Thanks for the thumbs up!
They do look similar to the Orions, but I think nicer.....more character?
The plexiglass is the front of the amp stand, you cant tell from the pics but there are
two side rails that the plexi is screwed to. They are about a 1/4" proud, the top and bottom
have no rails, just left open....thought this would be a good way to vent air into the amp.
I wasnt sure what to do with the amps at first, I know from other sub builds that I would
need access to the controls for tweaking. I figured I have the option to hide them or
leave them up front now......they will probably stand beside the OB, it looks slick when
you can just make out the insides through the plexi.
As far as details of the build.....it was pretty straight forward. The first time I picked up
a router was about a year ago, so if I can do it anybody can. The biggest challenge was to
get the sides the same shape. I figured that if I used the router it would give me a clean edge
on the pre veneered sheathing. All I did was to make a jig out of 1/2" MDF, chose two spots
that I knew were going to be hidden on the finished panels, screwed the jig to the panel
and followed the router around it with a bearing bit. They came out with nice clean edges that
I put 1'' veneer on......very simple.
The veneer is Oak, I put Samma water based stain on it...Cherry #113. The one thing that I did
use that I had no experience with was the finish. If your like me working out of your garage, you should try
this stuff.....Minwax wipe on poly. Be warned that is does darken (yellow) your color a bit so you might
not want to use it on light stains. This stuff was a breeze, you just wipe it on and give it a very light
touch with some fine steel wool between coats. I have about six coats on these panels, they
really turned out nice.
The only other thing I did, to work on both sides of the panels at the same time, was to make
temp. stands by screwing 1/2" MDF plates with 3" screws to the bottoms. This way I could
stain and finish both sides of the panel at the same time.
I used PL premium to glue the side panels on, and then used 1 1/4" screws to fasten together.
There is a 3" screw to the panel at the top baffle. The most nerve racking was the glueing, one
slip and it could of got ugly.
I am building the back enclosure for the rear firing tweeter right now, waiting for the glue
to dry.......want to hear them this week-end
