Little busy lately; custom box in the making

[draft]

Hey, well I know I don't post here much often, but I've been working a good amount and having some fun building my custom box for my '98 Sport. Anyways, this is about a day & and half of work (contant). It's exactly 1.08cu ft inside, so it houses my application beautifully.

I first started at midnight last weekend laying this entire thing out (from a top view; sorry, cam was dead at the time ) - I had originally wanted this to be a hatchback style box, but I figured I'll just go with a straight up flat box and not chancing the subs pounding the living sake out of the joints.

Got a piece of 4'x7' of 3/4in MDF I had lying around (lol I know, no one just it lying around, it was more specifically in the garage with no purpose), and I found a few other scraps that worked perfectly.. ended up with nothing but shavings from the saws of the sheet, was nice.

So, here's the pics...

This is the front view, though I haven't finished the side panels and the frame to go over the tire wells just yet, need to by some more MDF

From the left.. you can see the how the box flows a little better in this one..

This is basically how the inside is, going to insulate it and just put the panel on and be done with it.. also, you can see the start of the tire well part on the right (the curve), should be finishing that sometime soon..

The top.. the part marked off and which has an "X" in it I'll be taking out and making it an accessible chamber that will have all the wires from the amp to the subs themself. The terminals for the speaker wire will be headed into that chamber and I'm going to drill a hole behind it so I pull the wires to/from the amp

Pretty much all I've done.. *ALOT* more work than I expected, but it looks good so far..

BTW, this will be the new home of 2x Infinity Kappa Perfect 12.1D's, hoping this will be good enough.

Comments.. suggestions, shoot 'em!

As far as placement of the amp goes.. only thing I thought of was to just bolt it onto the back of the box vertically, was originally gonna have it sort of 'displayed' - still looking for some ideas/advice on it; Fosgate's are better vertical (as far as cooling goes), but anything is plausable at this point.

(Note: half of the panels are not secured, including the top, so it's sloppy you probably realize )

 

[wired_af]

nice, keep up the good work

 

[jimbo74]

cool, lets us see it when its all nice and purty

 

[VairKing]

Very nice, I like the shape of it!

 

[odxtoxic]

i have 1 infinity kappa pefect 10.1d, and it puts out good w/ just the 150W im running to it, i also had a custom box made, complety sealed, and carpeted w/ factory carpet

 

[ExplorerSport77]

lookin good..lookin real good

 

[vteg]

That box is sealed right?

Upon first glance I thought you had some kind of stealth port in the back

 

[mhn3773]

that is so awesome i love the lines..wish i could do that im having enough trouble with a square box =) kinda ends up like those weeble wobble things lol

keep up the good work

 

[draft]

Originally posted by vteg
That box is sealed right?

Upon first glance I thought you had some kind of stealth port in the back

Yeah, it is. lol, now that I look in it, I see exactly what you're saying about the port.. interesting, heh

Originally posted by odxtoxic
i have 1 infinity kappa pefect 10.1d, and it puts out good w/ just the 150W im running to it, i also had a custom box made, complety sealed, and carpeted w/ factory carpet

Glad that turned out well for you, hope these do just the same.



Tomorrow I should be finishing up all the panels, screw and glue everything in for good. Took a nice trip around town for the last batch of connectors/terminals and of course my speaker wire (the upmost idiots work at Radio Shack, I'm telling you, I'll never shop there again, they didn't even have fuses!). Anyways, I should be able to nail down a good amount for the most part tomorrow. My goal is by the absolute latest, this coming weekend (considering I get off work at noon everday this week and I have Friday off, and my classes are late (almost 5-6 solid hours of work a day ).

Thanks for all the input so far.

 

[mhn3773]

i hate to ask this cause im sure u didnt thinka bout it..but how much wood did that take? like how many sheets of mdf did u use...also do u happen to know the dimentions off hand? if its to much trouble its cool im just wondering

once my hand works again me and my friend are gunna build something similler for his car...i think he wants more of an angle though i dunno..again looking great =)

 

[draft]

Originally posted by mhn3773
i hate to ask this cause im sure u didnt thinka bout it..but how much wood did that take? like how many sheets of mdf did u use...also do u happen to know the dimentions off hand? if its to much trouble its cool im just wondering

once my hand works again me and my friend are gunna build something similler for his car...i think he wants more of an angle though i dunno..again looking great =)

So far its taken an entire 7'x'4 sheet (I'll have to get back to you on that). I'll pull the dimensions tonight before I panel everything up for good. And I think I said this, but both chambers are exactly 1.08cu ft.

