[Early B.]

Go with copper. I did.

[Captainhemo]

Ed,  I hope you end up having enough veneer,  I think that by far would look best.   
i agree with  Mike and Early,  right now (with the light tone of the wood),   the copper  looks better,  just tooo much contrast with that wave guide whenn the baffle is black  As you say, that could change   if the  finish  you go with  really  reddens/darkens  the veneer.  If  the veneer does turn out to be fairly dark and  the black works,  Ithink it might  be an idea to try   carbon fiber as an option  as well, might be an interesting mix with the veneer....
 Looking forward to  more pics 

jay

[ebag4]

Thanks guys.  I have decided that I will veneer the baffles.  I am cutting out the needed pieces including the baffles from what I have left, if I run short I will pick up some additional veneer, the gentleman I bought it from has more of the plane tree Burl for sale.  It may not match perfectly, but for the insets it won't be obvious.  I think I am going to have enough.

Best,
Ed

[ebag4]

I'm considering buying this unit ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003PGQI48/?tag=paint-sprayer-furniture-20) so I can spray the tint, shellac and arm r seal or whatever I land on.  How does spraying change my finish schedule?

Thanks,
Ed

[ebag4]

Not much progress, but I did manage to finish one speaker.  Now I need to finish the other speaker.  A few pics:












The next pics I post will be during the finishing process .  I have ordered additional Transtint, a yellow and brown, and a quart of the Zinsser Seal Coat dewaxed shellac.  Looking at the veneered speaker I am considering shellac and topcoat, no tint.  I may stand a better chance of success going that direction.  I am going to play with some additional tints before making my final decision.

Best,
Ed

[DeeJayBump]

Man, those look nice even at this point in the process.

[Early B.]

Man, those look nice even at this point in the process.

Yep. I'd probably stop right here. 

[fishboat]

The next pics I post will be during the finishing process .  I have ordered additional Transtint, a yellow and brown, and a quart of the Zinsser Seal Coat dewaxed shellac.  Looking at the veneered speaker I am considering shellac and topcoat, no tint.  I may stand a better chance of success going that direction.  I am going to play with some additional tints before making my final decision.

Best,
Ed

Ed,  Nice work on the veneering..lots of careful effort there.

Finishing..forging a new finishing path on an unknown wood is always dicey.  I've found shellac over wood (to enhance grain and seal the wood surface) and then either tinting the topcoat, or applying a thin application of General Finishes Gel Stain and then topcoats, to be a pretty safe and reliable finish schedule. 

Doing the tinting through the gel stain is quite controllable.  Once the shellac is on the wood you can wipe the gel stain off to nearly dry (apply gel to get full coverage by swirling application..it goes on like paste wax on a car..then wipe off with paper towels, 90* to grain).  You'll end up with the base color of the gel stain on the shellac (a tint).  How much color/tint depends on how dry you wipe off the gel stain.  You will get color..you can't wipe it all off..unless you wipe with mineral spirits. You may have some excess gel color in tight corners..basically toning..take a look at toned kitchen cabinet pics for a reference.  The gel gives you enough working-open time to get all this done.  You'll just need to be careful with surface-to-surface consistency in terms of wiping the gel off (color added).  This path will look different than a tinted topcoat as you'll get some gel(color, highlights?) in any grain low spots (see the trim piece pic I posted above). 

Tinting the topcoat(skipping the gel application) avoids surface-to-surface consistency as the color is in the finish rather than on the wood.  Much like you. I'm looking forward to seeing where you end up.

[mlundy57]

Ed,

The H-Frame has the recess cut in for a recessed grill but your grill frame extends above the top of the H-Frame. Are your grill frames surface mounted (not using the recess) or do they fit in the recess and extend above the top?

Mike

[NeilT]

Good question Mike, I was wondering about the same thing.

Great job Ed, looks awesome.

Neil

[ebag4]

Thanks guys, I'm pretty happy with the build so far.

Mike/Neil, to answer your question, yes, the grill fits into the inset and extends beyond the inset 3/8" which is the distance the baffle (where the wings fit into the baffle of Jay's flat pack) extends beyond the bass/base unit.  The trapezoid at the top of the grill sits in front of the bass/base.  I did this to tie everything together but maintain the front of the bass/base unit in case I want to use them as stand-alone units in the future.

Before assembling the top section I cut a 1/16" reveal into the wings vertical edges where they tie into the baffle to give me a line of demarcation between the wings and the baffle.  I did this because the original plan was to vinyl the baffle and I wanted a clean area for the vinyl edge to go, this is the section that hangs beyond the face of the bass/base.
Best,
Ed

[ebag4]

Ed,  Nice work on the veneering..lots of careful effort there.

