Sonosub + RL-p15 - Design confirmation - Page 7

That's right, my 5 year old family pocket camera. Real state of the art equipment


If you want to know the trick, it's: macro, tripod, no flash and "timer" (no button pressing while the picure is taken).

I forgot something - I also do some rudimentary levels adjustment in Photoshop.

Boy, do I work fast...

Finally I found a way to fasten the PVC tubes while cutting them:



(yes, that's an Amiga monitor in the background)


After countless tests with the circke jig settings, I finally found a setting that matched the PVC-tubes perfectly. Here's the 30mm pine place on top of the PVC:



Now, I'll use a r30mm rounding bit around this hole to make a nice flare.

I've finally managed to finish the DIY port grille ting...

As I've mentioned before, my hope was to make a speaker-fabric based "grille" that was more or less flush with the top endcap, like this:


The solution involves magnets and pieces of iron and a 5mm thick material that I don't even want to start translating to English...

Anyway, here's the ring of the 5mm material with the pieces of iron glued on, and the speaker fabric halfway glued on:


Trying out the fit:


As we all see the DIY grille fits quite well and is more or less flush to the top endcap (just as I hoped it would be):


Magnet time! I used d10mm neodym-magnets which were very powerful for their size. Therefor I guess 3 of them is more than enough. If it turns out 3 is too few, it's no big deal adding 3 more later:


The magnets glued flush to the routed grove:


Now it's only the rest of the project left...

I just don't want to bore you guys with my incredibel small steps of progress...

No, I'm not quite done yet... I'm working as fast as I'm allowed, though... Seems like my entire family is determined to slow me down... My wife's constantly bitching about the project and I have to to almost all my work after she's gone to bed, or else it's "Why are you going down to the basement? You're not going to work on those subs again? We never talk anymore!".

Bah...

Well, until lately, at least my kids haven't directly worked against the project (of course they're working against it indirectly purely by existing, but I won't hold that against them).

Here the other day, however, I almost killed them...

One of many distractions from The Important Thing (the sono project), is that I'm refurbishing many rooms in the basement (one of them is going to become a home theater, but that room is currently my work shop). Lately I've been working my ass off to get the /&¤%&¤ basement finished before Christmas, and 3 days ago it was as good as finished.

Anyway, as I was going to stain my sonosub pine tops with a dark, dark colour, I'd bought this stain bottle (it says Graphite Black):



Then I did two horrible mistakes:

1. I left the bottle on the freezer in the basement "hallway".
2. I let the brats loose down there to play while my wife and I prepared dinner...

With a beautiful example of cooperation the oldest brat (5) somehow managed to open the bottle and left it opened for the youngest brat (2) to play with. Here's the bottle after the incident:


And here's the finished - no, sorry, the ex-finished room:

(after 20 minutes of desperate cleaning I actually managed to save the floorboards. The stains on the door and wall was impossible to remove though)

I - must- not - kill - my - own - kids - I - must- not - kill - my - own - kids...


Well, somthimes I think it's a miracle I get something done at all...


To be continued...

...continued.

Even with all the problems I've done something though...

Here's the pine top, from the carpenter shop where it got worked on with a 25mm roundover bit:


Just testing with the PVC pipe:


MDF burgers. The two and two glued 22mm MDF plates to be glued onto the pine top eventually:


Like this (just testing):


The groove on the underside of the pine (where the sono will go):


Rounding the edges of the pine piece:


And here after the stain was applied. Extremely dark, but with the wood pattern clearly visible, just as I wanted:


Next up is varnishing (?) the pine tops, and assembling the top endcap.

Thanks for the moral support :-)

Thanks! I hope they'll look even better with the varnish on.


Let's just hope they sound good as well as look good


Thanks. And I have to say it again: Love your convex mirrors! I thought I'd be the first one to have a mirror in the base plate, but you beat me to it! And the convex thing - just love it!


Thanks!

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I guess it's still some weeks into the future, but I'm beginning to think about the lining of the tube. I don't know about Sonotubes, but my tubes are very far from "dead" if you know what I mean. If you knock on it, it "rings" (for the lack of a better word). Are the Sonotubes also like this, or should I be taking extra steps in the lining?

