Last Thursday, I went to the Building Box and got a sheet of 1" MDF cut to size for one tower cabinet. The cost of cutting was only $2 and was very accurate. Absolutely no need to buy or rent (or learn how to use) a table saw if you don't already have one. Since I was using 1" panels, I increased all external dimensions by 3/4" to maintain internal volume (Wayne's plans called for 5/8" board). Why just one cabinet? Guess I was scare to commit to two until I have a good feel for what I'm doing.

With the panels leaning in our front hall, it was the first time that it hit me how big these speakers are going to be (see other post "Towers are Huge!". Even though I had thought of resizing, I still proceeded to assemble the first cabinet over the weekend. Who knows? I might look better once it's put together.

Four hours were spent on Sat cutting the holes for the drivers and putting the front, top, and sides together with lots of glue and 5/16" dowels. I would have liked to use biscuits, but I didn't have the tools. With dowels, all you need is a power drill, and a handful of brass plug/spikes to align the holes. The use of dowels made dry fitting a breeze! A suggestion to first time builder: Get more clamps. You can never have too many clamps. Also, a good metal square is extremely helpful.

With the 1" panels, dowels, and glue, the box was rock solid. But I still spent 3 hours on Sunday installing bracing (you can never over-brace). In addition to the two sets of cross-brace suggested by Wayne, I also inserted right-angled triangular pieces to brace the side panel to the front and rear baffles. The triangles were cut from the MDF and measured 5"x5"x7". By my calculations, I have about 280 in^3 of bracing in this cabinet, so I'll have to adjust the port size for this.

Right now, I have a partically completed cabinet sitting in the corner of our living room. I won't be able to get to it again until the weekend. My wife's nickname for it is "Monster". I keep taunting her about the second cabinet to come. While the cabinet is large, I'm getting used to it and I'm starting to think that it fits the room. Our living room is about 18'x20' with a sloped ceiling from 11' to 15'. However, I'm still toying with the idea of reducing the height by 6".

to be continued...

More to come as project progresses

• http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/lowgc

take care
craig.

So if you haven't already cut the port hole, I'd suggest making it 4 3/4" diameter for panel thickness of 1". If you've already cut it, you may be able to enlarge it a little bit. Since the hole for a 1" baffle is slightly larger than for the thinner baffles, it probably shouldn't be too difficult to modify if a smaller hole has already been cut. It's better to have a hole too small than one too big, since enlargements can be done without patching.

The only cuts I made were the holes for the drivers. I used a handheld jigsaw for that. All the panels were cut for me to spec from a single sheet of 8x4 MFD from The Building Box (a variation of Home Depot here in Toronto). All I had to do was give there cutting centre a cutting diagram.

I terms of assembly, I used a power drill and a jig to drill the holes for the dowels. The jig was $35(Cdn) and is an attachment to the drill to allow you to drill at preset angles (in this case, 90 degrees).

Obviously, I couldn't clamp the inside bracing while the glue dried. For those, I screwed the in from the inside. I may or may not back the screws out later.

gar.