- Welcome!

- The Walkthrough
1. Step ONE
2. Time to Buy!
3. Cutting MDF
4. Sand
5. Routing Circles
6. Rabbet
7. Round the Edges
8. Fun with the Vent
9. The Crossovers
10. Cabinet Assembly
11. Almost there!
12. Veneer and Finishing
13. Connect the Drivers
14. In Conclusion...

- Materials

- Schematics

- Cited / Useful Sites

- Q&A's

- Email me (Alan)

- The Oracle at PE!

The Walkthrough - Fun with the Vent


Above: Whatever imperfections were spawned while fiddling with the port were easily eliminated with the belt sander and a nice file.
Honestly, I think we kind of did a fairly shlocky job with the vents... but they ended up working out quite well! (This is because the band saw we used did not cut exactly straight through our PVC. Yet another rebellious tool!) The vents are just a bit shorter than they should be - by about 1/4" (My measurement did not including the flared ends). This of course will change the dynamics of the speaker by raising the frequency at which the vent is tuned. Hopefully not by enough to make a huge difference. (This depends entirely upon what you consider huge...) If we had more time I might have considered scrapping them and trying again, but at this point it was not an option.

Construction is simple, though. If you take a look at my schematics you'll see a set of instructions I wrote to myself on the subject. (Of course, they are directly based on Wayne's orders.) The Vent is attached at two locations - the rear baffle and the interior brace. Both should have a circle cut into them as depicted, which you will notice are smaller than the interior diameter of the PVC itself. Once these holes were cut we again broke out the 3/8" rabbet bit and routed along the appropriate sides of said pieces. Since our PVC was not exactly square, the next step was a bit more complicated than it should have been. We decided that it would be a good idea to use the polyurethane glue in this situation so that it would expand to fill any voids and assist in keeping the enclosure air-tight. Polyurethane glue is a pathetic filler, though. Don't toss out the wood putty (or silicon caulk)! Having a perfectly airtight cabinet (except for the vent, of course), is of utmost importance. We had to be extra careful, though, when attaching the PVC to the MDF to be sure that both the internal brace and rear baffle were perfectly parallel. Of course we screwed up one of them and ended up gluing and squaring again. D'Oh!

Once the glue set (the next day) we attacked each side with the 1/2" corner round. Once all was said and done, both ends were smoothly flared and completely flush with the interior of the PVC.

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