Any Tips For Maple Combo Amp Cabinets?

[blown240]

I have never worked with maple for an enclosure.  I am planning a build that will be designed after Heywood Wakefield furniture.  The cabinet will be stained maple.

Any tips for how thick the baffle needs to be, or other maple specific tips?

It hopefully will look sort of like this:

[PRR]

The one thing I know about maple cabinet is that it won't glue well.

Go hang on a woodworker forum.

Is the H-W stuff really solid maple, or very clever veneer? I would really want to use a less-reactive more glue-friendly wood for the carcass, and maximize utilization of precious clear-maple by slicing rather than chunking.

> how thick the baffle needs to be

For your purposes: use the standard dimensions. It will be heavier than pine, but you are unlikely to be lugging this beauty in the subway. The density of maple suggests it could be enginerred thinner, but stiffness goes down WAY faster than thickness, 3/4 pine is not over-stiff, so 1/2" maple may be too thin. OTOH this is a "music creation" cabinet, not a "reproduction" cabinet, so some resonance isn't fatal. If 1/2" maple is much cheaper than the 3/4" (AND if you can get enough glue-area!), then go 1/2".

[stingray_65]

Well the baffle should be covered in grille cloth.

It doesn't have to be maple, in fact it should be made of void free plywood.

As far as to how thick, that depends on size of speakers, outside dimensions of your baffle AND the expected wattage of the amp.

For amps less than 15W I use 1/4" Baltic birch,  15-50W 3/8" BB, over that and I use 1/2"

Speaking of Baltic birch, It is my preferred material for constructing most projects. Very strong, easy to work, and relatively inexpensive.

It's as light in color as maple, to the untrained eye it COULD pass pretty easy.
They do make a maple edge banding to cover the plies and it applies really easy with a clothes iron.

[blown240]

The real HW furniture is solid maple, and REAL heavy.   

I was looking at a website for a local wood supplier and there is hard and soft maple.  Not sure which one I want.

The speaker will be 2 12s and the power output has yet to be determined, but probably around 50watts.   I am trying to decide if I want to go big and do 100 watts.  The outside dimensions of the entire cab will be roughly 30" wide, 12-16" deep and 18" tall. I dont have the exact size worked out and unfortunately the cost of the wood will make some difference.

3/4 thick is roughly 30% more $$$ than 1/2

[bigsbybender]

I'd go with ply and veneer it.

[blown240]

How hard is it to veneer around a 1/2 inch rounded edge?

[PRR]

> maple for an enclosure. ... after Heywood Wakefield furniture

http://www.heywood-wakefield.com/tables/m793g-lamp-table-with-drawer/
This sturdy lamp table, like all our furniture, is built from solid Northern Yellow Birch.

IMO, Birch makes more sense.

The true H-W style uses _large_radius edge shaping. Do you have a heavy shaper?

[bigsbybender]

How hard is it to veneer around a 1/2 inch rounded edge?

Good point.....  The furniture makers could steam and bend veneer easier than the DIY'er could.

[blown240]

I dont have a heavy shaper.  Neither do any of my buddies.  A router with a 1/2 rounded bit it pretty easy and I think it would match close enough.   Here are some pics of the corners of a few of the pieces I already have:









I always thought that this stuff was maple, but if its birch, or if birch i close enough and easier to work with or less money, than thats fine with me.  Poplar may even be close enough.  I dont need to match HW exactly, I just want it close enough that it has the same look.

[triode]

That grain does not yell "maple" in the photos. Maple is rather difficult to work unless you have some fairly serious tools and a sturdy workbench with an end/tail vice.

I second the Birch suggestion. I made my kitchen cabinets out of maple. I had one stick of it stop my 1946 Delta Unisaw... with a three phase induction repulsion motor that weighs 90lbs. Yeah. They don't call it "hard" for nothing.

[blown240]

WOW!   So your saying my dewalt cordless wont like cutting it huh? 

Birch it is folks!

[G._Hoffman]

Use plywood and veneer it.  The edges aren't a problem - you cut your openings 1/2" (or a tad more, maybe 9/16") oversized, and glue in a piece of maple to rout your edge into.  The best part of veneering it is that you can get MUCH prettier veneers for a lot less money than you can with solid maple. 

I can't agree with PRR on gluing maple.  Maple is a pretty easy wood to glue up, as it hasn't got much in the way of oil in it.  Rosewood is hard to glue up.  Maple is easy, by comparison.  Just make sure all your joints fit well.  I also don't find maple particularly hard to work with.  Time consuming, yes, because it is very hard and with the wild figured stuff you need to take very light cuts with very sharp tools.  And you need to sharpen your tools often.  If your router bits don't need sharpening when you start, they probably will when you are done!  But it isn't hard to work with, and in some ways it is a joy.  NOTHING holds an edge as cleanly as maple, and when you make a cut it holds it's shape.  With a properly sharp chisel, you can get a surface so perfect it is downright shinny. 

Still, doing that whole cabinet in maple would be a shameful waste of wood.  Make it out of a good baltic birch plywood, and veneer it with maple. 


Gabriel

[blown240]

I have a basic design now with dimensions.  I made the baffle board extend 2 inches past the speakers on each side, with 2 inched between them.  Is that too big?  Should the speakers be closer together, or should there be less space on the sides?

Thanks!

[BlackCloud]

Hi, I would suggest going to the Carvin amp site and explaining what you want to do as they build a lot of small cabinets out of maple, but please explain that you are not a big time builder with a company building for others and they should be more than happy to give you all the info you need.  Do not use any type of pine to build your cabs as its a soft wood, use a hard wood, use baltic birch as it is most often used for guitar and p a cabinets, very easy to work and looks beautiful.  It needs to be covered.  I have been building acoustic guitars for 11 years and know a lot about soft and hard wood, all of the pines are soft.  Also check out You Tube as they have a lot of useful information on your subject.

[jjasilli]

If anyone knows how to do proper and lasting DIY veneer, please post. 

[G._Hoffman]

If anyone knows how to do proper and lasting DIY veneer, please post. 

The traditional way, which works really well, is to use hot hide glue.  You apply it to both surfaces, and then use a veneer hammer to iron it down.  Works great.  You can also replace the veneer hammer with an iron, but put a piece of folded up between the iron and the wood.

Probably a lot easier, though, is to use Tightbond, and come up with a good clamping strategy.  Clamps spread their force along a 45 degree cone from both of the pads, and you need to have good pressure from both sides, so you need to use plenty of cauls, and plenty of clamps.  If you have a lot of figure, you might need to flatten it first.  You can try dampening it with water and clamping it under two flat plates.  If that doesn't work, you'd need to get a veneer softener, such as Super-Soft 2.  Clamp it up between plates over night before you try to clamp it to the surface.  When you DO clamp it to the box, make sure to leave it under clamps for at least 24 hours. 


Gabriel

[G._Hoffman]

Hide Glue hammer Veneering part I

Hide Glue hammer veneering part II



Finding videos about other techniques turns out to be more difficult, I'm afraid.  But look around on youtube, I'm sure you'll find some.  Honestly, though, once you have a glue pot it's hard to think why you would use anything but hide glue.  On the other hand, if you used the clamps that guy above is using to flatten his veneer to clamp down your veneer and used Tightbond (or something similar), you would probably be alright.


Gabriel