[mlundy57]

The new cabinet parts arrived today and I have started gluing up a left hand cabinet to match the right. I actually ended up with enough parts to build two complete pairs of the Wedgies plus three more pairs if I do some table saw work.

[mlundy57]

Got the new cabinet glued up, mirror image this time, applied the first coat of primer (white) to get it even with the other one then shot a second coat of primer, grey this time so there would be some contrast with the white color coats.



Then started applying the color coats. Got the first coat shot (except on the bottoms which the cabinets were standing on) and sanded down smooth.








I will continue shooting white color coats and sanding with finer grit paper/Scotchbright type pads until I have both a smooth surface and complete coverage of the color coat.  Then it will be time to start shooting the poly topcoat.

Mike

[mlundy57]

I've started building the bass units.  I have the sides laminated up to 1 1/2" and cut to size.





When I routed the driver holes I cut a recess to flush mount the drivers and put a 1/2" roundover on the back sides





The above panel is not crooked, my camera was

Then I started gluing the sides up. My first attempt didn't work out so well. When I applied clamping pressure the side slid up on the front piece.  I took the pieces apart, wiped as much glue as I could off, waited for the glue to dry, sanded it back down smooth, then glued the side panel back on again. This time I clamped a stop block to the front piece to keep the side in place.






Mike

[mlundy57]

I can tell I'm not used to making taper cuts. I took me a whole day to figure out how and get the 4 braces cut. I still have to cut the holes and round them over. 

I think I will get a 4 1/2" hole saw and use the drill press to cut the holes rather than try and cut them with a router.

I'll try and get some more pics up later this weekend.

Mike

[Captainhemo]

I can see those being tough.....How did you end up doing it Mike ?

[mlundy57]

I can see those being tough.....How did you end up doing it Mike ?

Jay,

First, unlike most of the plans for Danny's kits, these bass cabinets need some explanations to go with the measurements.

First, you need to glue both sides to the front at the same time and the 7" spacer(s) to the rear need to be clamped into place for the glue up. 

When you glue the sides to the front you need to be sure neither the sides nor the rear spacer can slide up. Clamping the rear spacer down would help with this as well as using stop blocks that have been coated with wax or packing tape (to keep glue from sticking) on the inside of the front.

I wasn't able to use a lot of clamp pressure or the parts started moving, even with a stop block so I resorted to using my 2" brad nailer to keep the pieces from shifting.

The other thing clamping the rear spacer into place during glueup would do is keep the inside angles even and at the 10 degrees noted in the plans.

Here is another point for clarification, the 10 degree cuts indicated for the braces are not the same type of 10 degree cuts indicated for the sides.  With the sides, it is a 10 degree bevel cut (the angle of the saw blade is changed from 0 degrees to 10 degrees on the saw's bevel scale (90 degrees to 80 degrees if using a digital protractor to set the blade angle) and the pieces are fed straight through the blade using the rip fence as the guide.

With the braces, the 10 degrees refers to a miter cut, not a bevel cut, so the saw blade is set back to 0 (straight up and down) and the rip fence is removed.  The miter gauge is then set to 10 degrees and a long and tall sacrificial fence is added to the miter gauge (if you have a cutoff sled use that).

You may have already guessed that the first brace I cut, I put bevel cuts on the edges so that one was wasted. Since I thought the rear spacers were for use when adding the top and bottom, I didn't have them in when gluing up the sides so my angles were slightly off. Ten degrees was no longer accurate so it became a game of trial and error to get the angled sides of the braces to match up with the side panels. I ended up cutting eight braces to get four that fit properly, but I finally managed.

As I write this I realize the table saw was not the tool to use for this job. I should have set up my 12" sliding compound miter saw. These braces are exactly what that saw is made for and with it's cut indicator, I could have lined the cuts up accurately the first time rather than make multiple cuts creeping up on the dimension I actually needed   

The table saw is the proper tool for the sides and fronts since the miter saw doesn't have enough travel for the 26" length but the miter saw is the proper tool for the braces.

So lessons learned:

1) use the rear spacers between the sides during glue up and stop blocks on the front to keep the sides lined up and the angles accurate.

