So I decided I needed some new cabinets. My old ones were really tired and myself, being of a certain age, I wanted something lighter. I tried a lot of the cabinets on the shelf and they didn’t sound how I wanted them to sound and they were really expensive. So I decided that I’d try and build something of my own. My favorite amp that I’d ever used was the B-15 and maybe the best live rig I’ve heard was Joey Spampinato from NRBQ ( I was centre stage at a couple of shows) using two B-15’s stacked with a mic inside one of the cabinets. I’ve got a couple of good amp heads, So I thought I could just build the speaker box. (Purists forgive me)
I’m not particularly skilled as a carpenter or a cabinet maker but I wanted to give it a shot.I found the plans for the B 15 online on talking bass. When I saw the plans
I was surprised how much stuff was actually going on in cabinet. I had not realized it was this internal porting system i.e. the Port-o-flex. (duh!) I have total respect for Jesse Oliver.
So what the heck, I’ll try it. I’d built cabinets before and I had a few ideas as to what I’d like to try. First off, I really didn’t want the weight. Baltic Birch was out because the weight and the cost. So I decided to use Aspen, it’s really inexpensive here. I dropped any part of the cabinet that I felt wasn’t responsible for sound.
I don’t have really good cabinet making tools so I was going to have to use the basic
stuff I’ve got around now and or borrow what I could.
I went over to my drummer/ handy guy Tom’s place and used his table saw. Tom’s saw was not in the best shape so we replace the blade with the finer blade but we were still getting only relatively accurate cuts. This meant there was going to be a lot of Sanding.
We cut out the basic board shapes, overall dimensions 20”x 20”x15”
Marked out centre point
Jig for cutting circles
Cutting ports
Ruff cut front
Port plate
Ruff fitting the box
Because I didn’t dove tail the joins, I use cedar strips for corner braces
I permanently put the speaker grill cloth on the back of the front plate with PL and staples
Protecting the grill
I used picture tape and felt for the back seal
wiring on the side, why-o-why do people put it on the back?
(a bit blurry) after a lot of sanding, I thought the big blemish was kinda' cool looking eh?
B&C Neodymium 15”
corners on , back plate, done,
The logo’s a riff on K-tel and my name, in the style of Jesse Oliver .... and a little RCAF pride,
I’ve used them now and the cab’s have a very strong low mid kinda’ boo bah, low horn sound, which is what I was going for and they’re very efficient, much louder than I’d expected.
Hope this helps anyone who was thinking they'd like to build their own stuff, it wasn't too hard but it took time and sore hands (sanding really messes with my playing)
I’m not particularly skilled as a carpenter or a cabinet maker but I wanted to give it a shot.I found the plans for the B 15 online on talking bass. When I saw the plans
I was surprised how much stuff was actually going on in cabinet. I had not realized it was this internal porting system i.e. the Port-o-flex. (duh!) I have total respect for Jesse Oliver.
So what the heck, I’ll try it. I’d built cabinets before and I had a few ideas as to what I’d like to try. First off, I really didn’t want the weight. Baltic Birch was out because the weight and the cost. So I decided to use Aspen, it’s really inexpensive here. I dropped any part of the cabinet that I felt wasn’t responsible for sound.
I don’t have really good cabinet making tools so I was going to have to use the basic
stuff I’ve got around now and or borrow what I could.
I went over to my drummer/ handy guy Tom’s place and used his table saw. Tom’s saw was not in the best shape so we replace the blade with the finer blade but we were still getting only relatively accurate cuts. This meant there was going to be a lot of Sanding.
Jig for cutting circles
Cutting ports
Ruff cut front
Port plate
Ruff fitting the box
Because I didn’t dove tail the joins, I use cedar strips for corner braces
I permanently put the speaker grill cloth on the back of the front plate with PL and staples
Protecting the grill
I used picture tape and felt for the back seal
wiring on the side, why-o-why do people put it on the back?
(a bit blurry) after a lot of sanding, I thought the big blemish was kinda' cool looking eh?
B&C Neodymium 15”
corners on , back plate, done,
The logo’s a riff on K-tel and my name, in the style of Jesse Oliver .... and a little RCAF pride,
I’ve used them now and the cab’s have a very strong low mid kinda’ boo bah, low horn sound, which is what I was going for and they’re very efficient, much louder than I’d expected.
Hope this helps anyone who was thinking they'd like to build their own stuff, it wasn't too hard but it took time and sore hands (sanding really messes with my playing)
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Always cool seeing DIY cabs and dudes coming up with cool ideas and implementing them.
