End Table Sub

greyford1979

Well I bought all the supplies to start the end table/sub for my buddy. His gf is having me build this for him for Christmas. It's been real hard keeping this a secret from him especially when he saw the box the sub driver came with UPS, she had to lie just a tad about what was in the box lol. I had to change the design just slightly to stay within her budget but I think it should turn out pretty well. Not gonna be quite the beast that Vr3MxStyler2k3 is building, but it should work well for him. It's gonna be a ported 12 inch running on 300 watts. The sub enclosure itself will be satin black and the top, legs, and trim will all be oak. Hopefully I should be able to start building it either tonight or tomorrow.

EndersShadow

looking forward to seeing pics and how it turns out!

greyford1979

Almost forgot, it will be tuned to 20 Hz.

greyford1979

Well I started building the sub today after work, and after shoveling snow for over 3 hours. Damn lake effect snow! Cut all the wood and started assembling a little bit of it. Not a whole lot of progress, tired from work and shoveling, but it's a start.

greyford1979

Made some more progress today. Using the weights again for the bottom baffle till the glue dries The enclosure is actually upside down in the pic. Still have to add the port and a few more braces. Also tested the stain on one of the oak pieces, the pic is kinda out of focus but u get the idea of how it will look.

skrol

That is a neat idea, especially if space is limited . It will be an nice place to sit the eggnog glass this holiday season and keep the martinis shaken.

ViperZ

Probably too late to throw in a suggestion, but if you want to make it more "end-table-looking", maybe you can mount the port or even the amp at the bottom?
My parents have a coffee table subwoofer. People can't even tell that it's the subwoofer until it's on. It's a passive sealed quad-10" built by Canadian manufacturer, StudioLab. I spoke to the owner/designer last year, he said the model is called "The Pig" - go figure... but it is huge.

EndersShadow

I saw one where they even fake mounted doors on the front so it looked like it opened up with two doors and then a drawer above it also fake

Jstas

I did the same thing for a friend years ago. But we built a pair of end tables out of Poplar stock and Birch plywood so he could get the finish he wanted to match his Cherry furniture without dropping the coin on Cherry stock. We built the end tables as deep as normal but put a false back in the cabinet below the drawer about 1/3rd of the way back. It cut his storage space in the end table but provided plenty of room to fit a sub enclosure.

He built a base with a slotted front panel that kept the end tables up off the ground but made it look like they had a typical, heavy base and sat on the floor like the rest of his furniture. I built him sub boxes out of MDF and braced them. Made slotted ports that wrapped under the false base and vented to the front of the cabinet through the slots he cut and flared in the front of the base. The subs fired out the back and vented out the front. The ports were tuned to about 45 Hz and painted black inside and out to hide them. The subs were crossed over at about 60 Hz. He had built the cabinets to recess the mounting baffle for the subs about an inch or so. He made wooden frames and stretched speaker grill cloth over them and flush mounted the grill covers over the back to clean them up.

They ended up looking spectacular and were a bit of compromise in performance but he got his big punch for his HT and a WAF that was through the roof. She didn't even know they were subs until he turned the HT on. We used plate amps to power them and he put outlets on the back for the lamp and wired the amp power lines in to the power strips. He could turn the subs off by just flicking a switch on the back. It also allowed him to plug lamps and a clock in to the end tables as well so just one power cord was coming from each table and signal wires were coming out from under the base board behind the couch. Clean, stealth install. All his full range, center and surrounds were in-walls too. You couldn't tell there was a HT in the room at all. Especially since he made custom grills for his in-walls that looked like fancy art. All they were was a few pieces of this drapery fabric he stretched over some frames he made from furring strip to look like an artist's stretched canvas. He framed them too so they looked like paintings or some other kind of abstract art.

Stealth installs are cool!

You'd better post pictures of the final results! I wish I had pictures of what we did to my friend's place. I'd go get pictures now but he moved to East Bumblecluck Arizona to take a job at White Sands Missile Range like 8 years ago. I haven't talked to him since I left LM. Bummer. I'm not even sure if he still has them.

greyford1979

Thanks for some of the suggestions guys but she's well on her way in the build process lol. The amp and port mounting idea is good, but for them it's going to be next to there sofa and the back won't be seen. If I would have been able to do everything I wanted to, this would have been quite an elaborate build...but I had to stick to the budget my buddy's gf gave me. So it will be a little more simple, but should still look pretty good, I hope. I am making it to match the rest of their furniture and speakers. I wanted to use solid oak for the top, but again cuz of budget I couldn't. But it did turn out very well. I was going to just veneer the edges, but instead used some nice trim pieces which actually looks better and cost less than the veneer:biggrin: the enclosure itself is ready for paint. Then I can assemble the top, legs, and final trim pieces. Few pics including how the top turned out. Took some hunting to find the piece I wanted to use for the top, I loved this one, beautiful grain.

greyford1979

Realized as well today, I miscalculated, this will be tuned to 18 Hz and not 20 Hz:redface:

fatpiggy

Hey Greyford,
Someones been a busy boy...looking good dude.Man you work fast..Ive only been away from the board for a few days and your almost finished.Excellent work..keep the pics coming...

I have had a great day today, my cows are fat as and..I scored a magic Rotel RB-985 MKII 5 channel power amp off Ebay for a steal Im very happy.The gods are looking down on me.

