Applying a Finish to DIY Fullrange Speakers...and How Many Danes Does it Take to Make Danish Oil?

What the heck?

Looks like some sort of crater in the desert!

Actually, gentle reader, it's the roundover of the bass port on the speaker.  The 'abrupt' edge is the thickness of the veneer where I ran the router over the hole with the roundover bit again to open up the port.  I was sort of hoping the bit would bevel the veneer, but it obviously didn't.

No big thing, I think.

I just take some sandpaper - first a brief going-over with 150 grit, then 220 and 320 - to the edge.  I'm able to make a bevel of sorts.  Not perfect, but not too bad. 

It'll be interesting to see how the finish here turns out, since we now have the maple veneer, a maple veneer endgrain, and then rounded-over birch ply. 

One detail I went back and forth on is 'sealing' the inside seams in the box.  It's probably not necessary, seeing as I have glued and dowelled joints which should be pretty airtight (or soundwave-tight as the case may be).

But since I have some caulk on hand, I decide to put some caulk on the seams - at least the ones I can reach.  I figure, hey, what can it hurt?

The blue tool on the right is a Pro Caulk tool.  It's one of those things where you think "right, that's hokey...it won't work."  I thought that too when I first saw them - but then I used one.  It totally rocks and gives a really nice finish to a caulk job.  If you're like me, you hate caulking because you can't get a nice even finish.  Not with the Pro Caulk tool!

I quickly realize that if one is going to caulk seams, in a speaker box, one might want to just lay a layer of caulk on the edges when one is assembling the box.

I make a sort-of mess simply because I only have a 4 inch speaker opening to stick my hand into, and can't see what I am doing.  (If you've read much of this blog, you might say that about a lot of my projects...).

At any rate, it's not pretty, but no one will see it when it's all (ahem) boxed up.

I give the veneer one last light pass with 400 grit paper, and it's on to the finishing stage.  That is, the stage wherein we apply the finish...not the actual finish of the project!

This time around, I'm going to try some Danish Oil as a finish...or at least the first step.  Now, I frequent the TDPRI (see the links...) and someone from Denmark once commented that there is no such thing as "Danish Oil" there - it wasn't invented there and there is nothing called that! 

Which leads me to ponder:  If it was not created in Denmark, how did it get this name?  Is it secretly made from the oil of Danes?  Hmmm.