Title: Re: New website page - partially completed baffles
Post by Steve Deckert on 09/12/20 at 04:03:47
Quote:| I must admit that since I made the decision to only offer baffles made from hardwood, it has reignited my enjoyment of working in the shop. |
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Hehe, I can relate that! It's interesting that as long as I wanted to build another shop, my intensions during that wishfulness were just to get back what I had, and make more speaker boxes... meaning a particle board , plywood and MDF or whatever you can buy at Menards shop.
Then after I built it, it was so new and fresh I couldn't stand to put my old table saw that had been setting outside for 15 years in the rain and snow... into that nice shop so I gave it away and purchased a new one. That of course started something, and then I began to really think about what do I want to make... well what do I need,... well it would be nice to be able to go out there and build an amplifier base from hardwood...
That will require a jointer and a planer... ok fine, and so on the story goes.
The interesting thing is that the only sheet goods, and that was birch plywood, that came into that shop was last year when Bob and I make a pair of "Big Betsy" baffles from birch plywood. Besides that, everything that has been made in there has been from solid hardwood. Not even veneer.
I have zero desire to make anything from anything else. In fact I dread the thought because I know there will be at least some things I will have to make from sheet goods... it is just so satisfying to make something that is solid instead of veneered. Not many speakers can be made from solid hardwood without cracking or splitting. I would say 98% of them probably can't. The Tiny Radial can because it has no top or bottom or center bracing. It can shrink or expand all it wants to without issue until you put a top bottom or internal brace in it and then watch it just self-destruct as it cures. A flat baffle is the same, it has no conflicts.
Hardwood has a sound.
While Tiny Radials are cool, they are so small that the hardwood is only appreciated at ultra close range. The Betsy Baffles are large enough that you really get to enjoy the wood without having to have it a foot away from your face.
Anyway, I too look forward to making stuff in my shop because everything in there is hardwood. It's a small shop. Dust collection, and clean. In my old shop, it was large, in the ghetto, had big open doors and a concrete floor that could have been mistaken for dirt... in there the mess made everything cleaner. I like this life better : )
BTW, I measured the sound my table saw makes with the really good blade and zero clearance insert ( because it is so damn annoying I have to wear ear plugs) and it was 2132Hz. This what happens when you mix speaker designer with wood worker... ; )
Steve
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