A bit of speaker updating

[John Rumm]

In case you need a tidy technique for enlarging a cut-out in timber, this seemed to work rather well:

[Graham.]

Well done, although that last paragraph was a cross between Jilly (hic) Goolden and John (Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width) Bluthal!

[dennis]

That's the hard way.

Cut a piece of wood to fit across the back of the hole and put a bit of packing on the middle to bring it approximately flush with the front..

Get hole cutter in drill and make new hole.

Remove the piece of wood.

[T i m]

How do you hold it there?

That's a pretty big hole cutter if you mean the 'tank' type so do you mean a fly cutter of some sort?

How did you hold it in in the first place?

Cheers, T i m

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Easier generally to use a router and guide to cut out speaker holes.

[tabbypurr]

Router would have been my first choice, fwiw.

NT

[T i m]

But aren't there lips on either side of the cabinet making the front face unflat? I guess you could pack the middle up to match?

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

Yup the classic trap of trying to describe how something sounds!

[John Rumm]

ok if you have a 162mm hole cutter... (also see comments about not wanting a case full of sawdust)

[John Rumm]

To be fair I did consider routing out a "ring" of wood and just planting it on the face of the cabinet and sitting the speaker on that.

[John Rumm]

There are, but one could make a flat template guide with the required hole in it and sit that on the top of the speaker. The use a bearing guided bit to follow it. If building new cabinets from scratch it would be the way to go.

Once working with an assembled case it would be hard not filling the case with chips though (which given its a reflex transmission line design (i.e. folded tapering wave guides), with copious amounts of wadding in it, would be difficult to get out since its all glued together)

[tabbypurr]

FWIW I was thinking of running it around freehand following the tape, but the objections are of course valid.

NT

[Richard]

Interesting, but recently I have noticed just how buggered up my hearing is. Some music which used to sound so 'full' is now missing chunks of frequencies and the originals sound like poor imitations. This is very noticeable when hearing something from way back which I haven't heard for a long time :(

[dennis]

Well yes if you have a router.

Do one pass with a bearing on the bottom to leave a rebate and then put the bearing on the top and trim the rebate off.

Its a bit more expensive than some double sided tape, some scrap wood and a cheap hole cutter. It also depends on there being enough area for the base or using a router table.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

All you need is to provide a centre for your router guide if increasing the size of the hole. Any rebates needed (if say the speaker unit fits flush with the baffle) made first, before cutting the main hole. You may have to do some hand router work for fixing lugs etc.

I have a pretty cheap router hole cutter that came from Lidl that is just great for this. Most traditional routers can't go down to a small enough radius for things like tweeters. Neither of my other ones do.

[Andy Burns]

I thought he was auditioning for a guest column in What HiFi :-P

[The Natural Philosopher]

"still the deep easy open base response"

Well at least you didn't confuse low frequencies with a fish, or a bottled beer...but a slang name for a street drug...

[John Rumm]

Sadly a risk from DIY if one does not take care as well!

[John Rumm]

Although you highlight I can't spell bass ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Your cabinets are totally glued together? Fairly rare, I'd say.