I was actually planning on making the angles bigger, but you have to take into consideration, the more the angle, the more the lost space. What you could do is build over the tire wells (if he has a truck similiar to the X), and have a bottom compartment for your amp/caps/wires and whatnot.. anything is possible; and with the boxes over the tire wells, you can shoot for that angle alot better.

 

[mhn3773]

its gunna go in the trunk of a civic...so what he wanted was something that was pressed to the back seat but went from right to left taking up the whole back of the trunk...were also gunna board over the spare tire well..thats where the batt and amps will be the terminals will need to be on the bottom i guess?? we havent really thought that out yet lol

but i was stressing trying to figure out the CF of the box after i put in all the stupid angles and stuff...i like your idea of just working around the boxs i cant belive i didnt think of that lol

thanks for taking the time to respond =) much appreiciated

 

[draft]

Just finished about 5 hours in the shop, didn't get done all of what I wanted, being #1, I'm dead tired, I'll edit this once I take a few pics of the progress thus far.

mhn3773:

For the 1.08CF enclosure, the measurements are 12x12x13, 12x13x13 I believe is 1.17CF; basically, multiply your 3 dimensions, and divide by 1728, and you'll get your interior enclosure (NOTE: These dimensions are WITHOUT the wood width included). Be sure to add on the width of your material to both sides to get an accurate measurement. (I used 3/4MDF, so I added on 1 1/2in to mine)

Yeah, I'd suggest the terminals on the bottom. Or you could just simply cut a 1/4-1/2 hole and feed the wires through and silicon the hole up, your preference (though I'd prefer the terminals).

lol, my first drawing of everything was simply just two single boxes in the back of the truck, and I'd move them as I please to be build a nice exterior with it, which is how I came to this.. I'm just hoping it'll work as well as I want to. I'm shooting for tomorrow night to test the system finally (ohhh I can't wait!! lol )

 

[mhn3773]

thanks for the info =)..and the feeding the wires thing through..never do that again my hand is wraped in a gause bandage becasue i chinced out on a terminal lol

the silicone doesnt like to stick to the speaker wire..so u have to run it farther up the wire and also on the INSIDE of the box..i was cleaning up the silicone misssed and got my left hand lol

so the lesson here is..TERMINALS =) lol

my friend also wanted to just put 2 boxs in the back of his car but he saw that i made my own box..and he saw the entertainment center i was making so now he wants to pay me to build this box for him lol....sigh

what are u planning on covering this with?? paint carpet vynil?

 

[draft]

Mmmk.

Few more updates.. not much though, late finals are a bit**. Anyways.

I'm done with the panels.. basically, the reason it looks a little wierd on the sides is that I moved my jack bars from under the rug (on the chassis) into that left side panel, and my jack itself is in there.. safety first. Instead of doing panels there, I'm just going to let my fabric hang over and look like a finished piece, safe and good looking at the same time.

From the right side. Don't think I mentioned this, but I did cut that cavity in the middle if you didn't see already, looks alright I guess.

Well, I consider this a ###*up. I didn't realize the insulation I had gotten expanded THAT much, so this was taken this morning after I shaved all the excess off.. but it did expand some of the outer boards (not the individual box itself)... so I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do. Also, the brown silicon around the wires has been removed, used wrong stuff, and I'm thinking of a better way to do it (the terminals only go so far into the box).

Just another angle of the mess-up.

So, I shaved all my excess glue/insulation off, and sealed my notorious amount of screws with primer (white pigmented), next up is to spackle them close (2 coats) and smooth the entire thing down lightly on corners to be finished with the sides.

Top angle..

Inside with those terminals out (like I said), and primed.

And just the left side...

