Buck Box Designs - Refreshed Thread

[SlugButter]

Cheap birch alert. It probably isn’t good enough for some people…..

 

[SlugButter]

This one is cheap pine. It will probably just fall apart due to not being real birch….

 

[Bobbytwonames 5,000+ posts]

There’s no difference in the type of wood used other than looks. Some people act like wood snobs, as if real Baltic birch sounds better than cheap birch, or MDF sounds better than pine. None of that matters for sound.

It's not the sound of good versus fake Birch that is the problem. It's the hollow spots and voids in cheap fake Birch. Buy some of the fake Indian Birch compared to the real 13 ply (¾"),and 17 ply (1") and you will see what I'm talking about. I think that I have a pic of the cheap **** and what happens. It's called delamination. If that is what you want to deal with then save the $10. Indian "Birch".

 

[Bobbytwonames 5,000+ posts]

Maybe I've never used mdf of a good enough quality, but my problem is with the airborne dust. My jigsaw and router don't have vacuum connections and my sinuses get real fucked up from that amount of sawdust. Gives me a pressure headache for like 16 hours. Masks help but minnesota winter means I'm cutting in my garage and the **** lingers lol.

Get a fan behind you to blow it away. Just a thought.

 

[SlugButter]

It's not the sound of good versus fake Birch that is the problem. It's the hollow spots and voids in cheap fake Birch. Buy some of the fake Indian Birch compared to the real 13 ply (¾"),and 17 ply (1") and you will see what I'm talking about. I think that I have a pic of the cheap **** and what happens. It's called delamination. If that is what you want to deal with then save the $10. Indian "Birch".

View attachment 34321

I’ve used every type of wood before.. Of course I like 13 ply birch better, but it isnt a big deal to work with cheaper wood. You just have to work different. Tape your line of cut so it doesn’t chip the edge, predrill for your screws and clamp it where you put your screws or nails so it doesn’t split the cheap laminate. Minor inconveniences.

 

[Deon1818]

Get a fan behind you to blow it away. Just a thought.

Yeah I've stuck an an industrial fan under the garage door to try to blow it out. Kinda helps but oh well

 

[Clifff150 10+ year member]

Damn Bobby, I don’t understand why you come on this thread to **** on people. I myself will never use MDF again because the dust is absolutely insane and the weight. In my area, I can’t find real Baltic Birch unless I travel over an hour away which is silly to me. I found a great 13 ply white wood that still looks great when stained and is lightweight. I have yet to find any void or delamination while building with it.

Agree with Slug as well. If you use the proper technique, you shouldn’t have any issues. Do you want us to start shitting on you for not building your own boxes?

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

Cheap birch here
View attachment 34316

Still got that sub locked up like Akon, I see. What did that Dayton ever do to you?

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

It's not the sound of good versus fake Birch that is the problem. It's the hollow spots and voids in cheap fake Birch. Buy some of the fake Indian Birch compared to the real 13 ply (¾"),and 17 ply (1") and you will see what I'm talking about. I think that I have a pic of the cheap **** and what happens. It's called delamination. If that is what you want to deal with then save the $10. Indian "Birch".

View attachment 34321

Why don't you start a wood comparison thread with all the different sheet woods and show stuff like this? That would help people make informed decisions. You could show the ups and downs of using mdf vs crap birch vs good birch vs plywood vs whatever else there may be. I know wood will split like that if you forget to pre-drill your holes; I've had it happen for sure. I think the quality of sheet wood is a great conversation to have, especially now days where wood isn't quite as widely available as it used to be. Some people just have to use what they can reasonably get. A thread showing what stuff can happen with cheap vs expensive wood could be an amazing thread for novice and maybe even experienced builders alike, so they can choose their own fate with their wood quality they choose.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

This one is cheap pine. It will probably just fall apart due to not being real birch….
View attachment 34319

I'm pretty sure you could drive a car over that stack fab flared/kerfed/rounded part and it would be fine.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

Damn Bobby, I don’t understand why you come on this thread to **** on people. I myself will never use MDF again because the dust is absolutely insane and the weight. In my area, I can’t find real Baltic Birch unless I travel over an hour away which is silly to me. I found a great 13 ply white wood that still looks great when stained and is lightweight. I have yet to find any void or delamination while building with it.

Agree with Slug as well. If you use the proper technique, you shouldn’t have any issues. Do you want us to start shitting on you for not building your own boxes?

This is one reason I put so much effort into box bracing. I try to know what wood anyone is using that I design for, but sometimes plans change, stores are out of stuff, beavers raid your garage and eat all of your stacks of wood, etc., so I try to brace every box I can for "worst case scenarios", if you will.

I mean, I've made some fairly loud boxes out of 1/2" MDF, because space was extremely limited, and it worked. I think the notion that you just have to know how to work with what you have is the correct way to approach building boxes.

 

[SlugButter]

I'm pretty sure you could drive a car over that stack fab flared/kerfed/rounded part and it would be fine.

I like to do it that way on sealed boxes usually. I will normally just back cut the kerf on ported enclosures. Doing it on both sides of the baffle stiffens up the baffle. Any strength you can add to a sealed box baffle helps in my experience. Ported boxes are more important to design well, but sealed boxes are more important to build well. Obviously want both built well, but a bad design will kill good sound from a ported box, while an unbraced weak box will kill good sound from a sealed box. A sealed box should be built like a concrete block.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

I like to do it that way on sealed boxes usually. I will normally just back cut the kerf on ported enclosures. Doing it on both sides of the baffle stiffens up the baffle. Any strength you can add to a sealed box baffle helps in my experience. Ported boxes are more important to design well, but sealed boxes are more important to build well. Obviously want both built well, but a bad design will kill good sound from a ported box, while an unbraced weak box will kill good sound from a sealed box. A sealed box should be built like a concrete block.

Yeah, for sure. Idk if you noticed, but on my big 4th order bandpasses that I do, I tend to do split chambers for each woofer and/or have a massive amount of bracing in the sealed section.

Sealed boxes can actually be harder than people think, in some cases. I don't think people quite understand the specs of sealed boxes and what they mean. Like when I talk to people about 4th order bandpasses, I'm like what's the stats on your sealed box? And people don't give me many stats, at all, besides cubic feet usually. Idk; I raw calculate my sealed boxes in my own spreadsheets. The formulas aren't hard to find.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

I like these, and they are in stock:

HC Series | Fi Car Audio

ficaraudio.com

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

2 Skar DDX 10's ported downfiring wedge box going as a center console between the rear seats of a quad cab pickup.