If the larger photos are "wopperjaw" in your browser, try these .....

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Photo 2 is here.

Computers .....

I'm so happy to be retired from the IT industry .....  

Happy listening,
Randy

Good morning Donnie,

Village idiot ?  I hardly think so .....

I had forgotten that your line of work was in tools .....  very cool.

My little "retirement hobby / business" (Caintuck Audio) is something that I just kind of backed into.  The tools I started out with were pretty much what you might find in the garage of a weekend handyman "duffer".

I was playing with some open baffle speaker projects and cutting out the baffles and driver holes with a cheap Black and Decker jigsaw and rough cut blades.  The results looked like they were chewed out by the teeth of a wild animal .....

I commonly referred to myself on the (now defunct) Hawthorne Audio forum as the "hillbilly wood butcher".

When I decided to offer a few of my projects to the public, I spent a few dollars on some slightly nicer tools ..... but didn't spend a lot of money since I had no idea how much they would be used.
Since then, I have come to appreciate that money spent for good tools is seldom wasted.  None of my tools are "world class", but I did end up buying a SuperMax drum sander that has made life a lot easier ..... especially when making the "two-tone" baffles.

I certainly appreciate your input and will check into coated router bits.
If you have any specific recommendations, please let me know what they are.  I primarily use top bearing router bits that work very nicely with the templates I made for the baffle and driver cutouts.

Since 75% to 90% of the baffles I sell are made from 3/4" rotary sawn plywood, the router bits I have been using have done a good job ..... but whatever the core material is on the Melamine panels that were used for this project was not very "kind" to the router bit .....  

Thanks again and best wishes,
Randy

Donnie,

Will do ..... thanks for the heads up .....

Happy listening,
Randy

Betsy's are on my wish list....one day! Do you have any idea what the Melamines sound like? Just curious.

Hi guys,

Interesting question .....  

Since I don't have the drivers mounted yet, I haven't been able to listen to the speakers ..... I hope to have the drivers within a few days.

A couple of thoughts .....

Because the baffles I am building are not very large and the Betsy drivers are not producing the amount of vibration that a larger driver would, I don't believe that there is a huge difference sonically between the various materials I have used ..... with a couple of exceptions.

Betsy baffles made from Bubinga and Purpleheart hardwoods are noticeably more detailed and "focused" than any of the other baffles I have made.
The only thing I can think of that would account for this is that these hardwoods are very hard and dense.
Depending on the front end equipment, recording and amplifier being used ..... this could be a blessing or a curse. With a custom pentode amplifier that a friend in California built for me (which has a VERY extended high frequency response), the results could be a bit over the top at times .....  

The same effect might very well apply to the Melamine baffles.
There is a certain amount of "porosity" to the plywood baffles and to varying degrees to most hardwoods.

The Melamine surface is certainly more reflective than plywood and most (if not all) hardwoods ..... and since the Melamine surface is used on both the front and the back of the baffle, it might end up having a large impact on the sound.

When the drivers arrive and I get them installed, a few days will be spent listening to them before shipping and I can A / B them with a couple of other baffles made from different materials.

I will report back with the results .....  

Mad scientist Randy in Caintuck

When I started this thread, Acetone and deucekazoo asked if there was a difference in the sound of the Melamine baffles compared to the standard plywood and hardwood baffles.

A few days ago, I completed the Betsy and Betsy Deuce baffles and installed the drivers.  Last night, I finally had a chance to check them out in my home listening room and was able to A / B them with a pair of red oak plywood baffles.  Since I didn't have a pair of Betsy Deuces on hand, the comparison was only made with the single driver Betsy version.

As Acetone and deucekazoo suspected, the hard surface of the Melamine definitely does have an impact on the sound ..... and since both the front and back of the baffle is made from the same material it is fairly easy to hear with a revealing front end and amplifier.

Deucekazoo offered the word "bounce" ..... and that is a pretty good description of what I heard from the Melamine baffles.
The Melamine surface adds a bit of "sparkle" to the sound in comparison with the red oak plywood.
The effect was interesting and enjoyable with most recordings that I played ..... but on recordings that were a bit "thin" tonally or a bit "hot" in the upper frequencies, it could be too much of a good thing .....

I hear pretty much the same thing from baffles made from Bubinga and Purpleheart hardwoods.  They have excellent control and detail, but if the source (recording) is not well balanced they can be a little "over the top".

There's that system matching thing again .....

If anyone should decide to make a pair of baffles from this material for themselves, you might want to have a couple of spare jigsaw blades and a spare router bit on hand ..... since whatever was used for the "core" on the particular Melamine panels I used laid waste to my blade and bit .....

Twelve days and counting to Decware Fest 2018 .....  

Everyone have a safe trip,
Randy