Fatpiggy

greyford1979

Thanks! Very busy at that. Work, clearing snow every day, working on the sub, and trying to find time for the gf...im wore out this week lol. Congrats on the amp, hopefully you will have your speakers done soon so you can finally hear the outcome.

Jstas

I did that trim on the edge thing for my flexirack. Only I used standard birch veneer plywood. The shelves are much larger, 2 feet by 4 feet. The oak veneer would have made it look like it was sheathing plywood at that size. The birch took the stain well though and darkened nicely. I was hoping for a framed look but it ended up blending so well you can barely notice it's there.

Looks good! Can't wait to see the final product!

Did you get a port yet? If you did, did you get a flared end? I'm just wondering, if it's going to be close to the wall, you might get some port noise from a straight port with a rolled lip.

greyford1979

Jstas wrote: »

I did that trim on the edge thing for my flexirack. Only I used standard birch veneer plywood. The shelves are much larger, 2 feet by 4 feet. The oak veneer would have made it look like it was sheathing plywood at that size. The birch took the stain well though and darkened nicely. I was hoping for a framed look but it ended up blending so well you can barely notice it's there.

Looks good! Can't wait to see the final product!

Did you get a port yet? If you did, did you get a flared end? I'm just wondering, if it's going to be close to the wall, you might get some port noise from a straight port with a rolled lip.

Thanks! The trim actually came out better than I thought it was going to. I did make the port already, with flared ends. But there is plenty of room between the wall and port. I actually have a bend in the port so that I could make it long enough for the tuning I wanted and to keep it away from the wall. Same thing I had to do on the sub I built for myself just shorter, mine is just longer. I got some paint on the enclosure, kinda freaked me out when the final coat was drying. You can see from the pic how near the top edge and around the amp opening it was drying real funky, but all is well now that it's completely dry. I used the same satin paint that I used for the sides on my sub. Where you see no paint, is gonna be oak. Only a little more to go and I will be delivering it to my buddy. He is gonna crap his pants when I tell him I need help grabbing something from my car and he sees this thing:biggrin: He better do something nice for his gf for her doing this for him

greyford1979

Holy crap! I was just looking at some end table subs that can be bought, they are just a tad bit more expensive than this build. Saw one that only covers your existing sub and is just under $800 and others that run just under $3,000:eek: sure they might be a little more exotic but give me $3,000 and I could build a few bad ****$ subs:rolleyes: And the cover idea, I think I could do that for a tad less than $800 lol.

greyford1979

Well this thing nearing completion. All I have left to do is finish sanding the legs and trim pieces for staining. Then I can install the top and urethane all the oak. And finally she will be ready for the woofer and amp. My buddy's gf dropped off the woofer and amp for me at work today. couple pics of the RE woofer. Also some pics of it finally starting to look like an end table. With the angle I took the pics at, it looks like the top is wider than the bottom lol. Installed the port for it as well today. Also a dry fit for the top to give me an idea of what the finished sub will look like:biggrin: Depending on how this weekend goes, it should be finished Sunday

FTGV

Nice job! it looks great ,the oak trim dresses it up nicely.

ben62670

Nice!

greyford1979

FTGV wrote: »

Nice job! it looks great ,the oak trim dresses it up nicely.

ben62670 wrote: »

Nice!

Thank you fellas! It's definitely turning out better than I thought it was going to when I first started building it. If my buddy doesn't like it, I'm sure I could give it a nice home:biggrin:

RuSsMaN

Where do we order? Is there a waiting list?

greyford1979

RuSsMaN wrote: »

Where do we order? Is there a waiting list?

lol! No waiting list, you are next in line Well at least not for this, but I do have 5 guys in line for custom car builds I will be doing:eek::eek: I might as well take my parents advice and open up my own shop:eek:

zarrdoss

nice work!

Face

Great job!

Jstas

Sweet! That was the port I was going to tell you to use! Is the inside flared as well?

greyford1979

zarrdoss wrote: »

nice work!

Face wrote: »

Great job!

Jstas wrote: »

Sweet! That was the port I was going to tell you to use! Is the inside flared as well?

Thanks again guys! And yep, the inside is flared as well. I forgot to take pics of it before I installed it in the enclosure:redface: Did this on both subs I built for myself and no port noise to speak of:biggrin:

greyford1979

I finished staining the rest of the oak today:biggrin: Love the way the golden color looks against the black satin. Also glued the top on. I used dowel rods to center the top and hold it in place. And ofc I used the weights again to apply the pressure to the top lol. Will be doing the urethane tomorrow and installing the amp and sub Monday.

Sherardp

Excellent work.

Face

FYI: http://www.woodpeck.com/besseykbody.html :biggrin:

greyford1979

Sherardp wrote: »

Excellent work.

Thanks!

Face wrote: »

FYI: http://www.woodpeck.com/besseykbody.html :biggrin:

lol...I know I know, I have to get some new clamps. I have small ones just not any long enough for bigger projects like this. These are some real nice clamps tho.

greyford1979

Finished up the urethane today. 2 coats, second coat is completely dry now as well. Have to wait till tomorrow tho to install the woofer. First pic is without urethane, second pic is 1 coat, and last 3 are the second coat. Tomorrow after the woofer goes in, I get to test it and start breaking in the woofer for him:biggrin: