Need help on finishing DIY Tempest .... (1 Viewer)

[Jason Hammerly]

I am going to be building a slightly modified version of the Adire alignment. It's basically going to be outside dimensions of 24" x 24" x 28.125". I will be mounting the driver on the bottom of one of the 28.125" sides so that I'll basically have a sub that's 24" wide x 28" tall with the legs and 28.125" deep. I am going to put it next to my couch as kind of a BIG end table . I'm making the sub out of 3/4" MDF and am trying to figure out how to finish it. Any opinions. I thought about just glueing some 1/4" oak plywood to the outside of the box, but don't know how to finish the corners. Would I use like 1/4" quarter round? I can't seem to find at Home Depot or Menard's. What about maybe putting a top out of 3/4" oak plywood and then putting some trim or something around the edges? I'm just not sure what to do, and can't find much help researching it. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I will be doing this within the next month. Thanks in advance.

 

[Steve Estabrooks]

Jason,

I built the same sub. What I did is cover the 4 sides with 1/4 oak plywood. On the corners I butted up 2 pieces of 1 inch wide oak. These oak strips are solid wood 1/4 thick. I picked them up at Home Depot. Once attached I cut a radius on the corner with my router. For the top I used 3/4 ply and used the same 1/4 thick solid wood to frame it off. It was easy to do and looks nice.

Steve

 

[Jason Hammerly]

Thanks Steve ... can you send a picture of what it looks like by chance? What did you do where the 3 sides met in that corner? THanks

Jason

 

[Steve Estabrooks]

Jason,

Sorry about taking so long to reply. I have been on vacation. Will e-mail pictures in a couple of days.

Steve

 

[Kerry Hackney]

Jason,
Your plan should work fine. You just have to make sure your cuts are dead on. If you have a router with a 1/4" rabbet bit you can use this method...

Then just inlay your 1/4 round. I mitered the top corners and then just butted the vertical pieces to that. A little sanding and it will look fine. In this pic only the top is ready for the inlay. Mine are 1/2" but 1/4 should work too.

 

[Cam S]

What about using a wood grain Laminate like I did? I did have a minor amount of finishing to do on the edges, but other than that it looks great.
Link Removed

 

[Jason Hammerly]

How hard is it to do the laminate, and where can you buy it? I'm not sure I could do it right. Thanks.

 

[Cam S]

Jason, I bought mine from Revy, and I thought it was going to be really hard to do but it wasn't. All you need to do it is a special Laminate knife (to score the laminate so you can snap it), a router with a flush trim bit, and some contact cement. It was WAY easier than I thought, but it did take a while to do, mainly because I took my time to do it right.

I think it looks great, and it's incredibly durable.

 

[Brian J Dupuis]

Jason,
I did exactly what you are talking about in terms of the 1/4" oak plywood. I rabbetted out the edges then and applied some square stock, then rounded it over. Here's a link to a post that has pictures of the rabbetted and rounded over result to give you an idea. The pictures are almost exactly in the middle of the page. Hope this helps! By the way, I used 3/8" square stock and 3/8" roundover/rabbet bits.
Good luck.

 

[Jason Hammerly]

That might work pertty well Brian. How much is that rabbeting bit, and is it pretty easy to do? Thanks

 

[Brian J Dupuis]

Well, I got a set of router bits from MLCS for $39, that just happened to have 3/8" rabbet and roundover bits, so that's why I chose 3/8" . As far as easy, it really was cake. Before this subwoofer I had never even seen a router (no exaggeration, believe it or not), and I had zero difficulty doing the rabbetting and roundovers. I was pretty amazed at how simple it was, and it really came out nicely for a first project.