After making sure the basic fit was OK, I cut 1" strips of 1/4" plywood to give the grill cloth some standoff from the face of the baffle. I softened all the sharp edges with a piece of sandpaper, then glued and screwed the 1" strips to the baffle board. The spring clamps in the picture were what I had available, but they're the wrong tool for the job. They don't keep the wood from sliding. You can imagine picking up the baffle in the picture below. The glue hasn't set, so it's still really slippery. Gravity pulls the handles of the clamps down, and that walks the 1" strip just a little bit off the edge of the baffle. I was able to get things lined up fine, but it was finicky and frustrating. next time I'll get some small C clamps. I used #6 x 1/2" screws with 5/64" pilot hole. I used flathead screws, and countersunk the pilot holes so the heads of the screws wouldn't interfere with the grill cloth.
Attachment:
File comment: Screws and glue
gluedAndScrewed.jpg [ 59.24 KiB | Viewed 7944 times ]
In the picture above, you can see that the bottom strip of 1/4" plywood overlaps the bottom of the speaker cutout. It's probably no big deal, but it doesn't seem classy, so contoured it to match using 80 grit sandpaper. This was much easier than I expected. It took about 3 minutes of hand sanding.
I stapled on some string to hang the baffle, masked the threads of the speaker studs with tape, and sprayed the whole thing with flat black rattle can spraypaint.
Attachment:
File comment: Ready for painting.
readyForPaint.jpg [ 20.17 KiB | Viewed 7944 times ]
Keeping the grill cloth tight while attaching it was tricky. Fortunately my wife is both talented and strong, so between the two of us it went pretty well. We used 3/8" T50 staples. The staple gun was just about strong enough to drive these into the plywood, but we wound up tapping quote a few of them in with a hammer to tighten them up.
Attachment:
File comment: So many staples.
grillCloth.jpg [ 331.65 KiB | Viewed 7944 times ]
We added a second row of staples before trimming the grill cloth, but I think it was overkill.
Attachment:
File comment: Ready for installation.
ready.jpg [ 279.95 KiB | Viewed 7944 times ]
With the grill cloth and staples, the baffle just barely fit the cabinet. I'm surprised at how much space get eaten up. Maybe 3/16"? That's only a guess, but I'm glad now that I didn't cut the board any bigger.
I drilled holes for the screws that mount the baffle to the cabinet by holding the baffle in place, then running through the holes in the cabinet with the biggest bit that would fit cleanly (and not enlarge the holes in the cabinent). This made sure the holes in the baffle were perfectly lined up. I don't remember what size bit I used, but the mounting screws look to be 8-32.
As expected, there's not enough clearance for the magnet cover, but everything fits great without it. I"m telling myself the additional cabinet volume will improve the sound.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
Attachment:
File comment: I did remember to install a speaker cable eventually. ;)
installed.jpg [ 95.14 KiB | Viewed 7944 times ]
And here's the finished (again) product.
Attachment:
File comment: For real this time.
finished.jpg [ 166.51 KiB | Viewed 7944 times ]
Thanks again for listening. This has been a lot of fun.