4 x 12 slanted & flat faced fullstack - DIY

flatfourfan

Myself and guidothepimp have decided to build ourselves a head each as a project, he's looking at the valve route and I'm looking for solid state. However to go along with this I've decided to build myself a angled cab as well as a straight faced cab. Why so much overkill?

Because I can.....lol and because I have 8 speakers and a tonne of wood just lying around.

I've been building car audio systems and club cabinets for cars, bakkie, trucks and clubs since I was about 16 years old and even though I stopped making them a few years back, I usually take on some extra work when I need a few extra bucks.

I started with pulling down my skateboard ramp a few weeks back and decided to re-use a few of the 18mm plywood sheets for a side project of mine as even though they have been outside for the better part of 3 years, they were pressure treated and rot treated from day one and they look brand new.

The slanted/ flat faced cabs are loosly based on a Marshall M412 1960 cab. I will be posting some sizes for anyone that's interested in them. I've decided not to use any larney fancy joinery on this cab as this is really a bit of a tester before I hit the marine grade stuff (when it arrives). I have several router tools made up that will allow for nice tongue and groove joints. The first tester cab however will have big fat dowles and will have the edges routered to give it a nice clean look. The front baffles however will be sunk into routered grooves on the sides which will allow for zero movement.

I have 2 sets of drivers that are going to be used. Fanes will be going in the slanted cab with 4 jensens going in the flat faced cab. Total output per cab is about 200rms. I took a host of pictures over the weekend of the cutting of the boards etc, but forgot to bring them into work, so this'll have to wait till tomorrow. I'm going to be doing some serious bracing on this cab, but also will be trying to keep the weight down...........lol.

Total build time on this should be about 2 weekends. Final finish will be high grade textured vinyl with white piping and this sucker will be on lockable (High quality) caster wheels. The lower cab will have slots so that they can fit into each other.

Stay tuned.

MikeM

Great stuff! Keen to see how it turns out. I like the idea of the baffle being recessed into the frame.

Personally I think dowels and butt joints will make for an extremely solid cab. Hope it turns out rocking ?

flatfourfan

MikeM wrote: Great stuff! Keen to see how it turns out. I like the idea of the baffle being recessed into the frame.

Personally I think dowels and butt joints will make for an extremely solid cab. Hope it turns out rocking ?

Cheers

I've seen a 18mm baffle with 4 cerwin vega stroker subs flex like it was a peice of 6mm hardboard, so I'd like to overkill the build a bit. I used to slot the base, top and sides of my cabs by 8/9mm when mounting the baffles as there really isn't no room for movement when doing it this way. Once the cab is built, the baffle isn't going anywhere.

On the inside of the box I'll still add cleats on all 4 corners to give it a bit of strength in case it's bashed while moving around.

Next the search for handles and corners start.

Karel-Mars

Great project

I have two bucket handles made from steel, if you want. I can get more if needed.

flatfourfan

Karel wrote: Great project

I have two bucket handles made from steel, if you want. I can get more if needed.

Thanks for the offer, but I'm trying to keep the weight down at this stage and my local audio supplier may come through with some heavy duty plastic ones for me by the weekend.

I also just found out this morning that the cabs are juuuuuuuuuuuuuust too big for my sash clamps.....oh well, I needed this to justify buying bigger ones.

flatfourfan

So we have an update. I managed to get some work done today on the first cabinet.

I decided not to router the slots in the sides as the cleats and slats inside the box, this bugger is going nowhere.

This is where the cabinet started. Old wood being reused. Waste not want not. Looking very tatty and at this stage I was thinking WTF............

After some work however the wood was cleaned up and looking a whole lot better.

Overall I'm more than happy with the work that's been done. I've cut the cleats for the inside as well as the batons that I'm going to be needing to brace the inside of the cabinet. This cabinet is plenty strong and I don't think that flexing is going to be an issue at all. One thing is for sure though, it's heavy and damn it's big.

Overall cost on this? Nothing, I re-used old wood, old screws.

I did have to use screws on the sides as I was hoping to use dowels, but after seeing that router bit wasn't going to cut the mustard, I decided, to hand sand the sides to get the bevelled edge that I was looking for.

Next is to flat the whole thing and give it it's first coat of matt black paint before the covering can go on. Still waiting on my handles, but at least I can get them from my local supplier. He's also supplying me with my castors, corners and input jacks.

flatfourfan

Been doing some work and I've managed to source 2 GT12t-75's for the first cab and I have a friend trying to source me some v30's as well as I'm sold on that combo for a rock/metal cab.

I picked up my handles, end caps and castors, stand by for some pics.

flatfourfan

Been working on this some more since the explorer has been brought back to a playing condition.

Did all the reinforcement cleats for the inside of the cab, 20mm thick plywood strips as well made for the mounting plates for the rear panel. The handles are on, the castor wheels are on and the end caps are here, but they're not the smaller steel units that I ordered. So I'm gonna have to have another look around.

Also got my first Celestion 75.........I'm gonna swap this out with my HIWATT 12 and test her out a bit to see if I like the sound, then I'll get another and then start the lookout for V30's. I've managed to get my GT 75's for R1100-00 brand new, which is cheaper than anywhere else.

Will post some updated pics tomorrow..

domhatch

looks like it's gonna be a monster. liking this a lot, please keep going with the updates!

tks
dh

flatfourfan

So just waiting on my GT75 from being broken in. So I decided to do a mock up on on a cabinet for my, very loosely based on the JCM 800 from Marshall, but I'm making it a tad wider so that the cab and the head look matched. With a few mods on it to set it off. I'm going to wrap the cabinet and the head from the same tweed, so I'd like to stick with a theme throughout.

Firstly the last few things on 4 x 12. Back panel cut and fitted as well as the handles fitted, I do still have to trim off the screws as I used what I had lying around and yes they were too long.

Here you can see the cleats on the back side looking through the speaker cut outs. I still need to cut and fit cleats to the front wall, side walls and also the reinforcement brace needed for the rear panel.

Here you get an idea of the size of the head. There is still a TONNE of work to do on this, the face has to be sunk in, but I've only rough cut everything at this stage as I want an idea of the chassis that will be going in it. I'd rather have the head cabinet that's too big, than it being too small.

Next is to take it all apart and give a really good sanding down and then paint the front black and to fab the metal grill that I'm gonna be using. The idea is to use an expanding mesh with a steel frame and then powdercoat it black. The cab and head will be covered in a kick ass vintage style tweed. The head will also have feet that will lock into position on the top of the half stack.

Stay tuned.