Been at a stand still here since I cut the panels. I had decided how I want them to look and a rough idea how to build them but not the fine details how to do it so they look good. My biggest concern was getting the hole in the baffle cut to look real clean where I will be mounting the driver behind the baffle, the opening will be fully exposed. All I have to work with here is a skill saw, a jig saw, and a real cheap old tiny table saw. I also have an old router. The problem with the hole is it will not be just a round hole, that would be fairly easy to do.
I started thinking about this a year ago it was in the fall just before I closed the shop up for the winter. I had made a couple mock ups of ideas. The easiest one was a round hole, mount the woofer to outside of the baffle and put a 6" port on the front next to the woofer. But I just did not like the looks of that at all. I wanted them to look like they belong with the Alec 816 mid cabs, not just something tossed under them. so I decided I wanted to emulate the 816 cabs. The problem is to make the ports for a sub to get them to 32hz, look and match the 816's they would need to be way long and complected to build, beyond my abilities. so I came up with the design in pic below. They will have a down fire round port with fake square ports on the baffle, and square the edges of the woofer hole like the Altecs.
This is where I had to figure a way to make the opening for the driver look good. It is not as easy as drilling a hole in the center, mount the router to a piece of wood to use as a pivot to make a perfect round hole. Before I started cutting the panels I figured a way to do it. I need a template with an edge trimming router bit with the bearing to ride along the template. Problem there is making a template that is perfect, there is no way I can do that with a jig saw. But.... I am good with metal, I have stock and a roller. So I plan to roll out 2 half circles and cut 2 strait pieces, will get every thing to size, tack the pieces together, weld a few tabs on them for screw, carefully position on the baffle. That should be a perfect template for those woofer holes.
All I have to cut the panels out of the 4 X 8 sheets of MDF is a skill saw and I knew there was no way I would get a perfect strait edge that I need for the front baffle where the edges need to fit perfect to the sides, no gaps of any kind. So what I did was since I figure I was going to get a router bit anyway I cut all the panels slightly over size so can position them on the frame, the rout the edges on all panels to give a good fit all the way around. The router bit will be here tuesday, all they had in stock at local hardware store was a 1/2" length bit so would not work doing 3/4" MDF, home depot had one with free shipping. I also ordered the woofers, I will need the dimensions for the hole as well as where to put the holes to mount the woofer. Then of course there will be many things to do that will all be for appearance... so there you have it, where I been and where I'm going. I hope to be back on them wednesday...