I recently
ordered two 10" guitar speakers from Ted Weber . My
idea was to build a small 2x10 cab to play around with
the various low wattage amps I have been experimenting
with. I started out designing a very traditional
enclosure, but it really wasn't exciting me.
During a trip to the local crafts
store, I spied a stack of unfinished wood
trashcan/storage container boxes. They were in the shape
of an truncated pyramid and had a lid and cut-outs for
handles. I realized that these cheap wood boxes would
nicely fit a 10" speaker each. I bought two and headed
home to the workshop.
So I had the rough idea, but it was
time to rummage through my boxes of junk. I came across
a set of shelf brackets from Ikea that I had never used.
Nice metal ones, fairly heavy duty--holy crap these
would make great lets. After all, I wanted my enclosure
to stand up off the floor a bit.
Plus the pyramid shape of the wood
boxes meant that the speakers would face upwards by a
slight angle. So I assembled the first batch of parts:
Ok, time to do some cutting, measuring and rough
assembly. I was particularly happy with the way the
shelf bracket legs angled out slightly.
I wanted to be able to use my "tester" cab to experiment
with different amps easily. I'm always searching for the
right connector or using alligator clips. For this cab,
I included a 1/4 mono jack, and a Radio Shack thingy
that has both spring terminals and an RCA jack.
Of course, I'm going to need handles to lift this thing.
4 bucks a piece at the local hardware store in the
Drawer Pulls section. These ones have 5" centers.
The length of the bottom of the shelf bracket legs was
not enough to keep the cab stable (i.e. don't want it to
tip over. So I used a couple of pieces of oak. I dug
some old casters out of my junk box so I could roll the
cab around in my basement studio.
Next I had to figure out how to attach the bottom cab to
the top cab. I wanted some clearance between the two. I
chose some long bolts, and three electrical tube
connectors. Here's two views:
And its done! A very different take on the traditional
guitar cab I hope. The overall project took about three
days and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Howzit Sound? It sounds pretty
nice. I tried both open bottom and closed bottom
designs, but ended up opting for closed-bottom because
it augmented and tuned the bass very nicely. The handle
cut-outs from the original wood box act as nice ports
also. Since the speakers are brand new, I'll have to
play them for a while to break them in (very stiff out
of the box)
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