1x12 cabinet first build ... a few questions

[Punkavenger]

Hi Guys

My first post

I'm building a 1x12 closed guitar extension cab ... I already have some nice 1" ext plywood so I'll be using that as my building material. a 12" Ceramic blue dog will be my speaker. I'm going for a bluesy sound with good bass response.

I have a Mesa boogie studio 22+ that I want to set on top the ext cab.

The base of the Mesa is 11x19 18" height

Can I make the cabinet my own dimensions so that the Mesa sits nicely on top and looks good, is stable, without sacrificing sound quality?

Say for example 13"x21" base 18" height?

Should I use some sort of insulation on the interior of the cab like they do with home speakers?

I do have a doweling jig ... is doweling a good deal better than screw and glue ?

Thanks!

[Chuck H]

There are a lot of guys here more tweaky about cabinets than I am, but... IMHE 11" depth should give you plenty of bottom end with the other standard dimentions. So I would build it to match your existing amp. Keep in mind that it's a closed back AND doesn't have an amp inside to eat up interior volume. There are SPICE programps for figuring the appropriate volume for a given speaker @ wattage. I don't have any of those. But my ears and experience tell me you would be fine with the 11"x19"x18" dimentions. Especially if you plan to use both cabinets at the same time. 2x12's is 75.36 cubic inches of air moving. At 11" deep you should have a roll off well below the response of the amp. Build it the same. It will look cool and be more portable.

FWIW I find 3/4" stock (which is actually 5/8ths in some wood products) with a 1/2" (sometimes actually 3/8ths) baffle to be more than enough for a one or 2 / 12" cabinet. With 1" stock your cabinet will be much heavier than need be. But if it's what you have the extra stability will only improve the bass response.

Chuck

[Punkavenger]

Thanks Chuck

Strange as it may seem I've only had open back combo amps over the years ...

Never a closed back or even an extension speaker of any sort. However I have made speaker cabinets for home stereo use that turned out pretty well.

I understand that basically you want to cut down on the sharp corners and hard edges inside the cabinet for best sound quality. I was going to cut triangular pieces of wood to fit in the inside corners and then cover the interior with insulation ... Will this work well? Thanks again!

[olddawg]

Make sure the plywood that you use is cabinet grade finished on both sides. Regular ex ply for buildings has voids in it which will rattle and drive you nuts. Fiberglass insulation in the inside surfaces helps too.

[Punkavenger]

Figures! These projects always cost me a fortune ... guess I need to check into the 3/4" baltic birch

Thanks for the heads up!

[olddawg]

Figures! These projects always cost me a fortune ... guess I need to check into the 3/4" baltic birch

Thanks for the heads up!

If you have the time and the cheap ply already you might want to build a cab and not do the final covering/finishing until you listen to it. When I was a teenager we used to "borrow" ply from construction sites to build PA cabs with a 15" and a horn. For what we were doing it worked fine. You may or may not have a problem plus you would get a dry run for nothing but your time.

[Chuck H]

I understand that basically you want to cut down on the sharp corners and hard edges inside the cabinet for best sound quality. I was going to cut triangular pieces of wood to fit in the inside corners and then cover the interior with insulation

Keep in mind that your not building a 20hz to 20khz cabinet. It's not even a bass cabinet. The extra effort of breaking the corners and insulating the walls is probably overkill. In fact, when you consider how most guitar cabinets are made and that most guitar speakers were designed to sound good in those cabinets, you may actually detriment the tone. Sorta like putting the finest true gut strings on your flat top only because they're the "best". It would never sound right because it's the wrong application.

Chuck

[Punkavenger]

Thanks guys ... some good points. Some 3/4 baltic birch just showed up on the job site and I've already asked for the scraps. . I'm not unusually cheap (no really) but a friend of mine has a nice cabinet he wants to sell me for a good price, and I just don't see the point of spending more money on materials (plus factoring in my time) than the already built cab cost. I've emailed Ted Weber, since it is a weber speaker I'm using, and asked him his opinion of the dimensions, insulation etc. ... Evidently hes been ill ... so GOOD VIBES GOING OUT TO TED! Thanks again....

[Punkavenger]

of course I'll let you know how things turn out and post pics

[vlahor]

Hi, can you put building plan for cabinet. I am curious about bracing.