# Clearwave Dynamics kit build (L/R/C)



## Wooderson (Nov 6, 2010)

"Let's just say that I have a number in mind and I haven't hit it yet." --Clooney (Up in the Air)

The Dynamics have 7 drivers each. My surrounds are dipoles w/ 4 drivers each. Rear surrounds are simple 2 driver bookshelfs. And 2*18" subs. So once complete, I will have 7*3+4*2+2*2+2=35 drivers in play.

This will be a long process, so bear with me. I have a buddy with access to a CNC, so we're working on turning Jed's CAD files into toolpaths as well as designing the grill frames. We're going all 3/4" MDF for the panels (except 1/2" for the grills). This will be my first veneering project. *I'm wide open to suggestions for wood type and finishing recipes.*

So far, yes, using a CNC will be so totally awesome, but it's not like you just walk up and wish the panels into existence. It takes some work to prepare the input data. Luckily my buddy's engine runs on cheap beer .

Like I said, this will take a while. I'll drop a picture and/or video from time to time along the way leading up to the big "he who dies with the most clamps wins" sessions. I would drop a few screen grabs of the CAD work, but it's such a pain in the neck to post pictures to HTS (hint admins, hint).

G'Day,
--Myles


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## Wooderson (Nov 6, 2010)

Picture time! Some of the things seen here:


Tech Shop in N. Austin is an awesome place. Too bad I live in S. Austin, or I'd seriously have to consider joining. They charged me $25/visit. It took two 8 hour nights to run four sheets of MDF. We left around 2am each Friday night we were there.
Using my daughter's bedroom while she's not using it.
The cut sheet is for my walnut veneer.
Jed didn't have a grill design, so I made my own in Sketchup and passed off to my buddy for AutoCAD'ification and VCarve.
There's a picture of a divot. Whoops. The guide wheel on my flush cut bit went into a speaker hole cutout while I wasn't paying attention. No problem though. Another layer goes over the front face. Then I'll fill the little gap left.
My recess circles are ~1.5mm too short in diameter. Doesn't sound like much, but they're almost impossible to sand the edges of and I have 21 holes total. So we're going to add 1/16" margin to the outer circles and burn another sheet of MDF.
We cut a guide panel with the same size circles as the recess circles along with thru holes that match up to the holes I'll use to put the grill mount hardware in. That way I can use a flush cut bit with the guide wheel at the top and flush my veneer to the recess circles. There's really no other good way to do it that we can think of. We'll recut this panel of course when we resize our recess circles.
I have all the kit hardware. It's about time to start mounting crossovers (massive!), sound dampening, terminals, etc. And time to get out the soldering iron for all the crimp connectors.
I'm planning to dye the walnut a brownish color and then start laying on layers of tung oil, then a sealer, then satin poly. I need to practice on a few pieces first. I've never veneered or taken finishing seriously before. What could possible go wrong?
Problem: For some reason, a couple of dados mysteriously disappeared from Jed's CAD file. But I was able to compensate by cutting down the back panel of the mid/tweet compartment. I'll be caulking the joints anyway. So no blood, no foul.
Problem: On our last sheet, the Z calibration was a little high. That left us with ~1/16" of uncut board everywhere that was supposed to be a thru cut. We managed to rip everything out anyway (one broken piece, but it was the veneer flushing guide, so not a problem; and we're going to recut that one anyway). All together, it took me ~4 hours to clean up all the edges with flush routering and sanding.


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## pacogun (Sep 21, 2013)

Nice work! I enjoy watching the photos. Keep posting, please.


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## Wooderson (Nov 6, 2010)

Lots of progress, but lots more to do. I did two coats of finish on a scratch piece of the walnut veneer. It looks really beautiful and application is nearly foolproof. I'm in love with Waterlox.


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## Wooderson (Nov 6, 2010)

Work is still ongoing. Not many pictures to post since things have been redundant lately. I've just been doing the same 'ol stuff x 3. Filling the insides (crossovers, wiring, soldering, dampening) took a few months of a little work here and there. I'm almost done gluing the superstructures together. Then it'll be on to veneer and finishing. Maybe I'll be done by end of Summer??

