If you suck at carpentry is DYI not an option?

[pdxmonkeyboy]

Ok, i hate to be the guy to rain on your parade (well, ok, its a little fun) but if you are asking the question if you can use a jigsaw to cut the mdf then you my friend DO NOT HAVE THE EXPERIENCE to do a good job. Still don't believe me? Ask yourself this, how were you planning on joining the panels together, nails? screws?

Fact of the matter is that while not that difficult for someone with experience, you still need a fair amount of tools and decent carpenter skills.

At a minimum (and this is considering your very careful and patient and have a steady hand)
1. metal straight edge
2. circular saw
3. A jig saw with SHARP blades
4. builders square (a good one, not that adjustable thing)
5. power sander
6. Lots of clamps
7. A large FLAT workbench
8. Good paint brushes

You could have a friend cut the boards for you (or put an add on craigslist) to have someone do it. But cutting the wood is only the first step.

At any rate.. And for anyone who is going to embark on making a sub, or speakers or anything else with MDF , do yourself a favor and orde4r MDF from a lumber yard that has zero or no added formaldehyde such as Medite.

The MDF you buy in home depot and such outgasses formaldehyde. So unless you want your family breathing industrial preservatives while enjoying movies, steer clear of the traditional MDF. (Medite is like $4 more a panel..so why wouldn't you use it? )

 

[yettitheman]

I would say:
Straight edges and rulers (tape measures included)
Drill press
Band Saw
Jig Saw
Table Saw
Radial arm or a nice Compound Miter Box Saw
Pipe Clamps (long ones as well as short ones)
Dado blades (for table saw to make good joints if you are impatient with making multiple passes)
Possibly a router and fingerboard
Definetly a good flat workbench
Air Filtration of sorts (either mask or room circulator)
Patience and plans to work with

 

[darien87]

Well I am taking almost 2 weeks off right after Christmas so I will have some time to experiment on building a box. I will try to build the box and if it comes out well I will just order the driver.

What do you use to build the box as far as tools? Will a power jigsaw like this one work for cutting the MDF? http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100487676&N=502323+10401001&marketID=401&locStoreNum=8125

I am going to home depot later on to talk to the guys there to see what they recommend although I don't want to spend a ton on tools even though a saw like that would come in handy in the future as well.

Dude, all I used was a jigsaw, a Black & Decker workmate bench, clamps, wood glue, screws a drill and a hammer.

That jigsaw looks a lot like the one I used.

 

[yettitheman]

You can definetly do it on limited tools, but you have to know how to use the tools to pull off what you need it to do

I guess you can always butt joint 6 symmetrical pieces of MDF, glue and screw it together, put dynamat all around the inside and outside, cut a hole and slap a woofer and amp on it LOL

 

[mazersteven]

 

[abefroeman]

If you have little know how about tool and crap (that's me!) and you dont want to waste a lot of time and materials trying to put a big box together with joints and stuff, then you should make a sub out of Sonotube. Thats what I am going to do and I think it is the cheapest and easist way to make a killer sub that would blow away any retail sub. The only caveat is size.

I will be using a 12" driver (maybe a 10") in order to keep the size reasonable. If you have unlimited space, I am confident that you could build a considerably better sub than almost any commercial sub for under $1,000(Think 18" driver and 7-8' of sonotube).

 

[Alex2507]

Dude, all I used was a jigsaw, a Black & Decker workmate bench, clamps, wood glue, screws a drill and a hammer.

That jigsaw looks a lot like the one I used.

Didn't you say you finished it with plastic laminate? Like Formica? The tools listed wouldn't really get you a decent result. Seems like you're all for the DIY approach and thats great. Your happy with your results and really that's all that counts.

We all have different standards of acceptability. Some people have a knack for precision. Maybe you're one of them. I honestly believe that it sometimes just happens that way. Other people are natural born slobs who couldn't make two pieces of wood come together as one if their very lives depended on it.

The bottm line is that when it comes to doing anything we all start at the same place. My personal approach to unfamiliar tasks is to get a teacher. But that's just me and I treat everything like rocket surgery.A borrowed a term from some other member's sig.

 

[darien87]

Didn't you say you finished it with plastic laminate? Like Formica? The tools listed wouldn't really get you a decent result. Seems like you're all for the DIY approach and thats great. Your happy with your results and really that's all that counts.

We all have different standards of acceptability. Some people have a knack for precision. Maybe you're one of them. I honestly believe that it sometimes just happens that way. Other people are natural born slobs who couldn't make two pieces of wood come together as one if their very lives depended on it.

The bottm line is that when it comes to doing anything we all start at the same place. My personal approach to unfamiliar tasks is to get a teacher. But that's just me and I treat everything like rocket surgery.A borrowed a term from some other member's sig.

Nope. I just bought some cherry vinyl laminate from Parts Express. It's just like a big sticker. I bought a cutter from PE and a vinyl roller from Home Depot and had the wife help me hold the laminate down while I rolled out the air bubbles with the roller. Then just cut off the excess with the edge cutter.

Now that I look back on it, I guess it was a little crazy. But as long as you've got basic knowledge with tools and are somewhat mechanically inclined, it shouldn't be too difficult. I had originally planned on putting mitred edges on the top and making it match some furniture in the room, but that ended up being beyond my ability. So I just left it as a rectangular box sitting in my living room. It's funny, it kinda looks like my little dorm room fridge from college. Unfortunately, the cherry vinyl doesn't really match my furniture, but it was the closest color I could find. I guess I could have just painted it black.

I posted pics up a while back in the DIY forum. Do a search for it and you should be able to find it.


Edit: Here's the link

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31488&highlight=rythmik+kit

It's not that pretty, but it definitely gets the job done and I don't even notice it any more sitting in the corner of the living room.

 

[annunaki]

I guess I will go talk to my wife's little brother today. He is in high school but doesn't take woodshop class. But I think he told me once that his football coach is the shop teachers so we shall see.

Annukaki,
Where can I get some plans for a nice design to go with a 10" or 12" Dayton HF sub from parts express?

I think I may have some for that sub. I will check.

Edit: The plans I have are for a 15" HF in a sealed enclosure. I could do some plans for you but it will take a few days to complete.

 

[Alex2507]

Darien87,

Now I want one. You're wrong about everyone being able to do that . That does look decent. I thought a "kit" meant everything would be precut and you just assembled it. I guess not, huh? Vinyl and plastis laminates are two completely different animals. My mistake.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

Dude, all I used was a jigsaw, a Black & Decker workmate bench, clamps, wood glue, screws a drill and a hammer.

That jigsaw looks a lot like the one I used.

I followed your link above.. you started with a kit that contained precut pieces... not a raw sheet of plywood.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

a laminate, is a laminate, is a laminate. They all install about the same.

 

[darien87]

I followed your link above.. you started with a kit that contained precut pieces... not a raw sheet of plywood.

Uh... not really. The kit you buy from Rythmik is a sub and an amp. That's it. They give you plans for the box in the form of a pdf. I bought a sheet of MDF at a lumber yard and had them cut it down to the 10 or so pieces that I needed. What's your point?