Making Door's Speaker Pod...

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Topic: Making Door's Speaker Pod...fiberglass (Read 2963 times)

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pendiuu

Full Member
Posts: 145

Making Door's Speaker

Pod...fiberglass

on: January 25, 2008, 06:02:15 PM

Sup guys ....I found this DIY online and I tough I share with you all .....I have not
done it yet but got all materials to start...waiting on cold weather to go away...I will
post pics as soon as I get on it....I hope this help a few of you all.....later

*Please read text, other wise the pictures will not make any sense!
OK, so I decided i would make this tutorial because i was fitting these speakers i
bought into the doors and I didn't really like the idea of just getting spacers and
letting the speaker face straight out, which is a waste of sound in my opinion.
First off, the materials you will need:
* 3/4" MDF sheets
* A cutting device (hacksaw, jigsaw etc)
* Dowel or pencils
* Fabric
* Fiberglass mat
* Resin
* Catalyst
* Brushes
* Bondo or fiberglass filler
* Spray putty
* Primer
* Top Coat

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Mounting Rings
Very often, you can simply outline the frame of a speaker with a pencil and use that
as your guide to cut.
For the inner diameter cuts, usually the manufacturer of a speaker will give the
cutting diameter or radius. If you don't have this information, measure the offset
and pencil it is. It is better to cut too little than too much, so if it doesn't fit after
your first cut, cut more in small increments or sand down the edges until the
speaker fits. You want to make sure the speaker won't fall through the hole, and
also that there is wood under each screw hole so you have material to screw into.

The Base
The base will depend on what size and type of pod you are making, but for most of
the flat parts (mainly the base) it is better to make them out of wood, as it will be
stronger than fiberglass in this case.
When you use speaker-mounting rings, you need something to hold the ring in
place. Here, i simply used cut pieces of pencil for the tweeters, and dowel for the
woofers.

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I used a hot glue gun to secure these in place, which will also come in handy when
you start the fabric process. In terms of the angle you have them facing, I simply
used a laser pointer, otherwise a long piece of string can do the same thing.
I need to cut a hole in the bases for my pods so that the magnets could just poke
through, while not protruding into the door too much, as a result of the angle I had
them on.

Structure and Fabric

Once all is dry, give it a little push and make sure it won't fall apart. This structure is
going to be wrapped in fabric, which will need to be pretty tight, and also when the
resin is applied the fabric will have a tendency to shrink, which will put more stress
on the structure.
For the fabric, you can pretty much use anything. Try to avoid anything 100% cotton
as it will shrink the most, and anything very thick will absorb allot of resin, which
will cost you. The material needs to be decently stretchy, so thin (polyester) fleece is
often chosen. I used an old t-shirt. You want to pull the fabric around the front and

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make it as smooth and seamless as possible. Hot glue or staple the ends to a part of
the same that wont be seen later on. Once done, cut away as much excess as
possible.

Now that you've got the fabric nice and tight and everything looks the way you want
so far, its time for the resin.
Fiberglassing

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Always use cheap brushes, as resin is sticky stuff. Cut the bristles down to about
half of their original length so that it is easier when jabbing the resin into the fabric
which makes absorb the resin for the first few layers, thus building a strong base.

When the structure has dried, you can remove the mounting pieces (the pencils).
Fiberglass was laid on the inside of the enclosure. Once fiberglass is dry, it is not
perfectly smooth and needs to be sanded and covered with body filler in order to get
a smooth look. That is why is it better to fiberglass from the inside, rather than the
outside, however this is usually not practical in most instances.

While that resin was drying, get your fiberglass chop mat and cut / rip some pieces.
It is often better to rip them, because you will get frayed edges, which conform
better to existing pieces. The mat I used was not all that fine, however if the mat
you use is, I would use scissors and gloves to cut it.

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First you should put down a layer of resin itself covering the area of mat you have
divided up, and then you can proceed to place the mat on top, followed by another
layer or resin. Is it possible to apply 3 successive layers before you should allow the
previous layers to dry if more is needed.

I used chop mat for this application, however you can use weave mat if required,
which will not need as many layers, although it wont be able to adhere to tighter
corners/bends as the chop mat.
It is also important that you get as many bubbles out of the matting as you can, as
this seriously weakens the structure.
Cleaning/Painting
Then its time to clean up all the excess resined fabric or fiberglass with a
hacksaw/angle grinder etc, ready to prep for painting.
At this point it is a good idea to test fit the speakers and make sure that they dont
foul on anything in the car or the pod itself, so you can make changes before you
start the prep work.
So what you are left with is resin-coated fabric on the outside of the pod, which in
most cases will go slightly bumpy. You will be able to sand most of these out
(although sanding fabric may sound a bit silly), and then fill the rest of the divots
with bondo or fiberglass filler.
I found that you can use 120 grit regular painters sand paper for the whole job, and
then use spray putty to get an even better finish.

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Once you have the right sort of finish you can give it a few coats of primer as
contrary to common belief, spray putty actually requires a primer before you can top
coat it.
I simply used a high gloss black acrylic lacquer as I user an acrylic primer, although
this is up to you.

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jose florida
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Re: Making Door's Speaker

Pod...fiberglass

Reply #1 on: January 25, 2008, 08:08:42 PM

good job bro i whant to do the same thing on my toyota rear deck
4-6/9
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feracing

Re: Making Door's Speaker

28 Sep 2015 4:09 PM

Making Door's Speaker Pod...fiberglass

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http://ostcbpt.com/forum/index.php?topic=503.0
Pod...fiberglass
These
are tricks
theJanuary
audio 25,
shops
use
to do those fancy systems , no rocket science
Reply
#2 on:
2008,
09:59:42
PM

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Re: Making Door's Speaker

Pod...fiberglass

Reply #2 on: January 25, 2008, 09:59:42 PM

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