Ou7shined Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 Totally hacked off with the crappy tosh we have to play through at our rehearsal rooms I decided to take my own kit along. As some of you know I'm perfectly happy with my 4x10 but as easy as it is to lug about, I'm not taking it back and forth to practice. I wanted something more compact for the tiny rooms we practice in. I set my heart on a wee 2x10. Despite me badgering him, my favourite custom cab designer/maker (Dave Perry - EAD cabs) doesn't currently do a 2x10 ... besides I'm skint... so the only option left is is to build my own. So I started reading up on the subject. Bad idea. Before the research I would have been happy in my ignorance to just bang some nice drivers into whatever cab design I felt like putting together (I envisioned a nice as compact as possible 2x10 vertical stack). It's not that easy. You have to design a cab which is "tuned" to your requirements. Furthermore it turns out that if you get it wrong you're screwed and have to start all over again... so you take a leap of faith.. or nick someone else's full established and tested design. I considered a few different established designs that I already knew, such as the [url="http://a4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/21/09b4f4762c9aa1ceb9880a8d8550d315/l.jpg"]Eden [/url][size=4][url="http://a4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/21/09b4f4762c9aa1ceb9880a8d8550d315/l.jpg"]D210XST[/url], the [url="http://www.keymusic.com/gfx_productcode/90916/EBS-Neo-210-Evolution-NeoLine-Pro.jpg"]EBS Neo 210[/url] and obviously the [url="http://www.derringers.com.au/product_images/z/451/STD102HF__26643_zoom.jpg"]Markbass 102HF[/url] (little brother to my 4x10) riding as the favorite. They all folowed the same basic front ported design. I read up on it and it turned out that the orientation of the porting matters not a jot. I discovered that the difference between a front ported Markbass 2x10 and it's identical rear ported twin is a (disputed) trade off between some bottom end for much more compact design. I was prepared to take the risk to get me closer to my original vision. [/size] So it looks like I'm building a [url="http://www.dv247.com/assets/products/55118_l.jpg"]Markbass 102P[/url] clone. I've never auditioned one but the reviews are good and I obviously have a lot of faith in the product line. Next I needed to draw up my design. I approached a couple of BCers whom I knew had 102Ps for their assistance on some of the finer details but sadly neither of them were able to help. So all I had to go on was the [url="http://www.markbass.it/product_detail.php?id=37"]external dimensions[/url] off the website and a handful of pics of the net. I had already scored a pair of Eminence Basslite S2010 drivers for this project but my trusty custom cab designer friend thought that although the ones I had would be fine, I'd be a lot happier with a pair of Deltalite II 2510's - I complied. I scored a Eminence APT80 tweeter off a mate who'd bought a Zoot cab but the [url="http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d67/ou7shined/tweeter.jpg"]tweeter fixing lugs[/url] hadn't survived the courier and it arrived to him [url="http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d67/ou7shined/tweeter_corners.jpg"]shattered in bits[/url] - I knew I'd somehow be able to knock up some kind of new fixing mechanism. And my cab designer buddy advised me to get a 3.5 Khz crossover, which was fine as I'd been eyeing up an Eminence PXB2-3K5 all along. So there you have it all top Eminence parts. If I get this right it has the potential to sound just dandy. Next stage was more familliar territory for me... making stuff out of wood... 12mm ply to be exact. I think this is a good point to mention that coming from good farming stock and not being overly challenged in the bicep department, I decided not to build an ultra lightweight cab. This bad boy will be fully braced and baffled. It's only a 2x10 after all. I started by forming the rear porting... ... and boxing it in... I got bored and drew some perfectly equidistant boobies... as you can probably tell this was the last job of the day.... Next day, clamps off, check the fittings (courtesy of EAD cabs for the price of a beer) ... finding a nice spot for the crossover... Also as you can see I've trimmed off the broken bits of the tweeter horn and fixing ideas are forming in my head. Some decent lateral bracing there boy... Through the round window... Overhead view to guage how best to place the front to back bracing... ... which ended up being like so... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted March 12, 2012 Author Share Posted March 12, 2012 (edited) Then I turned on the snow making machine... (actually this is the entire contents from one of our spare pillows... the g/f wasn't best pleased about this one) Ding dong merrily on high... Note how I rather elegantly resolved the tweeter horn dilemma. The MFD board surround sandwiches the lip of the horn to the cab. It has been treated with epoxy to strengthen it so it can bear the weight of the tweeter... which is close to that of one of the big drivers ... Then I glued the top on, routed the edges, banged it all together and took it inside to see if it all worked... Yup.... and to my surprise it sounded the tits...so much bass... I took it along to a couple of rehearsals to test it a full whack (well, half whack is all I managed before it got too loud) and it totally exceeded any expectations I'd had. I expected a polite bottom but this wee fella is about as polite in the booty department as Beyonce. And loud too - at 4ohms shes pulling all 500w of available juice from my Little Mark. So having road-tested it for a couple of weeks (and had my first noise complaint from the neighbours in the 2 years since we moved in) and found no issues, I decided it was time to get the Tolex on. Also by this time I'd saved up enough pocket money for the attenuator. I'll probably just leave it set at full most of the time (as I do with my 4x10) but it's a nice feature to have on the cab. The original 102P has the attenuator dial on the top (viewed as a side by side 2x10). I think that although this could be quite handily positioned when the cab is standing vertically, it also could be a vulnerable spot for load-ins, beer spills etc. So after much deliberation I decided to decrease the amount of utilised sides by one and place mine at the rear beside the I/O plate. Lovely jubbly... At this point I noticed that the face plate for the dial had a not so handy recess through to the back of it, which if you torqued down the retaining screws the full amount you'd need for it not to shake loose could lead to it snapping. The obvious thing to do here would be to open out the hole way more or rout out a recess for it to sit in, for various reasons neither of which I chose to do... instead I made a temporary padder gasket from cardboard. Next I painted the front black ready to get the Tolex on (forgot to take a pic here) Never having done Tolexing before and wanting to keep it to a minimum I originally decided to spray the ports black too... (little did I know at the time that I'd actually come to enjoy the fiddly job of fitting the Tolex and subsequently cover over this paint) Here's where the attenuator sits seen from the inside... Here also, you'll catch your first glimpse of the stupidly expensive QED speaker cable I'm using for this cab... it's ok though I already had yards of the stuff from when I installed my hi-fi so no extra outlay. Edited March 13, 2012 by Ou7shined Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted March 12, 2012 Author Share Posted March 12, 2012 Measuring up for the Tolex.... And this is what I worked out in order to have the minimum amount of seams as possible. I kind of boobed here as, had I known how easy it is to create a seamless join I'd have just cut a straight section and not wrecked the leftover part at the expense of what I needed and just fitted a separate Tolex panel at the rear. Hey presto! Unfortunately the pics don't do it justice. The Tolex is cream not white. From here on in imagine a café latte colour. The attenuator connections... ... and fitted behind the baffling... ... how the tweeter is wired... Drivers in and ready for the custom made grill... And here it is... with the corners on too.... One of the handles... Night time shot to see if I can capture the creamy Tolex... Nope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted March 12, 2012 Author Share Posted March 12, 2012 Day light? ... nope again. You'll just have to trust me it is cream. That's it really. The corners probably need trimming in order to make them match the thickness of the 12mm ply walls but it doesn't bother me the way it is so I think I'll just leave them like this for now. I'm not good at getting my thoughts of sound quality over but all I can say is that this guy sounds "real". A P bass sounds like a P bass, my 'ray sounds like a ray, one of my '51 P's that I had fallen out of love with is now punching like a bastard again, my G&L L-1000 simply sings old school through it. They all just sound like recordings. I somehow doubt that the original cab sounds this good. So where did I get lucky? The bracing? Maybe I just stumbled over the correctly voiced internal cubic litre-age for the drivers. I dunno... but I like. Thanks for watching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eude Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 (edited) Nice work Rich! That's looking great! You're a dark horse... Did you tell me about this at Moffat? I don't think I got THAT drunk... Eude Edited March 12, 2012 by eude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deksawyer Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 I like it too!! D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted March 12, 2012 Author Share Posted March 12, 2012 [quote name='eude' timestamp='1331587195' post='1575514'] Nice work Rich! That's looking great! You're a dark horse... Did you tell me about this at Moffat? I don't think I got THAT drunk... Eude [/quote] Cheers man. It was but a mere twinkle in my eye back then. I literally built this over a weekend and then took a day to cover it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwardHimself Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 It looks good. Honestly, I think all that bracing is possibly overkill really. I have built a 2x10 cab before and even without all that bracing it was extremely solid. Mind you, I did use 18 mm ply, but I just based that off what I measured from my old SWR cab. Heavy stuff. But yeah, looks good mate. Sure it won't be coming apart any time soon! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eude Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 [quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1331587587' post='1575524'] Cheers man. It was but a mere twinkle in my eye back then. I literally built this over a weekend and then took a day to cover it. [/quote] Most impressed matey, very quick work too! Is this another arm to Osprey Guitars?... Eude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bozzie Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 looks really good, very impressed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eude Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 What did it cost you to build too mate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discreet Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 (edited) [quote name='EdwardHimself' timestamp='1331587713' post='1575527'] ...I think all that bracing is possibly overkill really...[/quote] You can [i]never [/i]have too much bracing! [quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1331587587' post='1575524'] I literally built this over a weekend and then took a day to cover it.[/quote] Very very neat job indeed, Rich. Check out the J12 build in my sig! Edited March 13, 2012 by discreet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShergoldSnickers Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 You don't see many pro commercial cabs looking that good. Very few in fact. What a great job you've done there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neepheid Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I'll allow myself a smug "I'm probably going to get a shottie of it before all of you" Seriously though Rich, looks fantastic, can't wait to see it for real (and confirm that it isn't white ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StraightSix Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Very nicely done - I've been toying with a decent 2X10 design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shizznit Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 That's probably one of the most professional looking home-made cabs I have ever seen! You should be proud of yourself Ou7shined. 1st class job mate! My mate is going to build me a 210 foldback monitor in the summer dedicated to my bass amp signal only (HD350 backline/Reidmar monitoring). I am going to ask EBS very kindly if they can sell me a couple of 10" speakers and a tweeter for the project. I'm not doubting my mates carpentary skills, but I can probably expect it to not look as good as your effort! