DIY wood choice... (1 Viewer)

[Eric Eash]

hello, i am a newbie in the DIY sub department. i am stationed in japan and there is no mdf to be had. there are a lot of different types of wood available and i was wondering what the best choice for a high powered subwoofer would be. what should the thickness be? thanks,

eric

 

[ThomasW]

Use plywood ~1.5" thick

 

[Allen Ross]

snag it if you can, Baltic Birch 13 ply really srong, not as dense, and a little tougher to work on then MDF but finishs up great, if you hang around here you will see what i mean, i am about a week out on my Pi Studios.

 

[Jack Gilvey]

BB is great if you can get it. Much easier to work and easier on tools than MDF, and quite a bit lighter.

 

[Eric Eash]

negative on the birch, navigating in japan is very hard and the chances of me stumbling upon a lumber store, let alone one with BB is near impossible. the 2 stores near me with lumber have a pretty good little selection to choose from. would glueing two sheets of 3/4" wood together be okay for the enclosure? also, with the different types of wood, are varying amounts of absorbtion material required inside the enclosure? thanks for all the help everyone!

eric

 

[Brian Fellmeth]

Solid wood of any kind is not an option. There must be plywood avaliable there, or some engineered sheets similar to MDF.

 

[Alex-F-V]

It might be really expensive, but it migh be best if you ordered some MDF off the net. There has to be a place that you can order it from and that will ship it to japan.

 

[Allen Ross]

wow,
20 bucks for a 4X8 sheet of MDF

200 bucks to ship a sheet of 100lb 4x8 sheet of MDF across the Pacific

I think fed-ex and Master-card just had and orgasm

 

[Alex-F-V]

Well now thinking about it... shouldn't there be some MDF in japan too! I mean they have the stuff too, I would belive, that there HAS to be a place in japan that could ship it to you.

 

[Dan Wesnor]

See if you can find a cabinet maker's shop. They may be able to help you. A boatmaker's shop should also have void-free plywood. MDF and void-free plywood is used in furniture and cabinet making world wide, you you should be able to find it somewhere.

 

[Eric Eash]

we have a really nice woodshop here on base and i was talking to them about it and they said similar problems have come up before for people wanting to make car audio enclosures. the japanese culture is different than america. i'm sure somewhere in japan there is mdf, but i live near a small town and there is none in the small town. the japanese people pride themselves in what they own because they care a lot about what other people think, so it would not be common for them to build their own anything or use low grade anything, most of the wood offbase is either close to furniture grade or higher. as far as getting some shipped to me, who knows. all i know is i'd have to know alot more japanese than i do to get an order like that filled. they do have some engineered sheets of really high grade plywood that i think would do a great job, just not sure about glueing a piece of wood onto another piece of wood for the extra bracing, it should work fine right? anyways, thanks for all the help guys and i'll let you know what turns out.


eric

 

[BryanZ]

Why not go with a tube sub? Surely they have some Sonotube there.

 

[Eric Eash]

not sure about that either. i do know that since i don't care for the look of a sonotube, the wife definately won't. working on a box design now.

eric