# New Speaker Cabinet



## Jimmy_D (Jul 4, 2009)

I know it's not a guitar build but it is a guitar related build, so I hope everyone's okay with it in this section.


I need a new speaker cabinet, I’ve been playing my Rockerverb 50 through an older Vox 4x12 cabinet but I’ve been contemplating a new cab for some time. I knew I wanted something with an Alnico speaker but I had some other requirements that weren’t that easily meet by your typical speaker cabinet…


Leaving design aside for a minute, I wanted a 4x10 cab not a 4x12, for me a little less boom or presence is what I like and 4x10 does that for me, right there you’re screwed as standalone 4x10 cab’s are hard to find off the shelf. Never mind one with more interior space, a large heavy baffle and closed back, all things I think I need to make this work.


To me having your bottom speakers 1 1/2” off the ground and pointing straight ahead isn’t ideal, and with a head and cab configuration tilting stands and legs are out. I also wanted the speakers sit on an angle upwards and “fan out” slightly, rather than pointing straight ahead and stacked directly on top of each other.


My last issue is the cabinet is going to sit in my music room and I’d like something that looks a little more like a piece of furniture than your typical speaker cab, so the 26”square box on the floor didn’t appeal to me so much, even when dressed up in a nice tolex.


After reading all I could handle on speaker cab construction, calculations on interior shape/volume etc, I set out to design and build something that met my requirements. Over the last Xmas holidays I came up with this, it’s 32.375” high x 30” wide x 14” deep, the bottom speakers are 8” off the floor and all the speakers will sit in the baffle pointing up on a 3 degree angle.


In the end the form has pretty much followed the functions noted above, although I’ve sprinkled in a few elements to perk up my interest level. Although it may appear at times as though I’ve lost it, I’m really hoping that when I finish it and plug it in, I find out I haven’t.


Here it is;












Construction is a full 19mm thick 13 ply White Birch board, except the curved sides which are bent laminated 17mm thick 5 ply White Birch. The top and the face will be double thickness and there are two bottoms, one to hold everything together at the floor and another a few inches up because I had to reduce the interior volume slightly.


The back panel and trap door are the same 19mm Birch but they have a 1/16” dark grey phenolic backer on both sides, white glue cold-pressed. This adds a ton of strength to the panel and finishes the backside of the cabinet at the same time, the baffle is also cut from this same laminated material which ends up being a full 7/8”.


I cut all these parts on a cnc, cutting small pieces in plywood is sometimes tricky because of the vacuum hold down and some parts can move, so I onionskinned the parts on panels leaving 1.5mm of material holding everything together, you remove the part from the blank with a router and straight cut bearing bit.













































With construction done I was ready to sand and clad the exterior, but with what? No tolex for me on this one that’s for sure… Part two to follow.


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## Jimmy_D (Jul 4, 2009)

When I started this project it was my intention to finish it in one of two ways, either to veneer it in Mahogany and do a TV yellow finish or to veneer it in flame Maple and do a burst finish. The TV yellow is a no brainer but a burst finish is a little different, where are the burst edges and amber centers, all sides? just around the face? so I put it aside to mull it over and build some guitars.


While ordering materials for those guitar builds I found a new supplier for celluloid, and he had some great colours available, then it hit me, cover the cab in celluloid and do the next one in a wood finish, so I ordered this celluloid.


The sheets are 14” x 20” x 1/16” thick and 9 sheets will do the job;












Now I know there are issues with celluloid bindings on old guitars crumbling up and falling off, but since I was a kid I marvelled at how the Italian’s covered accordions in this material and they had little to no issues, so I knew there was a way to do it right. I also knew that I had never seen anything this large covered in celluloid before so there were going to be some tricky parts to deal with, but I pressed forward hoping experience would solve those as they came up...


To deal with the crumbling/drying issues I decided to use Cyano glue as the adhesive instead of acetone glop as they did back when, and then use a clear nitro lacquer top coat to seal everything in. Testing with the actual materials produced excellent results and that was the last thing I needed to confirm before I took the dive and started gluing sheets.


This past weekend, with numerous guitars under construction, I found myself with a bit of a gap for drying time and in need of more work, so I took the plunge and started cladding the speaker cab, once started I had to finish.


