Hi.
I have been toiling away with this build.  The speakers are a bass reflex type with a horn assist for the ports.  The cabinets are made from Baltic birch on the outside and for the horn waveguides and non structural parts; MDF.

These took about three or four weeks but most of the time was spent messing around with the finish.  I started out with a dark espresso planned but every place that wood glue even touched, no matter how fast I wiped it off, refused to take the stain.  So there I was with splotchy stain and decided to make a glaze.  At some point during the many stages of glazing, I decided a piano black was basically the last thing I could do.  I learned a great deal and probably could have stopped at any stage between the espresso and the piano black but I figured, what the hell, I'll just keep going until I see something I like.

There is probably about four or five coats of black paint and two or three coats of varnish over it.  I put some trim over the bare ends of the plywood.  The hardware store had some trim with a leaf pattern pressed into it and that wasn't very expensive so that's what I ended up with.  I just couldn't bare to put a plain trim on it.  I am gay , after all!  I painted the little leaves in green and then put a dab of gold on over that to give a two tone effect and to tie in with what was going on with the wave guides.

Originally I wanted t make the wave guides into piano keys, black and white but it was just not working out.  With the keys in the stepped pattern, you couldn't mix the black and white keys without painting over the sides and it really was impossible to get a decent look by free handing it.  I tried a little tape but the paint was seeping under it.  Finally I used gold spray paint over the white and looked pretty elegant in the end.

The speakers arrived about half way into the build. I also have a backup pair , recycled from some other project if I want to make another one.  I have an idea to make the next one have a build in 8 track tape player!  Ha ha ha.  Won't that be cool?  I want a single speaker with two drivers and the 8 track in the middle.  I'll work on it.  Lots of projects!

The finish by far took the longest.  The garage just wasn't a very clean area to do it in.  The surface of the drying varnish had tons of contamination in it, necessitating a thorough sanding in between coats to get the sawdust, and other particulates out of it.  Then I spent a lot of time getting it shiny.  I worked my way through about a gallon of different polishes to get it to come out even half way shiny.  Even then, I had to use a liberal helping of wax to get it to shine.  I'll have to do some more research into the various finishing processes.  I think the next speakers will have their own clean room to spray them in instead of using a brush in the garage.  Of course right after I put on a thick coat of varnish, the garage door broke, leaving the door half way open, my sawdust, and road grime, wafted over the honey sticky varnish with each breeze!

My arms are tired from polishing and sanding.  They look great however, as long as you don't look too close.  I'm sure I'm hyper critical since I built them and know where every shameful dab of wood putty lies.



These speakers really fill up the room from just a little sound source.  They only need about 30 watts max but do fine with far less.  The drivers are 4.5 inch full range speakers from Fostex.  They need to spend some time playing in I'm told.  Some people say they need to play at least a hundred hours before they start to sound how they will stabilize.  I'm sure the bendy areas need some time to get loose.  To me they sound great already.

All my friends love them.  They comment at how large the sound stage is.  I think that's an effect of the large wave guides.  They make the speakers have a much larger apparent area of sound emanation.  The staging sounds really good and you can close your eyes, sitting on the couch and really visualize where each member of the band is playing at.  You can tell where the singer is standing and you can tell when she takes a breath.  A very crisp reproduction.  I can't wait to hear it after the drivers have a had a bit of time to burn in.

I've learned that you really need good tools to do a good job.  My craftsman table saw is really just a toy.  I made a sled for it and that helped a great deal.  Instead of pushing the stock into the spinning blade, you just put the stock on the sled and then push the sled into the blade to complete the cut.  It's an idea someone else told me about and it works really well.

My next speaker project will be even more complex.  The next one will have an internal horn folded into the box.  I'm even thinking of making one of the sides out of acrylic so you can see the horn.  That will make for a very interesting speaker.

This addiction to sound is really fun!  I'm learning a great deal.  I want to get  a special program that lets you design speakers from scratch.  They aren't very expensive.  The problem arises when you realize you don't actually understand what you are doing.  Ha ha.

Here's the pile of wood I started out with.




And here is the box before I glued it up and began the finishing process:



Gluing up the wave guide steps:



Next time I'll spend more time shaping them.  That's MDF  medium density fiberboard and it' causes cancer according to the sticker mounted to the board.  It's basically a sponge when it comes to paint or anything like that.  I literally sprayed a whole can of spray paint into each of those assemblies trying to get them to look good.  They just sucked it up, every bit.

Here's my sled.  I know, it's pretty lame.  It makes good cuts, though:



Remember that the blade is sharp!  I did this just brushing up against the blade when the saw was off:




A good build.  I still have all eight of my fingers!  Ha ha ha.
Let me know what you think of my speaker project.  There is someone on line selling these speakers for over four thousand dollars a pair!  I tell you, they are worth every penny.