4x 18" enclosure rehabilitation project

My buddy from Buffalo that combined rigs for calyx and teebee built 4 18s as his first DIY. Did a real nice job on them too. I went to several shows that featured his cabinets and they were great. Turns out they were sitting in storage for a while with no drivers after he built his new round of cabinets. I traded my box with 6 JL12s and some cash for the unloaded cabs. Now I am going to rehab them and load with either the Faital HP1060s, or Eminence Kilomax 18s. The new RCF LF18X451 is in consideration as well as it is one of the highest displacing 18s around. They are in great shape and I could just drop driver in them but I have a few tweaks to make first. The priority will be the dual 21s, but this project will run alongside weather permitting.

They are 7.6 cubes tuned to 37.5hz, with a pair of 5" square ports, I could lengthen the ports to achieve a 32hz tune if desired. They are built out of 3/4 Arauco and well braced. Solid first build that served him well for a few years.


Action list:

1) Flush trim and roundover
2) Replace missing handles
3) Refinish to black.
4) Change terminal plates to speakon
5) Load with drivers
6) Add to stack and hurt people more.

When I finished the 21 cabs at the shop, I came home and started work on these.


First I stripped all hardware and gasket:






Then flush trim:







Then roundover:






Then I got in with the sandpaper. 60 grit in the palm sander and 120 grit in the belt sander. These are going to get simple rust oleum flat black on all external surfaces, so i just need to whack the polyurethane so it will hopefully stick:







Made the cabs a little lighter:





I was shut down tonight by lack of light, I miss the summer working until 9pm in the driveway instead of 5. I hope the weather holds out and allows me to get the other 2 sides and bottoms done tomorrow. I plan to paint these and the 21s this weekend.

After sanding sanding sanding, 60 grit all the way around, they look like this:





I set the 4 of them up in the garage to get ready to paint:




Wiped them down with mineral spirits:




And made history, i actually painted some of my cabinets:




First coat is done, going to let them dry and put a second on tomorrow morning. I hope to put the handles and dishes in this week and have the 4 of them running for my show on Friday. I hope one of my other distributors is open on Wednesday for the 4th Impero, PE only had one 18c.

Freaks me out too.


These will be loaded with Eminence Impero 18c, I was very happy with the first run with them last night. They sound great and took all of what I was feeding them without distress. We'll see how they handle these slightly smaller and higher tuned enclosures.

http://www.eminence.com/speakers/speaker-detail/?model=Impero_18C

Turned the cabs 90* and cleaned and prepped the faces a bit. I should have sanded them while I was working on the rest of the cabs, but I scuffed with some emery paper. There was a lot of gunk from a couple years of gigging, so a good scrape, wipe down with acetone and a hit with some emery paper to rough it up was in order. I had originally planned to just clean the fronts and keep them woodgrain, but with the amount of crap all over them I had to paint over it to get them to look right.




All done, yes the thermostat says 58. I'm pretty sure it will take a while for these to fully cure. Going to let them sit a few days.






I have silver corners, a few bits or hardware and the other 2 drivers showing up on Friday. I can get all the handles on, and 2 of the terminal plates. I could mount teh pair of drivers I have, but I'll probably wait till Friday to give the paint as much time to sure as possible. Winter in Rochester kind of sucks.

I sat down with the handles and some weatherstrip, and promptly ran out most of the way through. Still a few more to do but I need a trip to home depot first:






The cabs look creat with the handles mounted, can't wait to get them cleaned out inside, pop in the drivers and light em up Friday:







I took a look at corners as I had to make a decision on which ones to go with, and I settled on the cheapo plastic ones. They break alot but are easily and inexpensively replaced, they fit the look of the cabs, and the silver ones don't fit the roundovers at all. The silver ones are going to go on the 21s, they fit and look better on those cabs.

After allowing the baffles and the rest of the cabinets to cure for a couple of days, as well as the holidays, I grabbed the needed casters today:




Made up the 2 jacks I had parts for and installed them:







Grabbed the Imperos out of the big cabs and installed them:







Place grilles:




Install corners:





Test ran these puppies and knocked stuff off the walls in the garage. I actually tried them full range and with some ramp up of the high frequency portion, they sounded quite good for an 18. The Impero is impressive for SQ and output, durability as always remains to be seen. They will be getting 800w each and are rated for 1250, so compression would be my only concern as mechanical and thermal limits shouldn't be tested. I have the rest of the parts and drivers arriving on Friday, there is a rather large snowstorm bearing down on us, I'm really hoping that shipping isn't delayed. The holidays make the logistical end of this a little tight, then to have a snowstorm on top of it. We'll see.

The rest of the supplies showed today, the wiring and plates:




Large feet? Not sure what these are compared to to be called large :/





And pair of Imperos:





Add the large feet:





And Kapow!




So we started here:



And are now here:







Ready to go for tonight's show. Will post a pic or two and survival report later on!

Load in:



Set up:

Show running: