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As a woodworker, I'm always interested to know peoples' thoughts on the best kinds of woods for certain applications. I use alot of exotic hardwoods from South America and Asia to produce pens, bowls, etc. They certainly look great, but I was wondering if these sorts of hardwoods could be used in making cabinets ... or if other woods were more appropriate (and if so, any thoughts as to why)....Equally curious to know if folks have found an optimal thickness for such efforts.

Thanks!

In the beginning, Fender used Pine, Marshall used Baltic Birch Plywood. Probably because it was plentiful & cheap. Pine may have a bit more 'tone' to it since it is not as dense as the plywood.
This has turned into an urban legend now and some people feel that's the way they have to be built. Trinity makes them out of Baltic Birch plywood which wont warp and is very strong. If someone wanted Pine, or hardwood, for looks, then I would go ahead and build it that way.

I guess weight is a factor when you have to lug your amp all over the place. Optimal thickness is 3/4" or 1/2"?

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You may call me El Conquistadore!

Yes, weight can be a factor, but that's what roadies are for.

I like to use 1/2" for up to 28" X 20" X 10". That's good for an 18 Watt amp, but the 15 style demands 3/4" even though its only 24" X20" X 10-1/2" . It could be made of 1/2" and in fact, some people have asked for a lightweight cabinet and I'll make that for them if they want it.

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Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Is it the wood or the size of the box/cabinet that would have the most effect on tone?

Lawrence,

It's my opinion that they both have an affect on tone, but differently. I feel that the type of wood changes the resonating properties of the cab....while the size changes the resonant peaks...

In other words, a cab made of MDF isn't going to resonate...and a cab of pine or some other hardwood may resonante more than say birch...But if the cab is a bit oversized, the cab will sound like it has more girth.

I tell ya, to me...it's all bull anyway. As long as the cab is sturdy, has enough space in it, has enough breathing room for the open back or a sealed back....it should sound fine.

I'm sure there are combinations that dont work....but as long as you've got a decent enough sized cab, with a decent speaker, properly mounted it should work.

You know, I'm just finishing my first 1X12....I never aproached it with anything more than "Hey, I'll make it 18 inches high and 11 inches deep, and blah blah blah" I TOTALLY winged it. I practically determined the dimensions of the cabinet by what my table saw was set to...

I'm sure it'll sound fine to me

-Frank

I'm kinda with Frank here where it concerns guitar cabs, but not hi-fi cabs.

When I look at a lot of older guitar cabs, it seems more like they were dimensioned based on standard sizes of pine board or how economical the plywood 4' X 8' sheet could be cut up and the width and depth of the spekers to be enclosed. AKA economics. It doesn't really matter in an open back cabinet but for closed backs, there is a cabinet / speaker resonant frequency to consider, in order to get the response and feel you want. Bass bins and horns are another ball game.

I do think the type of wood will made a difference as will the vibration of the panels themselves. MDF will add nothing, and pine will add lots. Plywood will be fairly benign but still add something.

As far as dimensions go, physically, a 4X12 would have to be made strong, and 1/2 wouldn't cut it. For a 1X12, 1/2 ply would be fine but Fender used 3/4 pine. Go figure.

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Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

I ended up using 3/4 Birch ply for my 1X12 and 1/2 for the baffle.

I wont be able to test it until I complete my amp...and heck, I haven't even started it yet...so it'll be a while before I can tell you guys how it came out.

-F

I made my cabinet out of exotic tone woods.

My Lightning Box is 3/4" Black Limba and the baffle is 5/8" mahogany.

Originally it was a 2x12 cab with an ash baffle but i changed baffles and made it a 1x12. The extra size mellows out the sound IMO. The 2x12 baffle was ash and alot brighter than the mahogany.

In the case of my Lightning I was struggling with brightness anyway changing to the mahogany helped with this problem. Unfortunately It also made the bottom end a little soft. Changing some cathode cap values helped bring that into focus, I've got more tweaking to do before I button it up for the last time.

Don't get me wrong it sounds amazing but mabe it could get better.

It appears that an amp is never done.

The last cabinet i build was 3/4 MDF. It was a 2x10 that i then covered in this grey carpet material like what you find on car speaker boxes. That type of covering i think tends to mellow out the sound of the cab. it sounded great with my pretty trebly 68 bandmaster, but not so good with any bass heavy amps. It got too muddy.

John, that's a gorgeous piece of work. Congratulations. Interesting comments on the affect of the wood though.

What cathode cap values did you use? Where did you use them? and What was the effect of changing them? Finally, what additional tweaking do you plan to do before you button it up for the "last" time?

Again, Really nice job!!

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Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Steve

Not being at home I'll venture a stab at the values I used.

On V1 and V2 I changed the cathode bypass caps to 1uf to tighten up the bass.

I took out the 180pf going into V2 before the tone stack to cut some of the harshness. I could not hear a lot from this change. I plan on playing with this more.

The last thing I did was put in a Sammi Speaker 40watt. Less harshness, and a tighter bottom end.

I may go back and play with the V1 & V2 cathode caps, bring those values back up some and get a little more bass thru.