Seems like everybody have different lining solutions out there. Someone are lining the outside of the port tube and others find it unnecessary etc. Is there such thing as a "correct" amount of/material for lining? And how much is probably depending on the material used I guess. One inch of material A could be the same as 1.5 inch of material B and so forth...

Is there a calculator or cookbook or something for this?

As you may have suspected, I'm very insecure when it comes to lining subwoofers in general and expecially sonosubs...

Grabbed the contact cement and my wifes fabric scissors and finished the second DIY-port grille tonight:



Yeah, and I also put on the first layer of varnish on the pine tops:



A little bit of sanding and a few more layers of varnish and maybe they'll look decent...

Ass... hehe. No, I kind of agree actually... to late now, anyway. I'll just have to go through with the varnish thing and of it turns out to be a failure I'll just paint the damned thing and get it over with

X-mas for me is more work than relaxing, but I managed to so a little work on my project...

I sanded the first layer of varnish (it does not look very promising when dry sanding):


But when the dust from the sanding is removed with a moist cloth and the second layer of varnish is applied it looks better:

(but when the varnish is "fresh" it looks far to shiny for my taste)

But when the varnish dried it got the matte look that i wanted:


I also started on the bottom end cap. I'm gonna recess the driver, so I cut out a hole to fit the entire driver gasket diameter:


And here are two pieces more or less finished:


Next up is cutting a hole in the 30mm part and gluing the bottom endcap 22+30mm MDF together.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS!!!

Thanks for the nice feedback!

As for the routing...You're right, because of some stupid thinking (I have to stop building subs at 2am), I suddenly had a gaping hole where the circle jig centre should have been

Not the first time this happens to me, though , so I didn't panic. It's a little tedious to fix, but not really difficult:

1. Find a piece of wood/MDF that has the same thickness as the piece you're about to do the routing on (I used the newly cut out piece of MDF).

2. Lay the "work piece" on a flat surface with the work surface facing up, with the other piece inside

3. Measure out a new centre. This is a matter of measuring from the edges until the distance to the four direction are equal. I'm sure there are some fancy tools out there that can do this, but I don't have any.

4. Fasten the two pieces together by screwing on a third piece of some material (it goes without saying that you have to be very careful not to move anything)

5. Turn the assembly around and screw it together again with a fourth piece of material

6. Turn it back and remove what you screwed on at point 4

7. Double check that the centre is still at the centre

8. Do your routing

Quite time consuming, but doable...

The 2x22mm MDF burger (the inner top endcap part) and the PVC-pipe was glued together with PL400:


Some extra PL400 smeared around the pipe, just tp be sure:


And here the strange constructions so typical for sonotubes:


Some routing work again (at this point the routing works seems neverending). Here the cutout (Ø360 mm) for the driver in the 30mm MDF part:


And here's how the bottom part will look like when it's glued and with the driver in place:

(Later I'll do a little rounding around the inner edge of the 22mm MDF part)

(And yes, I know VHS tapes should not be placed close to strong magnetic fields, and no, it's nothing of importance on these tapes (at least not anymore ))

Bottom endcaps glued together:


And here it is. "Only" 30+22mm but I think it should be enough, considering the small difference between driver diameter and tube diameter:


And here's the final look of the top with the DIY-port "grille" (hope you like the look of them now, Steve (Callas) ):


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Back to lining again...

People have been pointing to a few lining materials, but from US based companies. I was hoping to get it locally. The problem, though, is that I don't know if they've got the same acoustical properties... I was looking at this from a Norwegian store:



But this material has the following comment on their web site:

Should I be looking for something different? Or doesn't it matter?

Another thing. I read somewhere that sonotubes were to be preferred over PVC for port tubes, because they were "deader". I've got a PVC tube and I can confirm that it's not very dead. Should I bother lining it - just a little? Or maybe glue a piece of this on (on the lower part):



(It's a (heavy) self adhesive asphalt sheet)

I'm not familiar with this R13 term

Does it describe the size? Density?