Birch baffle thickness

[Leo_Gnardo]

The rack of lumber at the store looks like a bag of french fries.

Bwah-hah ha ! ! ! SO TRUE!

My dad the pro carpenter told me "the so called authorities that allow this crap, claim that 'superior modern lumber' in these smaller dimensions supposedly has the strength of the former to-true-dimension lumber. BALONEY ON THAT!" So - unless you're milling your own lumber to dimension, you gotta deal with what's offered at the dodgy "home centers" OR at the best quality lumber yards. For the last 44 years I've been living in old houses built with real 2" by 4" and other non-shrunken structural members. All good and solid, none on the verge of collapse. Plus, modern lumber is made from the sap wood of trees grown to be harvested for building. The only way you easily get really good lumber like heart-of-pine or locust is to buy salvaged, and that's gone way up in price now a lot of people want to have the rustic or antique look.

More on adding that "frame" for the grille: "Beware the Baffleslap my son, the cloth that flaps, the grille that snaps." Nothing worse than having the amp you carefully created or repaired emit brapping noises on low notes, especially when you could have avoided it with a bit of extra care. I'm sure Leo Fender didn't originate it but he sure was wise to include those frames in his baffle designs.

[Justin Thomas]

More on adding that "frame" for the grille: "Beware the Baffleslap my son, the cloth that flaps, the grille that snaps." Nothing worse than having the amp you carefully created or repaired emit brapping noises on low notes, especially when you could have avoided it with a bit of extra care. I'm sure Leo Fender didn't originate it but he sure was wise to include those frames in his baffle designs.

Re: baffleslap, friend had a beautiful custom 2x10 made to basic BF dimensions using very nice henuine plywood, but in oiled finish with Messa-Boogers-style wicker grille. I paired it with her 2xEL34 head I'd made for her. All was spectacular except a loud rattle I jhst couldn't shake. After a solid 8 hours looking for the usual loose hardware or joints, I was about to just throw my hands up...

Then I was just staring at the front while I played one night & watched that wicker grille jump around. Crap! Can't shrink it, can't stretch it... No frame around the edge like I found on my 2x15" when I took it apart to see why it didn't have that problem...

Only solution I could think of that didn't involve her calling the guy & risking waiting a few more months for a new baffle was to take out the speakers and insert some thick felt furniture pads around the outside of thespeaker holes, between baffle board & wicker grille. Wasn't themost elegant solution, and if you looked close enough, you'd see the slight color mismatch of the pads, but it fixed the baffleslap. I told her to also email the seller with pictures explaining the issue and to check some vintage Fenders. I didn't get the idea theguy was a scammer or slacker or anything, just didn't know any better. Cuz, you know, help a fellow craftsman out, & karma, & stuff.

Justin

[Chuck H]

I've done that. Or similar. I can't remember what amp I was working on, but I ended up using that rubber strip that holds screening in the frames. I was somehow able to jam it all the way to the edges of the board so it didn't look odd. Working on the same principal, when I built the baffle on my own amp I glued and pin nailed a 1/4" quarter round on the face at the edges (corner on the OUTSIDE).

The most impressed I've ever been with old lumber was on a home in a very well healed area of Palo Alto, Ca. This was a paint job for an older widow. Her and her husband built the place when they were young (and affluent). The whole house was impressive, but the most impressive part was the siding. 2"x12"x20' clear redwood, all mostly or at least partly heart, lapped horizontally on the entire house below the gable line. It was peeling badly as the original prime coat from 60 years earlier was finally letting go in places. The lady of the house asked me: "Do you think I should replace it?" Since clear, largely heart redwood in that size is pretty much made of unobtainium today a more unscrupulous person might have said "Sure, but it won't be cheap." and them abscond with $100k worth of salvaged wood. In that light I'm glad it was me on the job because I told her it was very desirable wood in great shape other than the failing paint. I also told her that it probably didn't do much for the value of the house itself and it could make for a tidy sale if she ever did replace it.

[Tony Bones]

Bah on any intention of a "finished look". They're just plain cuttin' the lumber smaller and advertising it wrong. What sort of a finished look with extra planing or milling are they chasing when half the boards they sell are crooked. The rack of lumber at the store looks like a bag of french fries.

I agree completely that the wood you find at a local home center is complete crap. Partly I blame the home centers for trying to keep costs down. Partly I blame the logging industry for logging young, scrappy trees.

But, as for the naming, that's a convention that goes way back in time. There's nothing nefarious about it. Originally, pretty much ALL lumber was sold rough-sawn and that's how they spec'ed the thickness. A lumber mill would likely have a planer, and they would be happy to plane your boards for you (at an additional cost) but the bill they presented to you would show the rough-sawn thickness, not the finished thickness, because that's what you bought. In cases were they had a selection of wood already planed on each side (S2S) or with sides and edges cleaned up (S4S) they still listed by the rough thickness because it was consistent with what they'd been doing all along. It made sense to everyone, including the people they did business with.