Finishing..forging a new finishing path on an unknown wood is always dicey.  I've found shellac over wood (to enhance grain and seal the wood surface) and then either tinting the topcoat, or applying a thin application of General Finishes Gel Stain and then topcoats, to be a pretty safe and reliable finish schedule. 

Doing the tinting through the gel stain is quite controllable.  Once the shellac is on the wood you can wipe the gel stain off to nearly dry (apply gel to get full coverage by swirling application..it goes on like paste wax on a car..then wipe off with paper towels, 90* to grain).  You'll end up with the base color of the gel stain on the shellac (a tint).  How much color/tint depends on how dry you wipe off the gel stain.  You will get color..you can't wipe it all off..unless you wipe with mineral spirits. You may have some excess gel color in tight corners..basically toning..take a look at toned kitchen cabinet pics for a reference.  The gel gives you enough working-open time to get all this done.  You'll just need to be careful with surface-to-surface consistency in terms of wiping the gel off (color added).  This path will look different than a tinted topcoat as you'll get some gel(color, highlights?) in any grain low spots (see the trim piece pic I posted above). 

Tinting the topcoat(skipping the gel application) avoids surface-to-surface consistency as the color is in the finish rather than on the wood.  Much like you. I'm looking forward to seeing where you end up.

I missed you post FB.  I will be testing the stain on top of shellac.  Fortunately, barring any mistakes it appears I will have enough veneer to finish.  Unfortunately, I am not going to have much spare veneer to test finishes on, I do have some old veneer to work with, that will give me a reasonable idea of what various finishes will look like.

Best,
Ed

[ebag4]

OK, veneering is complete, Yay!  This is what I have left to try finishes out on:



Here are both speakers veneered:



I am hoping to land on a finish this weekend.

Best,
Ed

[mlundy57]

Ed,

The veneer was the right choice. Looks much better than the solid baffles did. Glad you had enough.

Boy, cutting the grill frames that way must have taken a bunch of work. That's a lot of material to cut away if you formed each frame out of a single piece of material.

Mike

[ebag4]

Ed,

The veneer was the right choice. Looks much better than the solid baffles did. Glad you had enough.

Boy, cutting the grill frames that way must have taken a bunch of work. That's a lot of material to cut away if you formed each frame out of a single piece of material.

Mike

Thanks Mike, I really like the veneered baffle as well.

The grill frame was not that bad, most of the rabbet was done on the table saw with the last bit done with a hand saw.  The rest was done with a saber saw and a router.

Best,
Ed

[Captainhemo]

I like the veneer  as  well Ed, glad yo uhad enough to complete the job 
Looking forward to seeing   your choice  for  finishing

jay

[ebag4]

Thanks Jay, me too.

I didn't have time to play with finishes this weekend, but I was able to fill in a few occlusions, I simply cut out similar shapes and glued them in using heatlock followed by sanding.  I did my final sanding of the speakers using 400 and was able to clean out the garage in preparation for spraying.

With regard to finishing, after sanding I wiped down each piece using a rag with mineral spirits, after doing that to the baffles I asked myself, am I going to be able to improve on this using tint, my kneejerk is no.  BTW, these look more red in natural light.



Best,
Ed

[ACHiPo]

Great work Ed!

[mlundy57]

Boy that really did redden up. I never would have expected that.

Mike

[ebag4]

Thanks AC.

Mike, it took me by surprise as well.

I have made a little progress in the finishing process.  I have decided that I am going to tint the speakers.  Here is a 4:1 yellow with an 8:1 red mix (using denatured alcohol), this was sprayed with a small spray bottle followed by two wiped on coats of arm r seal.



This is getting close to what I am looking for but still a bit dark.  BTW, I tried tinting the shellac, the result was similar but the grain was noticeably less defined, tinting the veneer first followed by shellac looks like the way to go on this project.

I played with my new sprayer today, I believe this is gong to work out well.  I practiced on a piece of paperback cherry.  I sprayed yellow followed by two applications of red.  I believe with a few more practice sessions I will get the mix to something approaching what I am looking for.  It appears I will be able to use multiple applications to get to the right shade.

With the sprayer working out, I am re-thinking what to use as a top coat.  I was going to use arm r seal, but spraying opens up options .  My current spray scedule looks like this: yellow tint followed by red tint , then clear shellac, looking for top coat recommendations.

Here is a pic of the cherry with the tints:





Best,
Ed