2) the 10 degrees refers to a bevel cut on the edges of the sides and a miter cut on the braces 

3) use the table saw on the fronts and sides but use the sliding compound miter saw on the braces.

Mike

[Captainhemo]

Here is another point for clarification, the 10 degree cuts indicated for the braces are not the same type of 10 degree cuts indicated for the sides.  With the sides, it is a 10 degree bevel cut (the angle of the saw blade is changed from 0 degrees to 10 degrees on the saw's bevel scale (90 degrees to 80 degrees if using a digital protractor to set the blade angle) and the pieces are fed straight through the blade using the rip fence as the guide.

With the braces, the 10 degrees refers to a miter cut, not a bevel cut, so the saw blade is set back to 0 (straight up and down) and the rip fence is removed.  The miter gauge is then set to 10 degrees and a long and tall sacrificial fence is added to the miter gauge (if you have a cutoff sled use that).

As I write this I realize the table saw was not the tool to use for this job. I should have set up my 12" sliding compound miter saw. These braces are exactly what that saw is made for and with it's cut indicator, I could have lined the cuts up accurately the first time rather than make multiple cuts creeping up on the dimension I actually needed   

Thanks Mike, appreciate  the  explantions
yeah, I understood the difference between the cuts on the baffle  , ends of sides panles and the actual braces needing to be  cut  wedge pie shapped with a blunt front to butt up against the baffle and a blunt  rear to be flush across the backside., it was how you went about cutting those braces on those angles that  I was wonering about. The sliding mitre saw as you mentioned, makes a lot of sense so long as it will cut the distance.

One thing I was wondering...  if you made up all  4 braces  first, would it not be easier to glue them into position on one side panel and after curing, glue the 2nd  side panle into place. I'd think it would make gluing the front baffle on much simpler,  wouldn't require spacers for glue up (gues you could use a couple to go betwen the braces for proper  distance).  As long as the  shorter side (inside ) of the baffle  was equal to the  width of the  front end of the braces, I'd think it should work out quite well doing it that way.  gluing the baffle on would  be much easier as you'd actuallhave something  to pull on with the clamps without the fear of anything slipping, the baffle could only pull tighter into  position.

Just a thught

jay

[mlundy57]

Jay,

That might work. It's the way I built the N3TL's. It works fine when the braces are squared up and opposite sides parallel but I wasn't too sure how it would work when the sides are not parallel.

Mike

[Captainhemo]

Good point,  when clamping that 2nd side on it  would probably want to slip... even  gluing  the  braces onto the first side might be trying,   not sure.
The angles definately make it tricky

jay

[Keithh]

A dado blade, Kreg jig and band clamps make any angle job a breeze. A dado lines all the pieces up perfectly
and makes assembly easy.

It would be far easier to assemble the braces to the sides first. My first choice would be a dado with a band clamp, but you
could also use a Kreg jig on the braces if you don't want to use a dado. Or just screws from the outside if you are veneering.
The front should be glued on last in case you need to trim the sides  for a perfect fit. You are working with angles so you
can't just use a flush trim bit to clean everything up.

[sanders]

Hi Mr Lundy,
I spoke to Danny Richie today about locating a pair of neo3 pdr speakers and he recommended I contact you. I currently have a pair in my speakers, by they blew two months ago and I have been trying to replace them ever since. If you happen to have a pair that you would sell or can give me any leads I would greatly appreciate it. (my email address is sanders979@gmail.com)

Sincerely,
 Sander Schiller

[mlundy57]

Picture time.  Here are some pics of the bass Wedges going together













Braces going in



Tops and bottoms going on







Building a jig to flush trim the back



Installing the jig



Flush trimming. This would be no big deal if you surface mount the drivers. There will be plenty of room for the bearings on the flush trim bit to ride. However, if you flush mount the drivers like I am doing, the recess removes almost all of the room for the bearing to ride. You only have about 1/8" to work with so bit depth is critical.