Today, if we only shop at home centers then we never get near rough-saw lumber and just don't understand the measurement system. But, if you start shopping at places that cater more to professional wood workers then you'll start to see a lot more rough lumber and the system will make more sense.

[nosaj]

I agree completely that the wood you find at a local home center is complete crap. Partly I blame the home centers for trying to keep costs down. Partly I blame the logging industry for logging young, scrappy trees.

But, as for the naming, that's a convention that goes way back in time. There's nothing nefarious about it. Originally, pretty much ALL lumber was sold rough-sawn and that's how they spec'ed the thickness. A lumber mill would likely have a planer, and they would be happy to plane your boards for you (at an additional cost) but the bill they presented to you would show the rough-sawn thickness, not the finished thickness, because that's what you bought. In cases were they had a selection of wood already planed on each side (S2S) or with sides and edges cleaned up (S4S) they still listed by the rough thickness because it was consistent with what they'd been doing all along. It made sense to everyone, including the people they did business with.

Today, if we only shop at home centers then we never get near rough-saw lumber and just don't understand the measurement system. But, if you start shopping at places that cater more to professional wood workers then you'll start to see a lot more rough lumber and the system will make more sense.

it sure is something else going to a sawmill and picking something out. I remember when I was young and my dad would go to the sawmill very interesting stuff going on there.

nosaj

[Leo_Gnardo]

it sure is something else going to a sawmill and picking something out. I remember when I was young and my dad would go to the sawmill very interesting stuff going on there.

nosaj

True that. Even as a little kid I knew with all that sawdust around, it was dangerous to be smoking cigarettes. And pitching lit butts wherever they landed, without a care... Safety? So what!!! Fooey on that, back then EVERYONE was smoking, all the time. Now local sawmills are rare, partially due to the Darwin effect maybe?

[nosaj]

True that. Even as a little kid I knew with all that sawdust around, it was dangerous to be smoking cigarettes. And pitching lit butts wherever they landed, without a care... Safety? So what!!! Fooey on that, back then EVERYONE was smoking, all the time. Now local sawmills are rare, partially due to the Darwin effect maybe?

Johnny Cash lost a brother in one.
Some of those trades disappear a little at a time, just as repairing things will one day.

nosaj

[Chuck H]

I agree completely that the wood you find at a local home center is complete crap. Partly I blame the home centers for trying to keep costs down. Partly I blame the logging industry for logging young, scrappy trees.

But, as for the naming, that's a convention that goes way back in time. There's nothing nefarious about it. Originally, pretty much ALL lumber was sold rough-sawn and that's how they spec'ed the thickness. A lumber mill would likely have a planer, and they would be happy to plane your boards for you (at an additional cost) but the bill they presented to you would show the rough-sawn thickness, not the finished thickness, because that's what you bought. In cases were they had a selection of wood already planed on each side (S2S) or with sides and edges cleaned up (S4S) they still listed by the rough thickness because it was consistent with what they'd been doing all along. It made sense to everyone, including the people they did business with.

Today, if we only shop at home centers then we never get near rough-saw lumber and just don't understand the measurement system. But, if you start shopping at places that cater more to professional wood workers then you'll start to see a lot more rough lumber and the system will make more sense.

Ok. Maybe some of that,but,.. A 2x4 use to be 2x4. (<period) And they weren't rough sawn. They were 2" by 4" because that was the measurement. And a 1" thickness on a board use to be 1". (<period) Not 3/4" and how does any of this pertain to plywood? Which is also commonly sold at 5/16" to 7/16" actual when advertised at 1/2". I've never seen rough sawn plywood.

[Randall]

I went with my 5/8" cabinet grade birch ply for the baffle, off set the 12" speaker hole, and set it back 1/2" from the front edge. Tomorrow we route the edges, install the speaker mounting hardware, and it will be ready to tolex.

[SoulFetish]

"More significant is how the baffle thickness affects the fit of the grill board in the recess. You'll need the depth measurement for that to know if it's a problem."

I wasn't planning on a recess, is this necessary?

I ran into this issue once when I took on a cabinet job before taking looking at how the baffleboard was joined in the cabinet, taking any measurements, or thinking it through at all before agreeing to take the job and quoting a price .
The job involved repairing(replacing) an absolutely butchered baffleboard. The customer wanted to install a 12" speaker in place of the stock 10" speaker it was designed for. A previous tech attempted to modify the existing 1/4" ply for a 12" speaker, and the baffle didn't survive the attempted fabrication or weight of the speaker. The only way to reliably support the speaker he bought was to use a proper 1/2" baffle. The problem was, the baffle could only be installed through the back due to the construction of the cab and the baffle was set in a 1/4" grove in the top of the cab enclosure. I was able to solve this by cutting a 1/4" rabbet along the top of the baffle. This may work in many other instances where you want, or already have a thicker ply. By measuring for inset and depth of rabbets along the edges, you can construct the baffle to fit flush in the front and push the added depth on the inside of the cabinet.
I'm not sure if I'm describing this in a way that's easy to visualize, but you can see the documentation from the above example in this thread
How to cut a perfect radius in a speaker baffle using a jigsaw