I can tell you it’s very tricky handling large surfaces covered in cyano glue, you have literally two minutes to apply the glue and clamp the piece in place before the glue goes off and you’re royally screwed if everything isn’t perfectly lined up, two minutes max, and then there’s the fumes from that stuff…
Sides done;












Then I laminated the face and it was onto a small ¼” x ¼” bevel that runs around the top to take off the hard edge;












The top is done last and with that the glue fumes are gone, aside from the glue fumes I can say I love working with this material.

Now that the cab is clad it’s time to scrape everything flush, sand the whole thing to 220 grit, round the corners that need it and break the remaining edges.
The idea is that even though there are 20 something joints in the surfaces on this cab, they need to be good enough and disappear enough that it looks like the work was “dipped” in celluloid; hopefully that is where I’m at now.

It was a tricky bit of work covering this thing.

It’ll wait for clear coat until I have some guitars to spray, I plan on running a small white piping around the speaker opening, both to trim out the opening and to act as a seal between the baffle and cabinet face, and I’ll order some grill cloth, probably a Fender style silver with black. I’m going to use an Electrosocket for input jack and wire four 10” Celestion golds for 16 ohms.


Here she is sanded ready to spray;











One more doused in naphtha to give us an idea of what a few coats of clear nitro will do;


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

WOW!!! Thanks for all the detailed information and the many pics.
I am VERY impressed...to say the least.

I hope it sounds as fantastic as it looks.

When I saw your pics, this is the first thing that came to my mind...maybe it was your inspiration for the build??








(Gdansk, Poland)

Cheers

Dave


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

First, what a piece of carpentry work.

Second, the planning involved to achieve the various routed parts to fit everything together is....mind-boggling. I'm assuming you're retired because it would be hard to keep all the ideas straight if one was not able to devote continuous time to it, and had to do it a weekend day at a time, here and there.

Third, many thanks for all the excellent pics.

Fourth...what the hell possessed you to make a purple pearloid formica-covered trapezoidal speaker cab?!


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

mhammer said:


> ...purple pearloid formica-covered trapezoidal speaker cab


That has "a very nice ring to it"...especially when you say it a bit fast.

mhammer mentions the planning involved...which requires some VERY significant math calculations. Hence, I build only square and rectangular stuff.

Waiting to hear your comments as to the sound you get.

Cheers

Dave


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## jbealsmusic (Feb 12, 2014)

Wow! Beautiful craftsmanship!


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## Gizmo (Aug 7, 2008)

Holy smokes! 
Amazing work.
Also looking forward to hearing how it sounds.


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

I was going to suggest it might be better in the amp build section but regardless of where it ends up I'm completely gobsmacked (stunned) by the quality of the build. Superb choice of both style and finish materials in my humble opinion, wow, wow, wow!


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## vadsy (Dec 2, 2010)

I want to build an amp now and have you build the cab. 

Looks killer!


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## nnieman (Jun 19, 2013)

Looks great

And why not a purple pearloid formica-covered trapezoidal speaker cab?

Excellent craftsmanship

Nathan


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## Guest (Jul 29, 2015)

greco said:


> (Gdansk, Poland)
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Dave




beetlejuice! beetlejuice! beetlejuice!


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

I built a cabinet like that once. 

Sadly I was shooting for rectangular. Woodworking ain't my thing.


That looks stunning - a conversation piece like a pair of Magnaplanars in the living room. Nicely done.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

High/Deaf said:


> I built a cabinet like that once.
> 
> *Sadly I was shooting for rectangular. *Woodworking ain't my thing.
> 
> ...


Thanks for my morning laugh!!

*@Jimmy_D* ...Have you loaded the cab and had a chance to play through it yet?

Cheers

Dave


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## Jimmy_D (Jul 4, 2009)

Thanks gents for your kind words, figuring out components and building it is the easy part for me, the tricky part is getting the design and plan right in the first place. 

Shape and finish is pretty much a personal choice, beauty being in the eye of the beholder and all... but with regard to function, I know from years of lurking in the Amp section of this forum that there are more than a few very knowledgeable members here, so I’d be interested in hearing what you guys think about the basic premise of my design – 4x10 as opposed to 4x12, a large heavy baffle and closed back, speakers angled up and fanned out.