Once all the flush trimming was done it was time to stabilize the seams to prevent them from showing through the paint. Like the Wedgies, I gouged the seams out using wood carving tools and am using Bondo glass to fill the seams. This stuff is fairly easy to sand off provided you can get a sander on it. You do not want to have to sand it out of hard to reach areas. It's best to not get any of the Bondo where you don't want it. That means masking off anywhere you don't want to have to clean up, especially in the driver recesses.








Next it was time to start Bondoing





Tomorrow I should finish the Bondo application and get the profiles routed and/or sanded

Mike

[ebag4]

Looking good Mike, thanks for taking us along for the ride.  I am very anxious to read your thoughts on these as compared to the H frames.

Best,
Ed

[mlundy57]

Got some more done. Here are the pics.

Rather than gluing the feet on, I installed threaded inserts so they can be removed for shipping and/or replaced with a different plinth if desired.



The small square in the corner is for the Neutrik Speakon connector



Here are a few more pics showing different views and the edge profiles














Here they are in the paint booth waiting for the first coat of primer




First coat of primer applied






Here's the feet with the first coat of black




That's all for now

Mike

[Captainhemo]

They are looking great Mike, nicely done 

Having built a couple pairs of H-frames using dados, i'd  agree with Keithh,  I think using the  dados and a band clamp would make the basic assembly much easier, might be worth giving it a shot if yo u build another pair  down the road

jay

[mlundy57]

They are looking great Mike, nicely done 

Having built a couple pairs of H-frames using dados, i'd  agree with Keithh,  I think using the  dados and a band clamp would make the basic assembly much easier, might be worth giving it a shot if yo u build another pair  down the road

jay

Might be but considering I'm a dado virgin (and do not own a dado stack) I'm a little shy about trying it.

Now for a couple nights of quality time with sandpaper to smooth out the first coat of primer

Mike

[Captainhemo]

Might be but considering I'm a dado virgin (and do not own a dado stack) I'm a little shy about trying it.

Now for a couple nights of quality time with sandpaper to smooth out the first coat of primer

Mike

Mike,
I don't  actually own a dado stack myself  (yet)  But,  i do have a buddy  who has a local cabinet shop  so what I did was take the cut and sized panels as well as  a brace down to his shop  to have him  cut the dados for me. Just brought the one brace for sizing purposes.  I cut the baffles and all the braces 1" wider  than normal  and then  we cut the dados 1/2" deep.  One you've got the  stack setup to provide the clearance you want, it goes pretty quick.  I'm assumning the braces  in the cabinets you are building   right now are located the same distance from the top as the bottom.... one dado stack setting and one  fence setting would cut   all 8  dados and make alignment much easier when assmebling the cabinets.

jay

[Folsom]

How many rolls of blue tape did you use? 

[mlundy57]

Mike,
I don't  actually own a dado stack myself  (yet)  But,  i do have a buddy  who has a local cabinet shop  so what I did was take the cut and sized panels as well as  a brace down to his shop  to have him  cut the dados for me. Just brought the one brace for sizing purposes.  I cut the baffles and all the braces 1" wider  than normal  and then  we cut the dados 1/2" deep.  One you've got the  stack setup to provide the clearance you want, it goes pretty quick.  I'm assumning the braces  in the cabinets you are building   right now are located the same distance from the top as the bottom.... one dado stack setting and one  fence setting would cut   all 8  dados and make alignment much easier when assmebling the cabinets.

jay

Jay,

The brace positioning is close to the same top and bottom but not exactly. I put a 1/2" roundover on the backside of the driver openings instead of 3/8" since the walls were double thickness. This would have posed a problem for dados since the dado would have cut through the roundover. As it is, I positioned the braces to have an equal amount of edge showing through the cutout then filled the gaps with wood putty and sanded everything smooth, rounded and feathered into the cutouts and braces to make sure there were no flat edges to reflect sound waves.

Not sure why the back side of the driver cutouts needed to be rounded over with this cabinet but not with the H-Frames unless it has to do with the semi enclosed nature of this design. For whatever reason, it made placing the braces trickeier than with the H-Frames. It probably would have been easier with a 3/8" roundover.

Mike

[mlundy57]

How many rolls of blue tape did you use? 

1 1/2 rolls of the wide tape