Veneering question - speaker cabinets

[J.R. Rutter]

I played a small role in getting a customer's loudspeaker kit to market, and they gave me one from the first production run as a thank-you. It is a baltic birch box that assembles with cam locks from the inside. The openings for the drivers and ports are all rabbeted for flush mounting. I would like to build them up and veneer them with some nice shop sawn flitches, which are no problem to cut and sand. But I'm not quite sure how to handle the rabbeted cutouts. Since I have very little experience with this sort of thing, I thought I would check here for ideas on how best to approach this.

Thanks!

[J.R. Rutter]

My only thought so far is to try to match the rabbet width with a router bit/bearing combo and use that to flush trim the veneer (holding my breath on the spot where the midbass drivers touch). The square corners on the tweeter would have to be chased with a chisel...

[Jamie Buxton]

Yeah, a piloted rabbeting bit in a router would be how I'd go. As you say, there's a bit of an issue where those two speakers nearly meet. The issue is that the router is going to try to tilt when you're cutting the second hole. I'd build a plug to go in the first hole, so the router can rest on it. The plug doesn't have to fit tight, it just has to be flush to the front surface.

[J.R. Rutter]

Good idea on the plug. Thanks Jamie.

[johnny means]

An extra wide router plate would keep your router steady and flat when routing the narrow sections. I would flush trim to the inside hole, fill the rabbet with bondo or epoxy, then rout the rabbet to appropriate depth.

[john bateman]

You may find that a bearing guide bit will not go deeply enough into the recess to allow you to trim the veneer. There is a bit that looks like this that may work:
31NpTjqaIHL.jpg
Actually a better way may be to make a large panel with a hole in it the exact size of the recessed opening. Clamp it to your work piece then use a top bearing flush trim bit. This would give the advantage of providing a more stable surface, assuming you only cut one hole in the panel. The main problem would be lining up your panel over the recess precisely.

Or maybe just make an entire new front panel. Veneer it first, then cut all the openings afterward. Throw away the one that came with the kit.

[J.R. Rutter]

Or maybe just make an entire new front panel. Veneer it first, then cut all the openings afterward. Throw away the one that came with the kit.

I was briefly tempted to do that, but don't really want to locate and drill for all of the cam lock studs on the inside as well as template from scratch. I think the rabbeting bit will work. The development drawings show a 3/8" wide rabbet x 5mm deep for the drivers, so an off the shelf bit should do the trick for trimming using the CNC'd holes in the kit face.

[Jamie Buxton]

That's an interesting product. I wonder how many of them they'll actually sell. Their customer is somebody who wants an unusual high-end loudspeaker, but has no woodworking capability, and doesn't want to just go buy a complete loudspeaker. I wonder how many people there are like that.

[Thomas McCurnin]

Having built a bunch of speakers many years ago, the speaker cones should be covered with grills which overlap the rabbets.

[J.R. Rutter]

That's an interesting product. I wonder how many of them they'll actually sell. Their customer is somebody who wants an unusual high-end loudspeaker, but has no woodworking capability, and doesn't want to just go buy a complete loudspeaker. I wonder how many people there are like that.

They are a low volume, high quality, DIY audio company, so you are spot on in your customer description. From what I've seen on various forums, the first production run was well-received. The crossover and basic design was done by some engineers with lots of experience in audio, both studio and home. I'm looking forward to building them up.