Sandwich Time

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I thought I'd get the base material together for the 'mule' speaker baffle I mentioned the other day. Pictured is the glue-up of the two components of the laminate: 20mm particle board glued to 10 9mm ply, which will form the outer surface of the baffle. When it's dry, I'll size it, rout the holes and rebates for the drive units, and seal the whole deal with a PVA-based varnish I've got, which is perfect for sealing timber or composite materials, and will hopefully compensate for the asymmetry of the laminate's moisture absorption characteristics and prevent warping of the finished piece. For future reference, I might opt for a thicker baffle, with a second skin of ply on the rear, which would make a heavy and stable baffle of 40 38mm thickness, which should both resist bending forces and help to smear out any panel resonances [just a guess, but this is jazz acoustics, after all].

We'll see how we get on, anyway: I'm under no pressure. That's the great thing about retirement: time. Time to do stuff went you want to do it, not when some dick manager says otherwise. If this modus operandi for panel construction proves fruitful acoustically, then I'll have a reliable and cheap method of constructing simple speaker cabinet designs: loft boards are stupidly inexpensive, and 10 9mm ply is eminently more affordable than the equivalent to the thickness of panel I can achieve through lamination; and the great thing is that the surfaces requiring machining have the physical characteristics needed for a clean and accurate finish: win-win, methinks. Keep you posted on progress...


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