over on the sides of the front baffle but not the top...was that just a design choice?

Thanks,
Michael

Hi Michael, happy to help so please ask away.

On the roundover, definitely get the box constructed and the edges trimmed out flush before you start doing any roundover work. Depending on what tools you have available, the 10 degree angle on the top edge is going to present a challenge. My approach was to cut the sides with square corners and simply make them taller than needed. Once I had the boxes together, I used a Skil Saw to trim the angled edge to within about a quarter inch, and then a flush trim bit on the router to get it all flush. You'll also need to have it together so that you can appropriately figure out which surfaces are flat for your router guide to slide over.

Regarding the roundover on the baffles, it's a little of both. I knew I wanted to veneer the baffles, but don't know of a way to apply over a compound rounded edge. I got the idea for the approach I took by looking at the original design from the AV123 days. I believe they also used a full length 1 1/2" baffle rounded over on the vertical edges but not the horizontal. I was a little apprehensive about being able to successfully get the veneer over the edge without cracking but the type of wood I chose for the veneer is very flexible when bent in alignment with the grain, which helped tremendously.

One other area I'd just give a small tip on is circle cutting. You're going to be cutting a lot of circles, so make sure you practice that and have a good process down for it. One thing that will help is for the half braces that include 1 1/2 circles, cut those panels twice as long as they need to be and cut 3 circles in each. Then do your roundovers, and after that measure and cut them in half so you have your perfect half circles.

Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions!

[tomlinmgt]

Hi Michael, happy to help so please ask away.

On the roundover, definitely get the box constructed and the edges trimmed out flush before you start doing any roundover work. Depending on what tools you have available, the 10 degree angle on the top edge is going to present a challenge. My approach was to cut the sides with square corners and simply make them taller than needed. Once I had the boxes together, I used a Skil Saw to trim the angled edge to within about a quarter inch, and then a flush trim bit on the router to get it all flush. You'll also need to have it together so that you can appropriately figure out which surfaces are flat for your router guide to slide over.

Regarding the roundover on the baffles, it's a little of both. I knew I wanted to veneer the baffles, but don't know of a way to apply over a compound rounded edge. I got the idea for the approach I took by looking at the original design from the AV123 days. I believe they also used a full length 1 1/2" baffle rounded over on the vertical edges but not the horizontal. I was a little apprehensive about being able to successfully get the veneer over the edge without cracking but the type of wood I chose for the veneer is very flexible when bent in alignment with the grain, which helped tremendously.

One other area I'd just give a small tip on is circle cutting. You're going to be cutting a lot of circles, so make sure you practice that and have a good process down for it. One thing that will help is for the half braces that include 1 1/2 circles, cut those panels twice as long as they need to be and cut 3 circles in each. Then do your roundovers, and after that measure and cut them in half so you have your perfect half circles.

Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions!

Good info and thanks. I noticed in one of your pics that a side panel for the enclosure seemed too tall...now I know why.  I have a router and a router table that’s integrated into my table saw, but I have limited experience with both. I have used the router with a Jasper jig quite a bit to cut circles, so I’m comfortable with the that.  I’ll have to do a practice run for the tweeter cut out, though. That’s a new one for me.

[mlundy57]

Good info and thanks. I noticed in one of your pics that a side panel for the enclosure seemed too tall...now I know why.  I have a router and a router table that’s integrated into my table saw, but I have limited experience with both. I have used the router with a Jasper jig quite a bit to cut circles, so I’m comfortable with the that.  I’ll have to do a practice run for the tweeter cut out, though. That’s a new one for me.

The tweeter cutout is easy.

To set the depth for the rabbet, put the router on the baffle and push it down until the bit is touching the face of the MDF and lock it down. Then use the tweeter itself to set the depth by placing the flange on the depth stop and lowering the rod until it is snug on the tweeter then lock it down. Now release the  router so it moves back to the top of the plunge base and you are ready to start cutting.

You cut the outer diameter rabbet first then cut the through hole. Depending on the diameter of your cutting bit you will need to make multiple passes to get the width of the rabbet correct. Once the rabbet is wide enough, cut the through hole.

Be sure to use double stick tape to attach the baffle to a backing board and that the double stick tape will keep both the baffle and cutout secure when you cut through the baffle.

Mike

[hawkeyejw]

Good tips from Mike. I don't have a plunge base for my router so I set the bit depth by placing the tweeter up to the router base and setting the bit depth to where I needed it. I do need to invest in a plunge base, though. Would make the circles easier to cut for sure.

[Jmitchell3]

Listen to mike. Also get these bad boys 40”+ from the front wall and they will blow your socks off.

[diyman]

What brand are the right angle clamps in the build photos?  Those are serious looking clamps and I might want to get some like them.

[jcsperson]

There are a number of good corner clamps out there.

There is this style with the handle on the inside of the angle that is sold under a variety of brand names in different colors but all appear to be the same:



There are bunches of them on Amazon for $18-25 each. Some brand names are Wetols, Sedy, Can-Do, Arcfoxi, Horusdy, Tacklife, Frylr, etc.

I have the Bessey-style corner clamps with the handle on the outside of the angle, but Irwin makes a nearly identical model for less.

[hawkeyejw]

They’re called Can-do Clamps. Around $25 on Amazon I think. They are nice quality, and definitely helpful for holding long panels square while gluing up.

[hawkeyejw]

Getting ready to glue up the baffles.