stevie

I can definitely recommend Roland Lumby in Salford.

Gluing up the second side panel. (Evostik Resin W before you ask). And it's on! And the final piece of the jigsaw fits into place. Yes, it does look like a cab now, but there's still a fair bit to do. The only woodwork left is cutting the hole at the back for the Speakon. Before I paint it and fit it out, I'll check the resonance performance and decide whether to add any more bracing - but that can wait until the weekend. So close and yet so far! In case anyone is reading this and wondering why on earth is he messing about building his own cabinet.... Well, the cabinet makes a big difference to how a speaker sounds and performs, and you can't buy a bass cabinet as good as this. If you want do do a job properly, do it yourself.

Here is my trusty right-angle guide in action again. A few more braces on the top panel and we're ready to fix the baffle. Baffle on. It's starting to look a bit like a cabinet now. Just for interest, here is a photo of the clamping arrangement I used on the baffle. A bit belt and braces, I admit. I expect that laying the cabinet flat and putting some weights on the baffle would have done the same job.

This is the horn I'll be using for the HF. It's an asymmetrical design, which means its dispersion is 100 degrees at the top of the horn and 60 degrees at the bottom. The benefit is that you get maximum dispersion when you (and your bandmates) are close to and above the horn, but the dispersion narrows for those in the farfield, that is, the audience. The best of both worlds in other words. Also, the vertical dispersion is wide in an upward direction (towards your ears) and narrow in a downward direction (towards the floor). Having gigged with this horn arrangement, I can report that it works brilliantly. And it looks like this in the cab. Now to glue the first side panel on. In theory, gravity will do the job, but I decided to use clamps just because I have them. This is where I hit my first real snag. There was slight warpage at one end of the side panel, caused in all likelihood by the cut panels having sat in my cold garage for several months. Anyway, the back and side panel did not meet at 90 degrees at the bottom of the side panel. I've shown this on the photo below - sorry it's out of focus. The only way of fixing this was to now attach the bottom panel with screws to straighten the panel up. So, despite my original intention not to use any screws, I was forced to do so here. The next job was placing a vertical row of bracing strips up the side panel. As this may or may not be overkill, I won't install any on the opposite panel - so that I can check what effect they are having. Here we go. [PLEASE NOTE: I LATER FOUND THAT THESE SIDE PANEL BRACING STRIPS WERE INDEED OVERKILL AND NOT REALLY NECESSARY.]

For the horn cutout, I made a cardboard template based on the hole in the prototype cab. Unfortunately, my sawing was a bit off - so I used some fibreglass filler to make good. And started installing the t-nuts. I cut the hole for the port with my 5" hole saw.

I think Ghost Bass is capable of recognising loss of bass when he hears it. Maybe you should revise your theory, Bill, because I hear what he hears when I lift a cabinet up a couple of feet. You seem to be confusing half space conditions with floor bounce. It's perfectly easy to measure.

OK, Jack. Consider yourself provisionally committed!

The MNT has a much better bass driver. I'd expect it to handle most gigs on its own. The driver in the EXT isn't as capable. If it were my money (but it's not), I'd spend the extra, as I can't be bothered carrying multiple cabinets.

Great! Once we get a bit closer to 10, I'll make some serious enquiries and get a more concrete idea of price. No need to commit until then obviously.

Good move! I'm sure Phil will be along shortly.

Hi Jack, I'd be hoping for around £60 to £70, but that is obviously a guesstimate at this stage. We need to amortise the cost of programming the CAD design for the CNC machine. OEM quantities and prices normally start at around 50 units. We should be able to negotiate a decent deal with a smaller quantity, but nobody is going to get excited about supplying ones and twos. I'm sure we could also negotiate a good price for powder coated grilles and for t-nuts, feet, corners, paint, etc. (as well as drivers), especially if we're canny about delivery charges.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1505901353' post='3375038'] This. You don't lose coupling on most stands. I use one of [url="https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/stagg-gas-4-2-guitar-amplifier-stand?utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsLH6rL-z1gIVzbvtCh04_gOAEAQYASABEgIFGPD_BwE"]these[/url]. Adjustable, portable and affordable. [/quote] You won't lose bottom end with one of those. I'm not sure what the definition of a tall stand is, but if you go any higher than 18", you will lose bottom end.

That's true, Jack. But power handling at LF will drop to about 80W. Although they won't go as low as a single, two of those 10s in the same cab will handle about 200W.

Go here and click on Fearful Sub. http://greenboy.us/fEARful/DL/

Hi B.Flat. No, it doesn't really change anything. That's what I expected.

