My audio project

[Eargunk]

I just started another audio project, i had 2 sealed boxes and an amp in the middle (i know it is upside down, the grounding is on the wrong side), 4 6.5 in the back and a 4" in the front.

well now i am upgrading to inverted woofers and moving the 6.5 inch rears to the fronts replacing the 4", however the fronts only fit 4" so i chose to fibre glass

First i removed on my door panel and taped it up, making sure to get into every surface area and over extend it to make sure no splashes happen

I Mix up some epoxi resin (can get it at any hardware store, bunnings have fibreglassing kits with everything you need) and place the fibreglass over lightly and i dabbed it over the fibreglass making sure there isnt any air bubbles and that it is soaked nicely (i have no pictures cause i had only 30 minutes to apply cause of the amount of catalyst i used)

This is the first layer done (single layer made it feel like thin glass or dried glue, it tends to get hot as it dries)

This is the 2nd layer

lastly the 3rd layer, thick enough to hold the speaker up and not snap whilst playing music but still thin enough to clip onto the door.

by the time it is time to remove it, it is fairly hot, its like touching a computer that has been on for a 3 hours. I took it easy making sure to get rid of the excess and slipped my hand under it and lifted it up,

This is whats left of the effect of using the door as a mould

My solution, acetone!, slightly stripped some of the polish, but ill polish it up later

Lastly trimming and sanding. sanding im gonna do some other time, parents arnt happy having glass dust under their feet. and the result is a clip on pod

now all i need to do is attach the spacer and use builder's bog or filler to fill in the gap and sand, and im done.

[MAD550]

Not what I did but not bad from what I can see, some photos of mine a while ago more done since LOL

Edited February 3, 2009 by MAD550

[Eargunk]

I had to do it this way cause the side closes to the engine had a steep curve and any pods on the market will fit the gap unless i cut the door open or the speaker cover, since it is raining for a whole week now, no progression was made

[MAD550]

Yes the rain will do that LOL my workshop is under ground so I tend not to notice.

[the_random_hero]

Cut plastic spacer out, make MDF spacer, fit 6.5" speakers. Quite simply, really :P I think it took about forty minutes for me to have splits installed in both doors.

[Eargunk]

i made mdf spacers, placed it over the top of the holes, could have used bog to make a custom pod but i decided it will be too short and not time consuming, and i miss working with fibreglass so i decided to make something im proud of, but lately its windy, rainy and what not, so sanding fibreglass is a bad idea. so im slightly not happy. Another thing, i can sell the cover or give it to my dad as it is clip-ons.

here is my inverted boxes, that i finished a week ago, just been busy lately so i couldnt post it, this is with the broken brackets replaced and the magnet moved away from the amps so there is no distrotion or magnetic forces applied onto the amp (it made it hard to tune it cause the screw driver kept getting attracted to the frame

Edited February 7, 2009 by Eargunk

[JJCRU23R]

hope you are continuing to take pics of your pod build as you are doing it?!

im keeping an eye out for em.

keep up the good work.

[Eargunk]

its just been bad luck running around, every time i get a day off i gotta run some errons or something else, or its been raining, and my random orbital sander blew up today (so it will be rough as) but tomorrow i get to start putting in the spacer and bog the gap between the spacer and pod.

[JJCRU23R]

this may be a stupid question but are you cutting into the grille of the stock speaker in the door panel?

[Eargunk]

Im not cutting into the grill of the stock panel, it is gonna be removed and stored somewhere so when i resell the car, it can be placed back on. since it was made by fibreglass right over the top of the existing panel, it fits extremely snug, i also left some over hang on the bottom so it would clip on (make sure the over hang is not too far cause it may scrape your side guard thingy) and be held there by either screws or temporary adhesives.

another way of doing this, is instead of using fibre glass just cut into the existing speaker panel, then screw a spacer on and use builder's bog to fill in the gap. I decided to use fibreglass because i like mucking around with it (i made fibreglass sand boards in wood work in high school) and since my speaker cover has a bunch of dimples in it, it would look pretty funny. But if this project fails, i might get a set of speaker panels from the wreckers and do this and fill the dimples in with builders bog/putty.

Edited February 16, 2009 by Eargunk

[Eargunk]

bad luck strikes again and it started to rain again. so my pods got post on hold again, well atleast one of em, but a plus side i got my personalised plate.

okay what i did was to cut a 6.5" hole into the pods making sure it fits into the housing in the door (you dont want to have door plastic covering your 6.5" hole, that would be imbarassing. I used a drill for this cause my angle grinder didnt have the right blade and had a steel griding blade on (explaining why the edges a rough), make sure you WEAR A RESPERATOR, SAFETY GLASSES AND OVERALLS, you dont want to get fibreglass in your arms like i did.

heres a pic of it clipping onto the door and checking whether there is any plastic in the way (trying not to mod the door).

now place in your speaker and check where you have to put support poles to hold up your spacer and mark it.

now to cut your support poles, i used 2cm x 2cm timber you get from bunnings for $2, i only used 1, as the spacer lent onto the pod.

now attach it it screws to the spacer, (i dont have a pic because it was after lunch and you know how people get sloppy after lunch.

now using builders bog/putty. fill in the gaps making sure you "nead" the hardening mixture and bog until it turns slightly pink, and use gloves, you dont want to turn out like "the thing" like i did.

the pictures above was when it was still curing (still felt like wet playdoh), when its hard enough, use a knife of some sort and start making the edges smooth (doesnt have to be perfect, it can be sanded back later) and i dont have a picture of this because it was raining.

from here you could cover it with vinyl and fill it up with expanding foam (make sure you have a hole at one end to push out the excess foam if the frame goes wonky), you could sand it and spray it or whatever you like

one more thing. at lunch, a guy saw my alpine sticker when i was going through drive through at KFC, turned up his music. this isnt cool. annoying KFC employees may result in bad burgers or wraps (says the person handing me the food hehehe)

[Eargunk]

Finally a day it didn't rain. and its finished covered and all,

here is it completely sanded down

and after the carpet placed over the top ( i experimented with 2 ways of applying where one was placing it over the top like a table cloth and the other is wrapping it around and gluing where im going to place not over all of it at once)

found that wrapping it around reduces ridges or fold overs (a cut as you go process)

Edited March 4, 2009 by Eargunk