Speaker baffles with grilles.

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bdubs767
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Speaker baffles with grilles.

Post by bdubs767 »

This is a step by step tutorial showing you how to create your own baffles for your lovely car audio speakers w/ tools everyone will and should have at there house.

Heres a list of the items I used and where they can be purchased
-Power Drill (HD loews ect..)
-Drill bits (HD loews ect..)
-Jig Saw w/ wood blades (HD loews ect..)
-3/4" MDF wood (Lumber yeard or HD)
-1/2" MDF wood (Lumber yard or HD)
-razor blade(HD loews ect..)
-heat gun(HD loews ect..)
-wood glue(HD loews ect..)
-sharpie and pencil (ANYWHERE)
-ABS grille (selectproducts.com)
-Grille cloth (jo-ann fabrics)
-Heat resistant gloves (HD loews ect..)
-ruler or compass (anywhere)
-something to saw on that you don't care about ruining. Saw horse are ideal but for this I was to lazy and used an old subwoofer box that was closer lol.
-q-tips (anywhere)
-adhesive spray


First you will need a draw your baffle out on the wood that will be use (I usually always use 3/4" for all my baffles). This can basically be done two ways w/ a compass or using your drivers as a template. I usually use a compass but I recently lost it some where so, this time I just place the drivers on the wood traced around them then measured the flange (the lip where the speakers is drilled into the wood) and drew in that much to create the right size for the drivers wholes. I only draw this out for one baffle because doing it this way can be frustrating and time consuming IMO.
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Next you will need your jigsaw and drill (a router instead of these tools will give you a far nicer finish and I really need to purchase on already :)). Take your drill and a drill bit that is big enough to fit your jig saw blade into and drill a hole into the inner circle of the speaker hole
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Then proceed to cut out the entire baffle and speaker holes. Once your baffle is complete now just use it to trace out another baffle so you don’t have to go through all the pain of measuring one out again
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Now proceed to cut out the other baffle. Basically at this point, you have two generic baffles; but who wants that so lets make em purty.
Next place your baffles onto another piece of wood I usually use 1/2" for this. Then cut out a piece that will be mounted on the outside edage of the front facade of your baffle that is about a 1/8" to 1/16". MAKE SURE YOU KEEP THE PIECE OF WOOD LEFT OVER AFTER CUTTING THE RING FOR THE BAFFLE.

Then use some wood glue and mount them to your baffle. Place something on top of them to make sure the glue bonds the two pieces of wood together. Also have some q-tips hands to clean up the glue on the inside as when you take off the grills people will see that part so make it pretty.
Image
At this point you will have something that looks like this...
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and make sure the speakers fit too :wink:
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Now time for the grille...go find that piece of wood I told you to keep and cut out a piece of abs grille that will be able to wrap around this piece of wood.
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Now take your heat gun and heat resistant gloves and start to form the grilles to the shape of that piece of wood. MAKE SURE IT IS SNUG ON ALL THE EDGES AND FOLD OVER THE EXTRA GRILLE. When your done it will look like this.
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Now to get rid of the extra grille on the backside w/ your razor blade and cut it away like so...
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and it will like this
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At this point you can call it quits but I prefer the look of it w/ grille cloth so if you want the grille cloth added follow along children...

Keep your piece of wood in the grille if you want to add the cloth and cut a piece of cloth out like you did for the grill that will be able to wrap around the grille and wood. Now take it outside; place the grille w/ wood in it on the piece of grille cloth and spray it w/ the adhesive. Before you fold it over give the adhesive about 30 secs to 1min to start to dry up then fold over all the grille cloth so it looks like this
Image
now take your razor and slide it between the wood and grille and cut all the way around. BE CAREFUL DON'T GUT YOURSELF. Once your done pull the grille away and your grille will be DONE.

Now take your girlles and throw it in your baffle so you can feel special because you've just finished a pretty damn good baffle w/o any fancy tools.

Image


Now what to do w/ your baffle??? stay tuned for how to use these bad boys in kicks.
Last edited by bdubs767 on Thu Dec 28, 2006 2:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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dedlyjedly
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Post by dedlyjedly »

Bdubs, did you give an special consideration as to the thickness of your grill and how that would affect the fitment of the grill into the baffle? in other words, did the thickness of the grill and grill cloth account for the thickness of the jigsaw blade from when you cut the outer ring from the grill mold?
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bdubs767
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Post by bdubs767 »

dedlyjedly wrote:Bdubs, did you give an special consideration as to the thickness of your grill and how that would affect the fitment of the grill into the baffle? in other words, did the thickness of the grill and grill cloth account for the thickness of the jigsaw blade from when you cut the outer ring from the grill mold?

Yes...and because of the cloth the grill is just a tiny bit bigger making it fit in there tight and it will not move a bit.
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dgoodhue
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Post by dgoodhue »

Will this method work for door grills? (and not fall out opening and closing the doors) or is their something else you recomend.
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bdubs767
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Post by bdubs767 »

dgoodhue wrote:Will this method work for door grills? (and not fall out opening and closing the doors) or is their something else you recomend.
how I plan to do it w/ my 8s
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stipud
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Post by stipud »

If you have problems with the doors closing, I found that a layer of "gorilla snot" along the edge of the grille that sticks into the door does wonders. Keeps it snug, but it isn't impossible to get out either.
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Drock
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Speaker baffles with grilles.

Post by Drock »

Where did you get the screen?
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wooferdog
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Re: Speaker baffles with grilles.

Post by wooferdog »

like it says -ABS grille (selectproducts.com) :lol:
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