BTW in case I wasn’t clear the purple material is sheet celluloid 1/16” thick, the same material a lot of bindings and inlays are made of, the back of the cab is a phenolic resin sheet, which while similar to a typical plastic laminate like formica, is not the same. Black paper phenolic, sometimes called Bakelite is a thicker and much tougher material.

I’ll post some updated pics once I start spraying clear, thanks again, Jim.


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## JHarasym (Mar 27, 2007)

mhammer said:


> a purple pearloid formica-covered trapezoidal speaker cab?!


Reminds me of a line from an old song from the sixties :

"It was a one-eyed, one-horned Flyin' Purple People Eater"


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Stunning work, and even more stunning results.

The angled rebate for the speakers is pure genius.

Peace, Mooh.


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## Dorian2 (Jun 9, 2015)

Damn. I've looked into a couple of techniques for building an amp, but I never imagined someone doing something like this.

It looks pretty special. And I think you hit the mark on creating a sweet piece of furniture for your room as well.

Can't wait for the completion.

Great job on that.


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## dodgechargerfan (Mar 22, 2006)

That's wild. Amazing work.
Purple wouldn't fit in my house, but I can see it fitting perfectly fine in your music room.


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## Jimmy_D (Jul 4, 2009)

I bought 4 Celestion Gold 10” speakers, a piece of Fender silver grill cloth and some white piping from Jon at Next Gen, who posts here on Guitars Canada.

I just wanted to say that Jon offered excellent service, you couldn’t ask for better, and despite the fact that I ordered at 3pm on Wednesday, everything was received less than 48 hours later. 

*Shipping was free* and his price including tax was the best option out there. 

Thank you Jon, and to anyone who's in the market, I suggest you shop Canadian and give Next Gen a shot.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Purple and Gold. The traditional colours of royalty. 

Bet those gold's sound sweet.


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## jbealsmusic (Feb 12, 2014)

Jimmy_D said:


> I bought 4 Celestion Gold 10” speakers, a piece of Fender silver grill cloth and some white piping from Jon at Next Gen, who posts here on Guitars Canada.
> 
> I just wanted to say that Jon offered excellent service, you couldn’t ask for better, and despite the fact that I ordered at 3pm on Wednesday, everything was received less than 48 hours later.
> 
> ...


Aww, thanks for the shout out. Can't wait to see/hear the fully finished product!


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

Impressive work Jim!

I look forward to the progress.


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## Jimmy_D (Jul 4, 2009)

I had some parts to spray over the weekend so I hit the cabinet with a few coats of lacquer. I think it's going to be a little over the top with the purple crushed velvet look and all... so I'm contemplating going all the way and using a gold cloth instead of the silver Fender cloth I have... maybe I should call in a designer?

Here's a taste of the colour, full pic's to follow when she's done.


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## Jimmy_D (Jul 4, 2009)

I can finish up this thread now, the cabinet ended up with numerous coats of clear nitro and I gave it a couple weeks to cure. Then it got a wet sand starting at 1200, finishing at 1600 grit and a polishing with paste and it’s done.

In went the 4 gold speakers and then I wired them with #16 AWG copper wire, the load is 16 Ohms total and it all feeds into an ElectroSocket input jack on the top at the back left corner.










Here’s a shot from the back taken before I cleaned it up, all hardware on this thing is stainless, screws and washers holding everything in place and air-tight.










I covered the baffle with a Fender style grill cloth and used a white PVC piping that I stapled onto the cabinet around the opening, the piping cleans up the edge of the cabinet at the cloth and really makes an excellent air seal around the face of the baffle.




















With regard to how it sounds... if these speakers are going to get any better with break-in then I’m going to say they were well worth the cost. These gold’s are great right out of the box, to me they sound better than the vintage 30’s and way better than the greenbacks, no question.

The cabinet is really air tight and the baffle is very strong, I think if you want a tight punchy speaker this is the way to go. This thing is incredible, the first low E note I hit made me look twice for which guitar I had plugged in, really good definition and response.

Sometime in the near future I’ll post some sound clips and some more opinions, right now I can tell you I’m really pleased with how my Rockerverb sounds through this cabinet, gonna try a few different heads and I’ll post my findings.


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## blam (Feb 18, 2011)

that is incredibly cool.


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## jbealsmusic (Feb 12, 2014)

Man that looks awesome. I'm sure it sounds killer too. Looking forward to the day I can build cabs that nice.


