Blackbird Guitar Cabs - the magic wooden box build thread

BlackbirdCabs

Hi All, I thought a cabinet build thread might be of interest to some of you DIY-ers and also to anyone interested in the process generally. I've plonked this in the 'Made in the UK' section as this is a professional endeavour but I'll also put up a signpost to it in the 'Makers and Modders' section. Let me know if the other way round makes more sense.

I'll do my best to take pictures as I go along but will inevitably get lost in the work from time to time and forget to document what I'm doing! With this in mind please do ask any questions here about anything you're curious about.

BlackbirdCabs

First up is a nice little 1x12 project for fellow Fretboarder @Power-Beef

This cab is going to be compact and lightweight, with a bit of added depth to increase the internal space, to make sure the sound doesn't get too boxy. The finish is going to be a clear satin to let the grain of the wood shine through - we're even foregoing corners and handles!

The back will be a 3-piece special: the middle panel can be removed, meaning the cab can be used as an open or closed back cabinet.

So here's how it begins, with a pile of wood......

The yellow-ish boards are pine. It's Scots Pine from here in the UK - I've found a local supplier of UK grown timber and I'm really hopeful that I can make the majority of my cabs using native wood.

The boards on the top are Ash, from the same supplier. They're supposed to be for some desk legs for my home office but something tells me they might end up being a couple of head cabinets

Just in case you're wondering - no my workshop isn't carpeted! This is my first winter out here on the Devon coast and until I get an industrial de-humidifier set up I'm too anxious about the moisture in the air to leave stuff anywhere but inside. It's also the best spot I have for natural sunlight so better for photos.

BlackbirdCabs

Here's how the grain is looking before getting planed up.....

BlackbirdCabs

And here's how the boards are looking after being planed and thicknessed....

Who says pine isn't as sexy as hardwood? These boards are really nice, I'm loving the grain. It's always so exciting when the rough sawn boards reveal their secrets! Here's a few close-ups........

paulnb57

Nice wood! 
Interested to see how this progresses

BlackbirdCabs

Cheers @paulnb57 - it's cool looking stuff isn't it.

Here are the pieces cut. The slightly more golden pieces in the top right are for the 1x12. That tree must have had slightly more nutritious soil to feast on! Or maybe it was just younger - I know that younger ash trees tend to yield paler timber.

BlackbirdCabs

And after some router-whispering and general prayers to the gods of cabinetry, the pieces are all box-jointed (or finger-jointed if you prefer) and ready for glueing up. I'll save that bit for the morning - glueing box joints requires a fairly clear head and it's too late for any more coffee today!

BlackbirdCabs

Having thought about it I think this discussion will be more at home in the 'Making and Modding' section so I'll see if I can work out how to move it!

I'll open a new thread to show off finished projects in the 'Made in the UK' section when this cab is finished......

paulnb57

BlackbirdCabs said:

Having thought about it I think this discussion will be more at home in the 'Making and Modding' section so I'll see if I can work out how to move it!

I'll open a new thread to show off finished projects in the 'Made in the UK' section when this cab is finished......

Go to the top of the first post here and click/tap on the cog symbol (edit post) there is then an option to change where the post is located….
Could you give a little more detail about the routing please?

BlackbirdCabs

paulnb57 said:

Could you give a little more detail about the routing please?

Definitely - do let me know if you have specific questions as well.

I use the Axminster dovetail jig to do my cuts. You just need a straight router bit with a bearing that exactly matches the jig width, and then you make finger/box joints. It works well although it took me a while to get it set up to produce results I was happy with - maybe that would be the same with pricier units, I'm not sure. I wonder if it would have been more rewarding to just buy the metal template and make my own jig - I've seen it done before. I might well do it in the future for actual dovetails as 1/2" dovetails look a bit busy to my eye. Anyway, here's the jig.........

BlackbirdCabs

And here's my hi-tech spacing tool to offset the 'female' boards by half an inch......

Two 6mm spacers and a strip of 0.7mm veneer = exactly 12.7mm = exactly 1/2"

I don't know if this counts as smug but it's so pleasing to make something from things lying around!

My old spacer was a piece of 1/2" MDF - it worked fine in the summer but expanded by 1mm once the weather got cold!

