Finished photo first. The glory shot of the left, right, and center all together.

I have been working on a new left right and center for my home theater. This build actually took place over one year. I built these in some basic plywood boxes to get started as I wasn't sure where I wanted to take the design, but I knew I wanted it to take my time and put a good finish on this.

This is the beginning of my build that started in early 2016. The speaker, called the Fusion4 Quad4, was designed by the famous Curt Campbell, and I got all the components from the diy sound group (diysoundgroup.com). Laid it out to make sure that nothing is missing. Kit comes with all the drivers, ports, crossover components and the CNC'd baffles. This design was primarily chosen because of the size and the price. It is one of the more affordable DIY home theater kits.

As I said I actually got this kit in January but didn't have an idea on how I wanted to really dress them up. I had just moved into a 100 year old house and had spent a couple months renovating. I sold the last set of home theater speakers that I made before I moved cross county. I was tired and just wanted to watch some TV, so I slapped them in some cheap plywood boxes and used them like this for 10 months. Even though they were ugly they sounded great and really provide a good sound stage.

Skipping ahead here a bit, but I did finally come up with a design that I liked. I forgot to take photos of the box consturction but there really isn't anything interesting about them. They are 1/2 mdf with butt joints. I found some spalted beech veneer on sale and was able to get enough to complete all three speakers for $30. It was my first time using raw wood veneer, only having used paper backed in the past. It was simple enough since i didn't have to bookmatch anything. The technique here is pretty straight forward. I rolled Titebond II with a small foam roller on to the cabinet, and then positioned the veneer on top. I placed a piece of wax paper between the veneer and the platen so any glue that squeezed through wouldn't stick to the platen. I then strapped a whole bunch of clamps down to it, occasionally using a second platen or a truss to try and evenly distribute the pressure. I would leave it clamped for 30-45 minutes. This method seemed to work well and I didn't have any issues. In fact I found this a little easier than using paper backed veneer but I am going to assume I got lucky based on all of the information available online.

I wanted the mitered look on the front of the box so I used a technique that I learned a couple of years ago. I overlapped each strip of veneer, not gluing them down on the ends. Then I used my square to find the 45 degree angle and draw a line. I grabbed my chisel to make a nice clean cut on that line and remove the excess pieces. You get a perfect mitered corner.

Baffle Construction

I was going for a raised baffle on this design. I'm actually breaking a couple rules, but I wanted to try it and see if how drastic of an impact it would have. So I glued multiple layers of MDF and cut the wholes for the drivers and the ports. This was a little tricky when working with the oddly shaped compression driver, but luckily I was able to use the CNC'd baffle that came with the kit to make a template. I should have coated the MDF with a good dose of wood glue, but I didn't think about it. I paid the price later. Here is the first coat of shellac based primer. This works well to seal the MDF and because the alcohol base flashes off fast enough that the MDF won't swell.

Panting

had to give this way too many coats of high build automotive primer. I would build it up and then sand it down. The MDF had way too many flaws in it and I had to repeat this process many times. Like I said, I should have sealed the MDF with wood glue and then use some body filler on it before painting. Oh well. At first I tried to do these with a rattle can but just could never get it even enough to be happy with it. I know some people can work the rattle can magic but I am not capable. So I dug out my Wagner Control Max Sprayer. I bought this think to paint a bunch of textured ceiling tiles in the house as I read it was capable of spraying latex paint. While it worked for the ceiling tiles I have been really impressed spraying oil's out of it for furniture and other projects. Its more capable that I thought it would be. Spraying poly will have to be its next challenge. I was mixing a flat black enamel with a glossy enamel to get the finished look i wanted. It took a couple tries but I finally got it a tad flatter than semigloss. Tip: when mixing sheens, the gloss will overtake the flat very quickly. This mix was probably 85% flat to 15% gloss. This coating actually got a very fine orange peel texture to it, but it was uniform and I liked it in the end. It actually helped to 'flatten' the deep black look.