Well now that I've gotten myself a new job and it was my birthday I've gotten some money and want to work on my car stereo. I know how to make a normal subwoofer box out of some plywood or similar and that wouldn't be a problem. But I was wondering how one would go about making a nice rounded perfect fit subwoofer box using something like fiberglass. One thing I though of would be using something like styrofoam to carve out the mold and fiberglass over that and tear/melt out the styrofoam once I have a nice strong shell, then cust the sub holes and mount everything from there. Is this even really plausible though? Or what other methods could I go about to build this?
Making A Custom Subwoofer Box
- Thread starter Rhith
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you want it nice and rounded? well what i would do....if you have a base for where you want to mount your box to your car (inside your truck wherever) get started by making the rings that you are gonna mount you speakers to , and make a post to attach to them for how high you need them...if you get some fiberglass cloth(like the stuff spartang used on the out side of his helmet)......you can just staple it to your rings that you set up for the speaker and just let it naturally drape down to the base and staple it to the bottom , after you resin the fiberglass just bondo and sand till its smooth. i know that there is light weight bondo for cars out there and speaker boxes can get pretty heavy if you put too much on
razionhellgate
New Member
What you could do is this:
Buy yourself some 3/4 inch MDF board and grab your subwoffer's stencil, draw it on there on the edge so you have lots of room for other pieces. Use your resources well. Your going to want to make it about 2 inches wide and use a jig-saw and cut it out so you just have a ring of MDF board. Then make your bottom that will set in your car and the backside that you will mount your sub cup onto.
Here comes the tricky part:
You need to make supports for your sub ring that will suspend it in the air and at the right angle you want it to be at on the piece of MDF your using as your floor piece. When you have that attached and angled stretch cloth over the sub ring and around your "L" shaped MDF pulling it tight, use a staple gun to fix it to the MDF but NOT the sub ring. Fiberglass the cloth and don't be shy with how many layers you put on. Depending on the shape you want you can add body filler, but you need to grab your sander and get to work on it. Remember: the texture it is now will be the same after you paint it, just in the color and gloss you want.
But I'll tell you now this is going to be hard, if you can make it as close to the enclosed size that is specified in your sub manual as possible the better, make the fiberglass to thin it will crack and too thick and you'll need to up the amp gain and or it wont resonate the way you want it.
Let me know how it goes, maybe some pictures if you find the time. I know this isn't halo related fiber glassing but after you get done with this doing an AR is a breeze.
And if you have anymore questions let me know man, we're here to help.
Buy yourself some 3/4 inch MDF board and grab your subwoffer's stencil, draw it on there on the edge so you have lots of room for other pieces. Use your resources well. Your going to want to make it about 2 inches wide and use a jig-saw and cut it out so you just have a ring of MDF board. Then make your bottom that will set in your car and the backside that you will mount your sub cup onto.
Here comes the tricky part:
You need to make supports for your sub ring that will suspend it in the air and at the right angle you want it to be at on the piece of MDF your using as your floor piece. When you have that attached and angled stretch cloth over the sub ring and around your "L" shaped MDF pulling it tight, use a staple gun to fix it to the MDF but NOT the sub ring. Fiberglass the cloth and don't be shy with how many layers you put on. Depending on the shape you want you can add body filler, but you need to grab your sander and get to work on it. Remember: the texture it is now will be the same after you paint it, just in the color and gloss you want.
But I'll tell you now this is going to be hard, if you can make it as close to the enclosed size that is specified in your sub manual as possible the better, make the fiberglass to thin it will crack and too thick and you'll need to up the amp gain and or it wont resonate the way you want it.
Let me know how it goes, maybe some pictures if you find the time. I know this isn't halo related fiber glassing but after you get done with this doing an AR is a breeze.
And if you have anymore questions let me know man, we're here to help.
razionhellgate
New Member
Try your local stereo shop and ask about "JL Audio" I have 2 6x9's in the back, 2 6's in the front and one 12 inch sub running off a 300 watt amp and its really loud in my car. A good price for a good sounding system.
TH3 FETT MAN
Well-Known Member
What i do when ever i made a sub box i got some MDF board,fiberglass resin,flece,bondo. You can cut rings out like others have said and staple em down and then you put the flece over the box and you staple it down in an unoticable spot then you resin it. Then bondo it or after you have resined it you can mix some bondo with resin and add some harder and pore it over it and it will fill the holes and everything then just sand it but with not to rough of sand papper you dont want to put big scratches in it so you 2000 or something around that, i also have a video that tells you i could maybe download it and send it to you if you would like.
That would be great! I've been looking at stuff on http://www.millionbuy.com/ and the prices seem a lot cheaper than other places and a friend of mine has ordered stereo stuff from them before. As for what I was thinking about getting is as follows:Th3 FETT MAN said:
2x http://www.millionbuy.com/kik08s12l54.html (Was thinking of the 15" before but it would just take up too much room)
http://www.millionbuy.com/pakbamf26002.html
http://www.millionbuy.com/boscap35.html
And since the amp has a built in crossover I won't need to get one of those. I know this seems a bit like over kill but it will be worth it. The deck I'm going to have is actually the old Alpine deck that I had in my old 1992 Ford Taurus and just get a spacer since I have a double din.
As for where I'm placing it, stuff is going in the trunk.
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sirblood
Active Member
Well... I'll offer my comments on it and you can take them however you want to.
I have been a mobile dj for several years now and have been working around sound systems for 16 years now... Wood speaker boxes sound a LOT better than plastic ones. Look around at the expensive sound systems and few are made with anything but wood.
I've had the opportunity while I was searching for subs to listen the the exact same subs in plastic and wooden enclosures. and the wooden ones sounded 'deeper'.
Granted you are talking about a sub box... you will want to reinforce it heavily as it will be dealing with constant vibration and a great deal of expanding force as the subs 'force the air/sound waves out of the box. If you decide on the fiberglass/resin method, also make sure to apply a sound dampening material into the box, that way more of the sound gets focused on the ports and speaker faces. You will end up with 'cleaner' better sound.
Most plastic speaker enclosures aren't treated with sound dampening materials, so if you use something the car audio place recommends, you will end up with something you will be much happier with.
I have been a mobile dj for several years now and have been working around sound systems for 16 years now... Wood speaker boxes sound a LOT better than plastic ones. Look around at the expensive sound systems and few are made with anything but wood.
I've had the opportunity while I was searching for subs to listen the the exact same subs in plastic and wooden enclosures. and the wooden ones sounded 'deeper'.
Granted you are talking about a sub box... you will want to reinforce it heavily as it will be dealing with constant vibration and a great deal of expanding force as the subs 'force the air/sound waves out of the box. If you decide on the fiberglass/resin method, also make sure to apply a sound dampening material into the box, that way more of the sound gets focused on the ports and speaker faces. You will end up with 'cleaner' better sound.
Most plastic speaker enclosures aren't treated with sound dampening materials, so if you use something the car audio place recommends, you will end up with something you will be much happier with.
Thank you very much for the input and information! I was considering the fiber glassed box because of looks but it will be in my trunk anyways. I suppose it would probably be cheaper and easier to just build a custom wood box instead! I still need to scrape together the money so I have time to look into it more but considering all the other projects/school/work that I have on my plate something that is easier and better would only make sense.Sir Blood said:
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