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 [quote name='eude' timestamp='1331627755' post='1575930'] Most impressed matey, very quick work too! Is this another arm to Osprey Guitars?... Eude [/quote] It could well be. I really enjoyed the process, I'm over the moon with the end result and would gladly do it again. [quote name='eude' timestamp='1331628506' post='1575949'] What did it cost you to build too mate? [/quote] Tough one man. The only components I actually paid full whack for was the ply, the crossover, the attenuator, the Tolex, a couple of bags of 1/2" 6 screws for the corners, oh and I had to outsource (the very thought ) the custom fit grille. Everything else was done on the cheap. I bought the 2510's second hand for a feckin steel (they'd never even been fitted in a cab), Matt bartered his tweeter for some of my time, Dave offered me the back plate and handles (isn't he just the best), I already had the corners from when I was going to fit them to my old Schroeder... but didn't, the grommets that hold the grille on are actually unused tap washers that I had in my parts box, the paint, glue, cabling and spade connectors I already had. If you think that drivers now cost £110 each, I'm guessing that you wouldn't get much change back from £400 buying everything at retail. That's a sobering thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 [quote name='discreet' timestamp='1331629002' post='1575966'] You can [i]never [/i]have too much bracing![/quote] That's so true (without getting silly of course). What I never realised before embarking on this project is that the bracing's primary function is not to strengthen as you might naturally think but to eliminate the counterproductive vibrations of the cabinet walls. Apparently a good way to test if a cab is well designed is to rap it with your knuckles, if it sounds like a hollow box then it's gash, if it sounds like you're hitting a rock then you're onto a winner. [quote name='discreet' timestamp='1331629002' post='1575966'] Very very neat job indeed, Rich. Check out the J12 build in my sig! [/quote] Nice one. Great read too. I really like the the underlay for baffling... I wish I'd thought of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 [quote name='neepheid' timestamp='1331632764' post='1576048'] I'll allow myself a smug "I'm probably going to get a shottie of it before all of you" Seriously though Rich, looks fantastic, can't wait to see it for real (and confirm that it isn't white ) [/quote] That you will sir. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 Thanks for the all nice comments so far you lot. [quote name='ShergoldSnickers' timestamp='1331631070' post='1576004'] You don't see many pro commercial cabs looking that good. Very few in fact. What a great job you've done there. [/quote] [quote name='shizznit' timestamp='1331633387' post='1576076'] That's probably one of the most professional looking home-made cabs I have ever seen! You should be proud of yourself Ou7shined. 1st class job mate! My mate is going to build me a 210 foldback monitor in the summer dedicated to my bass amp signal only (HD350 backline/Reidmar monitoring). I am going to ask EBS very kindly if they can sell me a couple of 10" speakers and a tweeter for the project. I'm not doubting my mates carpentary skills, but I can probably expect it to not look as good as your effort! [/quote] Thanks especially for this. I'm glad it comes over in the pics. I have buckets of respect for the work that Dave Perry does with his exquisite EAD cabs. He really has raised the bar when it comes to choosing the perfect components/materials and attention to detail. And so having seen his work in the flesh and realising what level of detail is possible... indeed mandatory, I just gave it my best effort... and I think it has paid off. My biggest yardstick however, was my g/f who is famously underwhelmed by all the amazing things I build with my own 2 hands. I was just putting the final touches to the cab when she strolled into the workshop rabbiting on about her work or something when she clocked it, stepped back and just gasped... for the first time ever she was genuinly blown away by one of my creations. She was closely followed by my 6 year old who expressed similar astonishment... my proudest moment ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sk8 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 [quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1331638090' post='1576192'] My biggest yardstick however, was my g/f who is famously underwhelmed by all the amazing things I build with my own 2 hands. I was just putting the final touches to the cab when she strolled into the workshop rabbiting on about her work or something when she clocked it, stepped back and just gasped... for the first time ever she was genuinly blown away by one of my creations. She was closely followed by my 6 year old who expressed similar astonishment... my proudest moment ever. [/quote] Awesome Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eude Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 [quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1331635128' post='1576122'] If you think that drivers now cost £110 each, I'm guessing that you wouldn't get much change back from £400 buying everything at retail. That's a sobering thought. [/quote] That's not bad at all when you think about it mate, the MarkBass 102P Cab lists about £650, so you've built something for a lot less, that's likely a lot better, looks a lot cooler and it's all yer own. Reckon you should get your logo on it and make it official Eude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sk8 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 [quote name='eude' timestamp='1331638671' post='1576211'] Reckon you should get your logo on it and make it official Eude [/quote] Is that the one of a big spurting cock? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eude Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 [quote name='sk8' timestamp='1331639055' post='1576227'] Is that the one of a big spurting cock? [/quote] I'm fairly sure that's the one yes... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ou7shined Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 You guys. If I ever build you a bass Mike that's what's going on the headstock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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