One of the keys to getting an active crossover to work properly is making sure that the drivers are flat an octave either side of the crossover frequency. At the moment, your 2x10 cab is rolling off just below 200Hz. This will produce a phase shift which in all likelihood will result in an unwelcome suckout in the very important 100 to 200Hz region when you pair it with your 15. This will happen whether or not you use an active crossover (unless you use asymmetrical slopes, but let's not get into that). The OP can get a good idea of what this sounds like simply by running both cabs together as they stand. I think the original suggestion was best. Although it's true that these drivers need a larger cabinet, if the OP ports the 2x10s as originally planned, he'll extend their frequency response down another octave or so, which will allow the crossover to work (more or less) as intended. It will also give him the opportunity to run both cabs together without a crossover. I am assuming you have a stereo power amp. (You shouldn't have any chuffing problems with two 4" ports). Using a crossover on your 2x10 means that you are potentially reducing system power handling by half because the tens are not handling any bass. Carrying a 70-litre midrange cabinet around with you is just silly. Plus, you would have the added flexibility of using the 2x10s on their own and taking the 15" cab along for the occasions when you need the extra oomph.

I wouldn't count your chickens, Peter; I don't see a queue forming yet. As far as an amp if concerned, I do know that Chienmort uses a lightweight 100W into 8-ohms amp (Gallien Krueger?) with his cab and it is very loud.

By the way, I've just realised that this cab design can be assembled without any screws or clamps. Details in the next set of photos.

Good man! If we get a bit more interest, I'll put some feelers out.

Now that the final circular brace has dried, I've glued in some small bracing pieces which really make the back panel solid. I've just placed the baffle on top, but you should be able to see that all you need to do now is clamp or screw the other external panels in place around the "skeleton", and the cab is finished. Apart from all the hole cutting, this is a really easy build. This is how a Kappalite driver fits. The final job for today is to drill the holes in the baffle for the t-nuts, and then I'm taking a break. More next week......

Here is the piece cut, drilled and glued into place. I eventually removed the clamps as they did more harm than good. Simply putting the bracing pieces firmly in place, lining them up properly with a right-angle guide, and using plenty of glue, works best. As the glue sets it shrinks slightly and pulls the pieces together.

Now we come to the final circular brace. I've used an offcut, but it would help if the wood supplier would also cut this piece to the right size. I'll see if John can alter the cutting list to include it. I've marked the piece up ready for cutting and sawing. [PLEASE NOTE: I LATER FOUND THAT THIS BRACE IS OVERKILL AND NOT REALLY NECESSARY. HOWEVER, THE FRONT PANEL DOES NEED A VERTICAL BRACE BETWEEN THE OPENING FOR THE HORN AND THE PORT (AS SHOWN IN CHIENMORTBB'S PHOTO - 50MM DEEP IS PLENTY). AND THE TOP PANEL SHOULD HAVE A SIDE-TO-SIDE BRACE AS SHOWN IN THE DRAWING.

Glad it's of interest, fftc. Gottastop, I'm building this cab for myself. So I'm going neo. The original drivers were selected with performance and price as the priorities, with weight a secondary consideration. This time round, I'm just interested in performance. The neo drivers I have are actually heavier than the Beyma/Celestion combination of ceramic drivers, but their performance is in a different league. I have a Ciare 500W 12" neo driver with a 4" coil and a DAS 1" neo compression driver with a titanium diaphragm. Both were eBay purchases and would have cost about £350 otherwise. I've also changed the horn to an asymmetric type, which is perfect for bass guitar use. There aren't any similar-sized commercial cabinet on the market with comparable perfomance - as far as I know anyway. I've gigged this design with the prototype cab and found the weight a bit offputting. The poplar ply cab I'm building now will be much lighter - so we'll see how it goes. If the weight is still a problem, I also have an Eminence Deltalite OEM variant from an American bass cab (can't remember the brand at the moment) which is pretty good and will save about 2.5kg overall. This is obviously of no interest to anyone wanting to build their own, as none of these neo drivers is readily available. However, Faital Pro are about to bring out a new 12" which ticks all the boxes for a killer bass cab. I've been talking to them about it and will receive a sample as soon as it is released. I've also negotiated a special price which I can pass on Basschatters if we get enough people interested - say about ten. I would then publish the design on here for everyone to use - using this cabinet. I'll provide more details if there's any interest. By the same token, if there is enough interest in building this final version of the cab, I'd be happy to negotiate with some CNC builders on everyone's behalf. We'd probably be looking at a minimum order of ten flatpack cabs to justify the CAD setup costs. As I am putting this cab together, I'm finding that the most time-consuming jobs are drilling and cutting the holes in the panels. I've just drilled the holes in the baffle for the main driver, and it took me half an hour - and I've not even inserted the t-nuts yet. A CNC'd cab could be assembled in a couple of hours over, say, three evenings and would require no woodworking expertise at all.

Second circumferential brace glued in place. One more brace to go. It's starting to take shape now. That's my right-angle guide in the bottom left-hand corner.

By the way, all of these panels were cut by the wood supplier according to the cutting list on page 1. Now to glue our second brace into place. This was tricky, because the clamps pulled the brace in different directions. After a lot of fiddling, I managed to get it into position using four clamps. I was missing the obvious, however. I should have learned my lesson when I glued the first brace into place: you do not need clamps for the braces. You will need some kind of right-angle guide when you're gluing the braces in, because keeping everything at right angles is crucial.