Anyways, I should have this spackled and smoothed tonight and hopefully the other side insulated. Gotta figure out a better way to acomplish those terminals since they aren't the normal ones... I'm thinking just silicon'ing them up again, but I'm afraid it'll interfere with the signal going through the wire (it would be touching the solderings) -- can anyone clarify that for me? These are basically just plates that you'd stick in to replace an electrial outlet, so they only go in so far.

Tomorrow I should be able to seal the top for good and try it out before fabricing it up. And mhn, I'm using automotive tweed to finish it up -- have a great amount sitting here; nothing really different from carpet, other than easier to go around corners, and has a different look to it (it's black).

 

[mhn3773]

i like the tweed thing =)..and that foam yep used that on my friends trunk..we were cleaning it outa the trunk for the next week or so lol didnt read where it said expands 3x =) woopsy

why dont u just use regular round terminals from radio shack?? be careful what u chose to do there because like i said i was fighting with silicone for a while lol

anyways looking good cant wait to see the final product =)

 

[draft]

Originally posted by mhn3773
why dont u just use regular round terminals from radio shack?? be careful what u chose to do there because like i said i was fighting with silicone for a while lol

Heh, well I thought I'd do something different, and besides, my Radio Shack down the street it ran by ultimate retards (excuse my language, but I'm being honest), and they didn't even have any 60AGU fuses, not even 20 amp fuses, I was really disappointed; I've never trusted them for electronics for awhile, and it just repeats itself. Theres a place around 20 miles away that has everything for audio (the wiring, terminals, etc).

Anyways, what I'm gonna do instead is put a small piece of MDF on the inside of that chamber and screw the terminal into that, with the MDF screwed into the box itself; then just silicon'ing the inside excess (it's just a filler, not to keep it in place), so that should work out well.

I've been working on it for the past few hours; everything sealed and spackled, finishing the foam up right now (drying), gonna redo the solderings on the terminals and the terminals themselves next (the solder job was poor). Once this is done, throw the top on, seal/spackle, and wrap it up.

 

[mhn3773]

what are u useing to seal the box? just silcone sealant?

i ask cause i finally got off my duff and bought the 2 sheets of mdf for my 15s =)..its not gunna be as nice as urs since mine will just ne 18 1/2x18 1/2x 36 1/4 just a square..

but my last prob with my first box was keeping the darn thing sealed it liked to blow leaks on me, one was in a corner which was my fault somehow i didnt get any glue in there, but then it started to blow a hole around the terminal!! lol so i was just wondering what u were using for sealant

sry that was so long lol


Edit: sent u a PM draft

 

[draft]

Originally posted by mhn3773
what are u useing to seal the box? just silcone sealant?

i ask cause i finally got off my duff and bought the 2 sheets of mdf for my 15s =)..its not gunna be as nice as urs since mine will just ne 18 1/2x18 1/2x 36 1/4 just a square..

but my last prob with my first box was keeping the darn thing sealed it liked to blow leaks on me, one was in a corner which was my fault somehow i didnt get any glue in there, but then it started to blow a hole around the terminal!! lol so i was just wondering what u were using for sealant

sry that was so long lol


Edit: sent u a PM draft

Yes, both inside enclosures are sealed with aquairam silicon. I suggest you get a few tubes of liquid nails and totally make sure you have it on every joint before screwing down. With silicon and liquid nails, you should have no problem.

Glad to hear you're starting yours.. let us know how that goes ;]

Anyways, we finished the box late last night, and installed the entire system today (sweated my toosh off in the back of the truck at 12noon).

Here's just a picture of how it looks...

The fabric looks a little wierd, I know, thing is that right wheel well is farther back than the left one, and I'm just not sure if I'm wanting to cut it just yet.. it kind of just hangs down for the moment; but that isn't my biggest worry, just cosmetic issues.

Sort of wish I threw more subs in the back there, but it looks fine as it is, and very slick, I'm really happy with the turnout of it.

Other photos of the setup can be found HERE - Taking exactly a week to finish the project up.. I'm quite pleased, was fun. =)

FYI: I do have photos for when we were wrapping it in the tweed, final sanding and the top sealed, etc, if you want them, let me know, lack of time restricts uploading millions of pictures

 

[mhn3773]

that came out really nice dude =)