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## Dorian2 (Jun 9, 2015)

I was waiting for the end of this...hopefully continued with sound like you suggested.

Absolutely beautiful work!


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## ONFLOOR AUDIO (Jul 22, 2010)

Very cool and unique looking !!! 
Congratulation's !!


Just for fun ... what does this cab weigh in at ???


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

Excellent work, beautiful cab!


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## Jimmy_D (Jul 4, 2009)

Thanks guys, the finished cabinet weights in at just over 78 lbs but it still needs a couple of handles (because it's tricky to lift) and probably a set of casters, so it'll probably end up just over 80 lbs. 

It's really solid and has some serious presence, so I'm quite happy with how it turned out and how it sounds.

Looks like I'll be making another one of these in the next couple months, except it'll be veneered it in Honduras with a TV yellow finish and an oxblood grill cloth, I'll keep this thread updated when I start building.


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## nnieman (Jun 19, 2013)

Very nice, I'm looking forward to that!

Nathan


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## Jimmy_D (Jul 4, 2009)

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Jimmy_D (Jul 4, 2009)

I'm reviving this thread for another one of these cabinets, for almost 5 years I've really enjoyed playing through this cabinet, running numerous amps through it, with the Celestion Golds this cabinet is very hard to beat.

I think what I've learned with this build was (1) there's something to be said about an articulate speaker mounted on a stiff baffle in an airtight cabinet, it seems to pick up every nuance - it may just be the Golds but I like to think tight construction helps here. (2) that this 4x10 cabinet is a little tighter and a little less boomy and almost more a bit responsive than any closed back 4x12 cabinet I've compared it with - Orange / Marshall / Vox / Kustom.

For this one the construction is exactly the same as the first, both were cut using the same cnc file and from the same materials, the only difference is that once assembled and sanded flat, this one was veneered in Maple.

This cabinet is 14" deep and I had some nice flat sawn veneers 8" wide with some flame, so I bookmatched and stitched up the veneers then tried to centre the seam on the cabinet. The face is veneered in quartersawn 1/8" thick that I re-sawed off a wide board, all the veneer work was done with white glue and clamps - I thought about hammer veneering with fish or hide glue but the flats surfaces are just too long / wide for me cover that way.

The finish for this one is nitro lacquer over amber stain with grain highlighted by sanding back black stain, It'll have a gold/wheat grill cloth and gold piping to finish it off.

Here it is before and after it was stained based colour and then sealed clear, it's ready now for the tinted clear coats to darken up the amber a bit and add some depth to the finish.


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)

Jimmy_D said:


>


Bringing back an old design, eh?! Looking good.


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## Guitar101 (Jan 19, 2011)

Yes I remember this design. Looks great. I also remember building my 12" Cab back then which was hard enough. I can't even imagine trying to build this cab with all the angles. Nice work.


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## AJ6stringsting (Mar 12, 2006)

I used to be cabinet maker back in the late 1990's until a few years ago ....good work !!!


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## MarkM (May 23, 2019)

I was all pumped about showing you folks my COVID cabinet build, now I am not worthy!


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

MarkM said:


> I was all pumped about showing you folks my COVID cabinet build, now I am not worthy!


Certainly you are! 

Please post some pics. Thanks.


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## Jimmy_D (Jul 4, 2009)

greco said:


> Certainly you are!
> 
> Please post some pics. Thanks.


100% please do post


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## Jimmy_D (Jul 4, 2009)

I had a chance to spray this last week and this weekend it's final assembly.

Here's my baffle with the speaker studs and brace mounted, ready to wrap with grill cloth - you can see the speakers are sitting in angled dados to tilt them upwards. 

Thinking out loud here, it I don't see the point of mounting a speaker to a baffle with all sorts of give, this baffle is exactly the same design as my last and I think it produced great results - it's 3/4" Birch 13 ply with plastic laminate hot pressed using white glue on both faces - the brace is dadoed/glued/screwed into the face and whole unit is very strong, which IMO (judging mainly by how hifi speakers are built) allows the speaker to be as articulate as possible, last time out with Celestion Golds this cabinet was absolutely fantastic, winning the A/B test every time ....










Baffle wrapped with wheat grill cloth mounted in the cabinet with 2" screws (gold piping around the opening went on before the baffle)










Customer is supplying and installing his own speakers, here it is on the way out the door, thanks for watching...


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