Q's regarding cab building

Ché

So I need some cabs, I have a CNC and we've just taken order of a load of nice 13ply Birch at work... I was thinking of buying some Emperor cabs but the idea of building my own seems fun. Thinking I could make 2 vertical closed back 2x12's and maybe a 4x10 closed back bass cab. So just a few queries:

I've built speakers for a reggae system in the past and you normally determine the size of a cabinet by the thiele small parameters of the speaker you're using. Now, as guitar cabs are predominantly mid range instruments and people swap out speakers in cabs quite a lot I'm assuming it's not as integral? If so, how do you determine the internals of your cabinet? (I do have a book on speaker building but it mainly deals with hifi and full range systems).

I'd like to make dove tail jointed cabs but they're a PITA so I'll be using finger joints.

Rear or front loaded, pros cons?

Grill cloth, how do you attach it?

Cheers guys,
Shaun

P.S: I'm sure these questions aren't new so if anyone could direct me to similar threads it'd be very much appreciated.

Ché

Could probably build those headshells I wanted for my JCM8000 4010 as well.

Winny_Pooh

They are pretty easy. Guitar box sizing is typically haphazard, Marshalls for example were sized to fit the width of their heads and you can use typical dimensions from googling popular cabs although modern cab makers like Mesa are more careful.

Open backs are straightforward, if its deep enough but not oversized it will sound good.

You can easily whip up a cab with table saw and router without fancy finger joints if you leave space inside for support. Rear mounted speakers make more sense and leave space for the grille cloth if you dont have a spacer on the edge of the baffle.

Grille cloth can be stretched with a strong hand, not perfect but almost, some youtube vids on this... work from the centre on both sides outwards. nail down and retighten as it stretches. Tolexing is more straightforward.

Try not to use the heaviest baltic birch ply, otherwise you will learn to hate you cabs. I had great results with 18mm pine ply.

Ché

Thanks dude!

Yeah, open backs seem a bit easier with the dimensions but surely closed cabs are integral to how they allow the speaker to move. Again, I think this may be more of a requirement with bass cabs hence the need for ports (then again the 8x10 is fully sealed isn't it?)

I wasn't planning on tolexing the cabs hence wanting finger joints.

I'm assuming you're referring to the weight of them? Probably why Emperor cabs are so heavy.

Chalky

Centre the board over the face down grille cloth, then fold over top and bottom edges, pull a BIT tight and pin with a single staple mid-top and mid bottom. Turn board over carefully and check the taughtness and alignment of the grille cloth - check the weave looks vertical not slanted. Add or remove a staple to fix as necessary.

Repeat on the horizontal axis. When the centre section looks right, turn face down again and add more staples, regularly turning over to check taughtness and alignment as you go.

Ché

Would this board then be attached to the cab similar to the back? Screwed into the strips of ply that act as bearers.
Or velcro'd as some Fenders are (in which case the girl cloth would be attached to a frame and not be part of the front baffle)

I couldn't work it out in looking at the Emporer cabs but it seems they have a frame that goes over the grill face and is radiused to blend with the sides.

Chalky

I put mine on a separate board and screwed through the cloth, board, and baffle. Inset a couple of centimetres from each corner, using those little collars for the screws to make em look a bit tidier. Tried velcro but it was floppy, too thick and made the board sit proud to the sides.

Ché

Yeah my Mesa combo is like that, does look quite neat actually.