BlackbirdCabs

One last tip before I move this thread to the 'Makers and Modders' section........

To avoid break out like this (listen, it happens to the best of us OK?!)........

........use a chisel to mark out the line where the router bit will exit the timber. 1 or 2mm should be fine........

.......and you should get results closer to this

Modulus_Amps

Those look like some nice clean joints and nice timber too, well done

I run the board through a table saw to prevent the breakout like you have above, once the fence is set right you can cut through dozens of boards quickly - anything to save time.

I modified the comb jig to take the faff out of those dovetail jigs, I can cut the joints for several cabs pretty quickly.
You can see it here if you have not already seen it:
https://fb.watch/bfR8sq3kT2/

I plan to build a finger jointer with multiple dado blades so I can cut finger joints the same way Marshall do, that is super fast.

BlackbirdCabs

Modulus_Amps said:

Those look like some nice clean joints and nice timber too, well done

I run the board through a table saw to prevent the breakout like you have above, once the fence is set right you can cut through dozens of boards quickly - anything to save time.

I modified the comb jig to take the faff out of those dovetail jigs, I can cut the joints for several cabs pretty quickly.
You can see it here if you have not already seen it:
https://fb.watch/bfR8sq3kT2/

I plan to build a finger jointer with multiple dado blades so I can cut finger joints the same way Marshall do, that is super fast.

I hadn't seen that - yes, that's a really nice way of doing it, definitely less faff as you say. Thanks for sharing, I might well hatch a plan to set up something similar in the future.

BlackbirdCabs

OK, it's been a while (excuses: storms, half-term) - where was I?

Glueing up - this can be stressful, because it needs to go well, but I try to make life easier for myself by doing a dry run first: working out which piece goes which way round and marking up the 'front' and 'back' edges. I'll make decisions based on any slight cupping that might have happened since the boards have been thicknessed, but also I'll be looking for the best looking bits of grain and how to show them off best.

Then I clamp the cab together without glue. If you're feeling super confident then you can skip this bit, but I wanted to do it here to make sure I had room to measure from corner to corner to check for squareness - it's really easy to block access to the corners when you've got clamps going vertically and horizontally.

Once I'm happy with my dry run I'll lay out everything as neatly as I can, then:

- make a cup of tea

- go to the toilet

For these finger joints there's a lot of glue that needs to get in to a lot of nooks and crannies, so I use a slow-setting wood glue - it's a lot less stressful this way!

Here's a cab glued up. This is actually a larger cab I'm making at the same time (the not so nice boards from the pics above) but you get the idea.

BlackbirdCabs

Here's a few close-up shots of the clamped joints...

The red Bessey clamps are great because you can clamp up directly without damaging the timber.

The blue sash clamps need a buffer/batten of some kind otherwise they'll gouge marks in to the pine. Here I've cut some strips of wood to just under the depth of the cab (I want them to be shy of the front and back faces so that my tape measure can get to the corners) and wrapped them in clear tape so that the wood glue doesn't stick them to the cab.

BlackbirdCabs

8 bits of wood become 2 boxes! The joints are looking good............

BlackbirdCabs

............but it's when the edges are rounded that they really become guitar cabs for me.

The cab in front is ready to be oiled, so I'll get it indoors to make sure it doesn't take on any unwanted moisture, and start looking at the back panels.

TheOtherDennis

Coo, proper woodwork. I dread to think of the mess I'd make of trying something like that.

Top marks, sir.

paulnb57

TheOtherDennis said:

Coo, proper woodwork. I dread to think of the mess I'd make of trying something like that.

Top marks, sir.

Me too! They are fabulous, but Im not sure I have the skills…

BlackbirdCabs

Thanks @TheOtherDennis and @paulnb57 - to be fair I make a decent amount of mess myself!

Here's a jig/template that I made from some old ply. It's for the jackplate and a cool little leather patch that I've had made up.

Here's how it will look - a nice snug fit for the jackplate and a pleasing gap for the name badge. There's defintiely a proper woodworking term that I should use instead of 'gap' but I'm embarrassingly bad at remembering that stuff.

I'm going to call it a moat, like what goes around a castle