Staples vs. screws

Does it matter if a person uses staples or screws when building a box for woofers? I see a lot of prefab boxes using staples and almost never using screws? Thanks for the help in advance. Fred

Be sure to use a good amount of wood glue.  Whether you use the screws or staples, the glue does most of the binding!

Titebond glue is amazing.

If the box is built will you should be able to take all the nails/screws/staples out of it once the glue has set and not have any problems.  The nails/screws/staples clamp the wood together so that the glue creates a solid bond.

That being said,  I would never remove the screws after the glue is dried, but theoretically it can be done!

Also, prefabbed boxes are typically mass produced.  Its much faster and cheaper to staple wood then to screw wood.

I neither staple nor screw my speaker cabinets.  I make liberal use of wood glue, glue in stages, and place large clamps every few inches.  On the inside and outside I then apply a couple coats of sanding sealer.  Once that has soaked in and dried, I apply a layer of fiberglass to the inside of the speaker.  I believe good wood glue and good clamping provides a better bond in many cases than your average nails/screws/staples job and wood glue. 

With my kit 2641 speakers I doubled up on the 3/4" mdf and used this process.  The result is a very inert (and very heavy) cabinet. 

Thanks for all the replies, this really helped me out. Fred

stevdart wrote:

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^^^^ Which is exactly what I'll be doing with the HT system that I'm building.  Gorilla glue and clamps, and no screw indents to patch.  If I had an air nailer I'd make quicker work of it by using staple, but it's just for me so I'm not concerned about time.  But I'm sticking with mostly one layer of 3/4" MDF and several braces, thank you ;)

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A project in the works, eh?  (always, right :-)  What are you building? 

kfr01, so glad you asked.  I'm building a pair of mains because the first build was, shall we say, just an experiment.  Have it all figured out, got the tools (most, anyway) that I need, the crossover components have arrived...it's hands-on time very soon.  The rest of the speakers get new cabinets.

stevdart wrote:

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kfr01, so glad you asked.  I'm building a pair of mains because the first build was, shall we say, just an experiment.  Have it all figured out, got the tools (most, anyway) that I need, the crossover components have arrived...it's hands-on time very soon.  The rest of the speakers get new cabinets.

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Awesome.  The audio project bug never quits.  Post your design / pictures once you're ready.  What drivers are you using?  What config?  WMT?

I've been spending more time working on my home setup lately and spent quite a bit of time in the fall building the 2641 kits.  Now that I've learned from the school of hard knocks about enclosure building and finishing, and have collected quite a number of tools, I'd like to try a completely DIY design next. 

We're house hunting in the city where I accepted a job offer this coming weekend.  The wife has been ranking the exterior / interior / kitchen / etc of prospective homes on a spreadsheet.  They get a +1 bonus from me if they have a basement larger than 18'x12'; +2 if larger than 22' x 16'.  I'd love to have a dedicated HT / listening room.  I told her she can do whatever she wants with the rest of the house if I can create a dedicated listening / ht room downstairs.  Should be interesting to see what we find.  Given the potential possibility of having a room to work with my latest area of casual (read: nearly obsessive) research has been that of diy passive room treatments. 

Anyway, tell me more about your project....

kfr01, good to see you back on the forum sharing your wisdom.  The project is to rebuild the entire HT speaker system, with emphasis on a quality fit and finish.  The mains I had put together previously use a bottowed crossover network out of an old set of CW speakers, so I was expecting to rebuild those ASAP.  As I progressed through the rear dipoles and the center channel builds I learned enough (thanks DYohn and haemphyst, primarily) about it all to do this.

The inspiration for the mains is the DLP tv that they will flank...the essence of its shape, that is.  And its height.  Using Paint, I did only a front rendering of the right speaker, but not shown is the slope on the back of it.  Similar to the slope on the tv, this speaker will be only 1.5" deep at the top and slope at 60 degrees down to the bottom area of the top three speakers.  Then it will go straight down the back. 

Since my last build I've added a router and table saw to my workshop, so precision is my goal now.  The mains are a three way MTMW system - 4.5" mids, 1" tweeter, 6.5" midbass - that crosses to a separate subwoofer at 80 Hz.  Drivers are Vifa (I used a Tang Band tweeter in the center but it's discontinued now, so I selected a Vifa that looked about identical).  There are two separate vented enclosures and the ports will face the rear.  The crossover will be exposed to the rear at about the midpoint.

The center channel and the dipoles get new cabinets but no changes in their crossovers.  Then I'll add a pair of back rears.  The mains will be the only speakers with the slopes in the design.

There is an orientation of left and right in each pair of speakers, showing in the alignment of the drivers and the paint scheme, and the bump out on the side of the mains.  I'll do a group photo when they're all done and post it here somewhere.

Stevdart:

Thanks for welcoming me back.  My focus has been entirely on home stereo lately.  I've been spending time around audiocircle.com - diycable's forum in particular. 

Here are my reviews of two projects I completed last fall:

https://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?t=21993

https://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?t=23298

First, looks like a fantastic DLP from the side.  Which one did you choose?  Once we move into the new place, I'll finally bother with video.  Right now I'm running an old 20" refurbed toshiba crt on the audio system to which my stereo is hooked up.  :-)

Second, I like your decision to model the shape after the t.v.  It should make for a very custom look. 

Third, do you have a link to the drivers?  I'm curious to see what you selected.

Fourth, to your knowledge is there any acoustic benefit to placing the woofer down low, or do designers do that primarily for space / looks?

Fifth, looks like a great project.  I can only imagine that the angles will make it a much more challenging project than good old fashioned rectangular boxes.  :-)  Please keep us updated.  If I go mia again, shoot me a PM with pics, etc. :-)

sk8tingsmurf, you and I are 2 peas in a pod.  I like this forum so much partly because it is blazing fast...and also because I'm not a newbie (heh heh) here.  We just push the envelope a little here and there as we can get by with...even if it means hijacking a perfectly good thread!  BTW, my house doesn't have a basement either, it's cramped, the shed is full and it's too cold outside now to use it anyway...and I'm pitching and moving things to make room to do this thing.  At least at this stage I have the full cooperation of my wife, who finally jumped on the bandwagon with this whole speaker-building idea once we got the hi-def tv and she experienced the dynamics of good home theate (and raves from her friends!).  So I'm feeling good about it and am doing this as I have the time.

kfr01, I will be very interested to read your reviews and will save that for a little later when I can spend some time enjoying them.  Right now I've homework to do and an appointment with my wife to watch The Office later ;).  As far as some of your questions:  the position of the midbass won't be as low as this sketch.  The thing is with doing something freehand in Paint is that once you get it done you don't want to do it all over again.  But in real life it will be up toward the top of it's enclosure, which will be near the bottom of the side slope.  This woofer is placed fairly low in my current speakers and I'm not getting any problems because of the distance.

I think that when they're built the look will excite, and the angles will make it look like a complicated build.  But laying it out piece-by-piece I can see that it will be straightforward simple.

Speaker selection:  this is where I have been breaking the rules and haven't stopped yet.  Because of the fact that I am always on a very limited budget for my hobbies, I started out by looking for closeout buys on speakers.  I chose this mid for the center channel because of its buyout price ($6) and because it was made by Vifa.  The MTM center works perfectly, IMHO, so I'm glad I had the forsight to buy 4 more at the same time, knowing I was going to do a mains rebuild in the future.  The future is now, so now they will be put to use.  Since they are discontinued, there is no link but they were originally made for Infinity as OEM mids.  They have a good sound in the center so I'm confident in using them in the mains.

I chose the Vifa tweeter because of it's very nice response and its looks, which resembles the Tang Band tweeter (now it's discontinued) that I used in the center.  The specs are almost identical, so I'm expecting good results.  It looks real good crossed at 3500 Hz with the mids.

This is the midbass I currently have and the only item that I'm using from my mains.  This woofer will cross with the mids at 500 Hz and the low end will be taken care of by the Onkyo (got that from you) HT amp.  I'll use 80 Hz as the crossover point to the sub, which I'm doing now with my current setup.

Programs used as I've mentioned before:  SPL Trace to copy the manufacturer's response graphs;  Unibox to work the enclosures and also to import the finished crossover response;  Speaker Workshop for crossover design.  The ability to share files between the programs makes it work.  And, of course, my vivid imagination to fill in all the missing parts.

The TV is a Samsung.  50" is the right size for the room, and it is an impressive piece.  Finest picture quality I've ever seen in a television.