Opps sorry Ryan! MDF will soak up paint like a sponge so make sure you use a godo quality primer and apply a few coats before applying the top coat. I don't remember how many I have on my equipment racks but its at least 2 coats of primer and 2 of the top coat.
I don't recomend painting sonotube if you want a nice looking finish. Cloth socks look so much nicer over the cardboard then just paint. You may still need to paint the cardboard black so it doesn't show though the sock but I wouldn't rely on paint alone. For the end caps getting a high gloss...
I'm glad you're going with the tempest...one thing though is that you might want to consider adding a single 6" port and build it as a ported sub tuned to 18hz or so. Now the sweet thing about this large a box is that you can now simply plug the port and it turns into a great sealed sub for...
Ryan I've owned a 107L ported shiva and now have my big tempest tube and there's no comparison between them. I have an option to seal my port and convert it to sealed if I wanted which would give me a nice low Q but I've never felt I needed to to be honest. The tempest will give you a lot more...
Ryan have you given any thought to build a sealed tempest based sub? For music I'd have to think this would be ideal and if I'm not mistaken its what Dan uses at home. I know the parts express version of the tempest and shiva were on sale a while back so you might be able to save a little there...