Note to anyone else building these that may have found this thread (Hi Roger!). Even with everything CNC perfect, it's still pure hell getting the last panels in place. So many braces have to line up perfectly. And if your braces aren't all perfectly perpendicular, you will know it. The key is heavy dry fitting. Start by lining up the center brace with the center dado. Use a rubber mallet and a scrap piece of MDF and beat on it till your hands bleed. Pull it off and then use a razor to shave off the MDF that isn't where it's supposed to be. The put it back on and beat on it some more. Repeat until you can get a good dry fit. Then go nuts with the wood glue and put every clamp you can find within a 5 mile radius on it. If you happened to make any small cracks, glue and clamp them shut. I had a few minor league repairs to do. Don't sweat it though. Once everything is solid, flush trim routing and some heavy sanding will make it look like a work of art when you're done. If you're going with square corners and edges like I am, be careful not to sand anything down to roundish, especially around the corners. I usually hand sand around the corners.


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## Owen Bartley (Oct 18, 2006)

Wooderson, you're right... you win the clamp ownership game!

Cool project, I love seeing CNC cut panels get put together. I wish I had the resources to try that. Looking forward to seeing these come together.


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## Wooderson (Nov 6, 2010)

All clamp credit goes to my buddy Louis. The first night we met up at TechShop to kick some MDF dust, he showed me a tactical bag full of clamps that was literally too heavy to lift . I could barely drag it to my trunk. Then I added a few of my own pipe clamps to the mix.

This is a very well designed enclosure plan. The dados make everything fit like a glove. And small overhangs are built-in for easy flush trimming. The only problem I ran into is that the dados were the width of the mdf minus ~0.5mm. That a) ensured a super tight fit, and b) makes you fight the super tight fits all the way. I quickly formed the habit of giving every dado-targeted edge a slight rough sanding before dry-fit/glue. The next time we chop one of these out for a client, I may consider seeing if we can widen the dados by one "grid" (whatever the minimum resolution of the CNC is). Or maybe it was just the high humidity of spring-time. Who knows.

I will *never* build another enclosure w/o using a CNC. No matter the cost, which isn't that bad. There are a couple of options here in Austin. In case one door happens to close, I have one or two others.

We had some empty space on our last trip to the CNC, so I quickly threw together a full-range design based on the GR Fonken. I had to roll my own in SketchUp since their design is not based on 3/4" MDF. I've always wanted to listen to an "audiophile" (hate that word) quality FR speaker. And they're probably very compatible with my 6kHz rolled off chemo-damaged hearing. I'll add a MiniDSP to smooth the response if needed.

http://www.frugal-phile.com/boxes-fostex.html#GR-fonken

So the next project, a long time from now, will be throwing those puppies together. I also have plenty of Walnut veneer left over from this project to skin them with.

Re: the Dynamics, the super-structures are *DONE* now. Minor wood filling also complete (I used countersunk screws to make sure the outer front panels lined up perfectly with the sub-panel beneath). And I had a few hairline cracks to fill. So now it's time for veneer. I'll do a bottom first in case I screw up. And then a back. Hopefully by then I'll have it figured out. BTW, I have a cool plan for flush-trimming the recesses. I'll make sure to document it well with pictures (think: flush trim bit with a top-roller).

More to come....


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## Wooderson (Nov 6, 2010)

I have a *LOT* more pictures and comments to follow, but here's a sneak-peek at the first one.


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Looks nice woods! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Wooderson (Nov 6, 2010)

Thanks Willis!

I got the L & R finished. Next up is center channel.

Cosmetically, there are *soooo* many mistakes. But the cool thing is that I really don't notice them. I'm going to hate putting grills on these things. I just think the silver cones of the Tang Bands will be too distracting. I'm the kind of guy that runs around with electrical tap blocking out every LED in sight so that the only light I see in the room is from the TV (and I boarded over the window in the room of course).

I have L&R on a micro-sized amp (2x15W) on my downstairs TV for now. I really like the way they sound. Very neutral. I tried to crank them a little, but the amp wasn't having it. Bass went to total mudd. So I'll have to wait till I get them upstairs to give them a real listen.


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

Very nice work, looks like many hours of attention! Thanks for posting.


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