By the way, those of you who are here to see the Mini-Sub are back in business. Click on the picture to go to the resurrected page. Someone kindly informed me that the page was MIA after my host move, so sorry for any inconvenience it caused. So that’s why I got all those 404 errors in the old log blushes.

Since my wife just recently returned from her whirlwind tour of The Great White North after a month (!) of familial visiting and other savory pursuits, I haven’t been putting a lot of time into the speakers. Priorities, people… deal. However, this weekend I had to drag out the table saw to make some cuts for that perennial moocher Javahead (oh, but I kid, folks), so I decided to put about an hour and 10 minutes into making sawdust since I was already going to be coated anyway. Didn’t get too far into it, basically making some cuts into the front baffle for the God-forsaken woofer surround. But, I have some pictures and commentary of the works in progress for those interested souls.

The ACI Sapphire speakers are a very highly regarded set of two-way speakers, with a Focal 7″ woofer and a ScanSpeak silk dome tweeter. It’s a relatively small system, about 16″H x 10″W x 10″D, with a rather rakishly-sloped front baffle at about 16 degrees. That slope is what separates it from the vast majority of DIYers, and it was probably biting off more than I could chew for me to attempt it. But, I’ve never been one to back away from a challenge, and the slope makes it slightly more interesting than the average boxy monstrosity, so why not.

My friend Mike, as mentioned before, came over for the christening of the table saw and the first cuts. I could see immediately that the old Delta miter gauge wasn’t up to the challenge, but it’ll have to make due for now. One of these days I’ll grab something like Rockler’s Sure-Lock miter gauge system, since mine wobbles more in its track than should be legal. The first cuts went pretty well, I thought. Had trouble squaring, as you can imagine with a wobbly miter gauge, but good enough for government work. Besides, it’s only MDF, and that’s reasonably inexpensive.

Once the straight cuts were made, the first challenge came with the sides. The decidedly cute thing about the sides is that the manual for the kit (which is not available anymore… Focal is not making the woofer drivers anymore, curse their uncaring hearts) from subwoofers.com is that they don’t provide quite the level of detail you would like when it comes to making cuts. There was a fair quanitity of high school geometry and trig flying through the garage, along with a middling amount of four-letter words and choice epithets directed at various employees of ACI and subwoofers.com, but eventually we figured out the size panels we needed. Unfortunately, none of the measurements were what you would consider “friendly.” No, these were measurements on the order of 3.37 inches and 8.574 inches and 16.67 degrees. So, basically I measured as best I could the top and bottom points of the sloped cut, drew a line that matched the cut, then fenagled the miter gauge until it perfectly matched the necessary angle. Once those sloped miter cuts were made, it was time to hit the bevel cuts. Every piece that touched the front baffle (obviously) has to be beveled at that same 16.67 degrees. So, I did it the ColdForged way… raise the saw blade as high as possible, loosen the blade angle, place the sloped side piece against the blade and adjust the blade angle to perfectly match the angle of the sloped side panel. Once that was done, cut every piece needing the bevel so all angles match. And it worked! Miracles happen.

Once that was done, I dry-fitted the enclosure together with wood screws to check the fit. I’ll require some sanding to make up for some off-square cuts, but for a non-woodworking weenie like myself, I’m very pleased with how it fits together. I think with the aforementioned Rockler miter gauge, I could have approached something close to perfection. Maybe next enclosure.

So, moving on to the front baffles, I’m sure you can see the problem. The woofer surrounds. Designers, if you’re out there listening, please do us poor souls a favor and just make the damned things round. What I came up with was to measure out the outer edges of the driver, trace the actual outline of the woofer onto the baffle, then calculate the radius and centers of circles that would match up to the actual outline. Turned out the four centers were only about 5/8ths of an inch from the center, with a radius of around 7 1/4″. Using my trusty Jasper circle jig, a routed out the circular corners of the cutouts down 1/4″, then routed the straight edges with patented, ColdForged-special straightedge “jigs” (if one loosely refers to a “jig” as “that setup which makes some kind of cut”). Finally, I chewed out the rest of the surround area with the router and went ahead and cut the rest of the way through for the hole. It worked out really well, and the Focal driver fits like a charm in its new home. You can see the work-in progress on that second, incomplete baffle. Still have some cuts to make on that, before ripping through the whole way.

So that’s where it stands. Don’t know when I’ll have another chance to get back to it. Once the MDF work is done, it’s time to glue it up, round-over the edges, and veneer. Eek. I’ll also be re-veneering the Mini-Sub to match it, which should be fun. See you next time. I feel like Norm Abrams, for Christ’s sake.

Let’s see if I can endanger my phalanges today. It looks bright enough outside to melt steel, so I suppose rain is the least of my worries.

UPDATE: The fingers live on! All hail the fingers!

Got quite a bit of work done today, with the assistance of my good friend Mike. Got the workbench completed and got most of the straight cuts for the Sapphires done today. Now I get to tackle the central donut (no problem) the side panels (first miter cut, not that challenging), then put the angle on the rest of the panels (miracles they will be, modern day miracles, I tell you). Don’t know when I’ll get to it, but maybe early this week.

Well, now it’s time to get off my hind quarters and make some sawdust. This weekend marks the beginning of my next speaker building project, the ACI Sapphire III. this one ought to be a bit more of a challenge than the mini-sub, since it has the sloping face and since I actually have to make the cuts.

Bought my lovely Delta 36-550 Table Saw yesterday, and get to warm up on a workbench and some little side projects Cat requested before taking the big plunge on the cabinets.

Can someone answer me why when I get my mind set to start a project outdoors that it has to hover around the triple digit mark on the ol’ thermometer?

UPDATE: God told me that I would lose fingers if I went out there to make sawdust today. At least, that’s what I must assume since it decided to rain the exact picosecond that I was finished putting my saw together. O’ the humanity.