Brewing Master

Question:

Has anyone successfully built their own half stack style 4×12 cab?  Any opinions? I’ve seen numorous sites on amp building and repair, but I haven’t seen anything about home brewed speaker cabs.    Any input you guys have would be great (seems to be quite a knowledgable group posting in here). Thanks!

Response:

So I guess you are talking about a marshall style slant cab? A few weeks ago i built a tall marshall style straight front cab, ive built a few 2×12’s and combo and head cabs before, but this 4×12 is the best ive had anything turn out (no pics just yet). Its got a few elaborate construction features, like finger jointed edges, and that thick rounded over front edge like marshall has, makes you need to mount the baffle board from the inside (so then you add tricks to allow baffle removal through the back panel mounting cleats). I wouldnt mind writing a page and plans on it sometime, but a homebrew cab design is something that falls so much under what tools and materials are onhand. I did mine with 7 ply furniture grade 3/4" ply, but most people recommend voidless birch ply or marine ply. And cleats and trimmings and other things were a mix of mahogany, cedar and pine i have lying around. Cut side panels, plane and clean up edges and ensure squareness, lay out and cut fingerjoints, assemble, screw and glue into a box, keeping things square, cut front and back panels, square up, optional- attach big pine frame on front of box to be rounded into that cool front edge.(nice mitered edges) put baffle cleats in box, route and sand box corner edges, shape front edge. Measure up and cut speaker holes on front baffle (11" holes, not 12" holes remember). Dry assemble everything, locate and drill all screw holes for baffle and back mounting. Attach pieces of 2×4 to a 4×4 piece of plywood, and mount it in the center of the baffle, this is the center post that the back panel will press against when mounted up, let about 1/4" of the post extend beyond the level of the back panel cleats, so that the front and back panels fles mildly when all is mounted, this stops rattle from happening. Cut holes for recessed side handles but this could be done after tolexing. If satisfied with the appearance, get ready for tolexing, nows the time to fill any little dings and temporary holes and screw holes here and there. Do a fast sanding over everywhere with 60 grit paper. Tolexing is a whole nother writeup, all im going to comment on its the glue issue, i used to use contact cement, which is great for work time, even though theres not much repositioning allowance. Rich Koerner suggested to me that i used yellow wood glue for tolexing, the point i was sold on is that marshall uses contact cement, and look at all those 4×12’s that have massive back panel tearup, once one tear happens, the tolex nearby peels easily and flaps around and just shreds getting messy and unrepairable. So i tried the wood glue (with some nice black tolex in the fender rough blonde/brown pattern), and i was really bitching cause i used more than a liter of it, and the dry time is awfully , awfully slow, but I did it, with alot of pulling and stretching and tons of stapling and clamping. But i must say it went on really well, the corner fold seam edges came out *perfect*, stretching the tolex into the exact perfect seam position, and keeping it there with some staples, does a better job than quickie pulling and pressing down using contact cement. I glued scrap tolex to scrap wood, and trying to pull off the tolex in one section, it just tears off, the tolex wont lift off and peel in big pieces.The hold power of the glue seems much stronger than the tension the tolex will bear before tearing. What else can i mention, speaker mounting? whether you mount from in front or behind the baffle, forget about using anything but some nice 3/16" bolts, with some epoxy on the threads under the head when putting them in. Actually these same bolts would be nice with Tnuts, but might be less troublesome if anything goes bad. Adding casters? remember to have them mounted close enough to the front and back edges so that the whole rig doesnt want to topple over if the wheels spin so theyre pointing inward of the edges. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Has anyone successfully built their own half stack style 4×12 cab?  Any opinions? I’ve seen numorous sites on amp building and repair, but I haven’t seen anything about home brewed speaker cabs.    Any input you guys have would be great (seems to be quite a knowledgable group posting in here). Thanks!

Response:

Thanks for the post, that helps a bunch.  Please let me know if you ever get a site together, I’d love to see it.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – So I guess you are talking about a marshall style slant cab? A few weeks ago i built a tall marshall style straight front cab, ive built a few 2×12’s and combo and head cabs before, but this 4×12 is the best ive had anything turn out (no pics just yet). Its got a few elaborate construction features, like finger jointed edges, and that thick rounded over front edge like marshall has, makes you need to mount the baffle board from the inside (so then you add tricks to allow baffle removal through the back panel mounting cleats). I wouldnt mind writing a page and plans on it sometime, but a homebrew cab design is something that falls so much under what tools and materials are onhand. I did mine with 7 ply furniture grade 3/4" ply, but most people recommend voidless birch ply or marine ply. And cleats and trimmings and other things were a mix of mahogany, cedar and pine i have lying around. Cut side panels, plane and clean up edges and ensure squareness, lay out and cut fingerjoints, assemble, screw and glue into a box, keeping things square, cut front and back panels, square up, optional- attach big pine frame on front of box to be rounded into that cool front edge.(nice mitered edges) put baffle cleats in box, route and sand box corner edges, shape front edge. Measure up and cut speaker holes on front baffle (11" holes, not 12" holes remember). Dry assemble everything, locate and drill all screw holes for baffle and back mounting. Attach pieces of 2×4 to a 4×4 piece of plywood, and mount it in the center of the baffle, this is the center post that the back panel will press against when mounted up, let about 1/4" of the post extend beyond the level of the back panel cleats, so that the front and back panels fles mildly when all is mounted, this stops rattle from happening. Cut holes for recessed side handles but this could be done after tolexing. If satisfied with the appearance, get ready for tolexing, nows the time to fill any little dings and temporary holes and screw holes here and there. Do a fast sanding over everywhere with 60 grit paper. Tolexing is a whole nother writeup, all im going to comment on its the glue issue, i used to use contact cement, which is great for work time, even though theres not much repositioning allowance. Rich Koerner suggested to me that i used yellow wood glue for tolexing, the point i was sold on is that marshall uses contact cement, and look at all those 4×12’s that have massive back panel tearup, once one tear happens, the tolex nearby peels easily and flaps around and just shreds getting messy and unrepairable. So i tried the wood glue (with some nice black tolex in the fender rough blonde/brown pattern), and i was really bitching cause i used more than a liter of it, and the dry time is awfully , awfully slow, but I did it, with alot of pulling and stretching and tons of stapling and clamping. But i must say it went on really well, the corner fold seam edges came out *perfect*, stretching the tolex into the exact perfect seam position, and keeping it there with some staples, does a better job than quickie pulling and pressing down using contact cement. I glued scrap tolex to scrap wood, and trying to pull off the tolex in one section, it just tears off, the tolex wont lift off and peel in big pieces.The hold power of the glue seems much stronger than the tension the tolex will bear before tearing. What else can i mention, speaker mounting? whether you mount from in front or behind the baffle, forget about using anything but some nice 3/16" bolts, with some epoxy on the threads under the head when putting them in. Actually these same bolts would be nice with Tnuts, but might be less troublesome if anything goes bad. Adding casters? remember to have them mounted close enough to the front and back edges so that the whole rig doesnt want to topple over if the wheels spin so theyre pointing inward of the edges. Has anyone successfully built their own half stack style 4×12 cab?  Any opinions? I’ve seen numorous sites on amp building and repair, but I haven’t seen anything about home brewed speaker cabs.    Any input you guys have would be great (seems to be quite a knowledgable group posting in here). Thanks!

Response: