Continuing Assembly of our Fullrange Speakers...In Which We Get Doweled

Now the boards are ready to be assembled and (hopefully) we'll have a real cabinet.

A couple of notes here:  first, this is a proof of concept.  If I keep saying that, I can mess up and not feel bad about it.

Second, I'm sorta making this up as I go along.

I cut the port tubes to length per the plan (155mm) and insert them into the backside (hee hee hee I wrote backside!) of the port holes.   I used epoxy to hold them in.

You could use PVC pipe for this; I bought 2" ports from Madisound.  They come as a kit with flared ends.  However, the flared ends are way too big for my little speakers.  This will be a plan B for the flares.

I've assembled (if you can call it that) this sort of thing before and I always end up with sloppy joints.  So...I decided to go with dowel pins this time in the hope that the edges will be reasonably square and the butt joints (hee hee) will be stronger.

Whatcha see on the right is a doweling jig.  It has 6 different holes that you line up in the appropriate place on your board and drill a hole for the dowel.

There are threaded inserts that serve as guides so the hole is exactly square, and there is also a depth guide to put on the bit.

This is like the best money I ever spent.  I was totally juiced when I started doing this.

These are the four sides with all of the dowel holes drilled and ready to line up with the sides.  I'm starting to think this may actually work.

The way you line up the holes for the mating surface is with these pins.  It's a little hard to see them, but they're aluminum pointed pins that sit in the drilled hole.   The pin points upward so it will make contact with the opposing side.

With everything lined up square (there's that word again...) you whack the board down onto the pins with your rubber mallet.

The pins make a guide hole in the opposing board that is then used to line up with the jig.  You drill the opposing holes and everything should line up.