Altec 821A Cabinet Project

[misterdwayne]

Those are lookin' good. Keep up the nice work, looks like fun.

[misterdwayne]

Q: What kind of saw did you use to cut the curves with?
Did you do the curves free hand or did you make and use a jig?
When I get the time I really want to make a set myself.

[Steve Schell]

Reed, I feel your pain. I have found that it is very difficult to cut curved panels on edge so that they are square to the straight sides, and also to glue up an assembly so that it comes out square and not a parallelogram.

When glueing up square or rectangular mouth horns, I have found it helpful to first make up a jig to ensure squareness of the mouth. The mouth dimensions are marked out on a flat board (hard enough to find!) and wooden strips located just outside the lines here and there. Then the assembly is glued up mouth down, and the jig forces it to be square.

In your pictures it appears that your curved panels (vertical) extend past the horizontal pieces. Perhaps you could leave them a bit long, and do the final trimming on them with a router after the glueing is finished.

[bigjunglejim]

Hi there...

For the curved pieces try making a template. then use a router to cut the curves. Take your time, do it right and you will not have to put the ribs together and sand them to an even size. You can make the jig with your band saw or by setting up your router so it will swing and cut the radius you need. You can cut all the curved pieces that way or do one and then use it as a guide to cut the others with the router. Take you time. Measure three time, cut once.

To assemble the horns. Make a jig to hold the "ribs" on their front edges. You can use spacer pieces to keep everything aligned. Assemble the curved pieces to the ribs after they are in the jig and so the will not shift. When making the jig for the ribs, remember to make it so the curved pieces go past the edges. You can use a router to clean up the edges before attaching the baffle board.

There are many ways to skin the perverbial cat. My way is only one of them. Good luck.

[rghinton]

I used a large band saw to cut the curves freehand. After they were cut, I taped the six of them together with double sided tape and sanded them on an oscillating spindle sander with a 3" sanding sleeve. They turned out really nice. Now the bad news. I was not careful enough putting the horns together. I just noticed that they were slightly twisted and the front was not square to the top and bottom. I tried to work around the problem with shims but things only got worse. I finally realized that I was going to be off about 1/2". I thought about this for a couple of days and then went and bought more wood and am starting over. I set the failed attempt out for the trash man and they are gone. I am doing this as a hobby and I have learned a bunch. I will not make the same mistakes twice. In the long run I will be happy that I started over. I will replace the pictures when I get to that point. The only time that I have to work on the project is Saturday morning at school from 8:00 AM to about 1:30 PM. It takes a long time to build templates and jigs to assemble the project. I will spend even more time on this attempt. I will try to post photos of the jigs and templates that I make.

[misterdwayne]

Aaawww! Bummer.
Hey thanks for letting us know what happened.
If I do finally go through with making a set, at least I know one more thing from your experience and the imput of the others here Thanks!!!
DwayneB

[scott fitlin]

Reed, you do some seriously NICE woodwork!

[rghinton]

Thank you ------ Thank you very much!

[bigjunglejim]

Good work. I'm sure you'll be pleased with the outcome. As for filling in the holes, why bother? Unless the screw went all the way through to where it will show in the finished product. I would be more concerned with the filler material coming loose and causing a "buzz" sometime in the far distant future.

[Steve Mac]

Reed, I've followed your work for a good long time and I just gotta second the notion that the build quality looks just beautiful. I bet it's a lot of fun too!