Do not use sheathing plywoodfromhomecenter, false economy. May work but is not stable, my snakeskin tolex keeps peeling

Baltic birch, marine grade then idk—good wood is hard to find where I am at.

twelvepoint wrote: Wed Jul 09, 2025 7:01 am I probably should have asked this two days ago, but anyone who’s made these as either 15 or 12:

Do you have a preference for assembling the plywood exterior first (sides, top, bottom) and fitting in the bracing? Or do you create a bracing “skeleton” then affix the plywood to that?

I am doing the latter, and I’m not sure it makes much difference but if anyone has experience with this and has opinions, let me know.

I haven’t cut my plywood yet so I can fine tune if necessary, to the bracing.

I've made a few dozen of these. Recommend you build the shell first, then install the interior structure. Cutting the strips of fir or whatever you are using is trivial, and making fine-tuning trim cuts is easy- doing it with much wider plywood is slower and more challenging. Other advice is to do the math and make the speaker front-mount. The Bismarck has blown up or shredded countless EVs -front mount makes the speaker swapping process way easier, and it avoids the old Dietz- style sandwiched grill that rubs on the surround at maximum excursion, destroying speakers.

c jury wrote: Thu Jul 10, 2025 1:33 pm

twelvepoint wrote: Wed Jul 09, 2025 7:01 am I probably should have asked this two days ago, but anyone who’s made these as either 15 or 12:

Do you have a preference for assembling the plywood exterior first (sides, top, bottom) and fitting in the bracing? Or do you create a bracing “skeleton” then affix the plywood to that?

I am doing the latter, and I’m not sure it makes much difference but if anyone has experience with this and has opinions, let me know.

I haven’t cut my plywood yet so I can fine tune if necessary, to the bracing.

I've made a few dozen of these. Recommend you build the shell first, then install the interior structure. Cutting the strips of fir or whatever you are using is trivial, and making fine-tuning trim cuts is easy- doing it with much wider plywood is slower and more challenging. Other advice is to do the math and make the speaker front-mount. The Bismarck has blown up or shredded countless EVs -front mount makes the speaker swapping process way easier, and it avoids the old Dietz- style sandwiched grill that rubs on the surround at maximum excursion, destroying speakers.

The actual EV-published plans say in note 4, "Speaker must be mounted from front of cabinet". Also there's 1.5" between the front of the baffle and the edge of the cabinet, so there should be ample space to make a frame with grille cloth without speaker interference.

I had an old dietz that I added a metal grill to with like 1” spacers and that was plenty of room. Thanks Chris for the advice on shell first. I did already cut the bracing but I have plenty more if I cut any too short.

Do you attach the bracing to the plywood with screws, construction adhesive or both?

twelvepoint wrote: Thu Jul 10, 2025 4:07 pm I had an old dietz that I added a metal grill to with like 1” spacers and that was plenty of room. Thanks Chris for the advice on shell first. I did already cut the bracing but I have plenty more if I cut any too short.

Do you attach the bracing to the plywood with screws, construction adhesive or both?

Definitely use screws. Construction adhesive tends to get brittle over time, and the last thing you want is a piece of bracing rattling around in there and damaging your speaker cone.

There's also nothing wrong with throwing some wood glue in between parts before you fasten them together. Anything that doesnt need to be taken apart later will benefit from glue.

Yes- definitely use both glue of some sort and screws.

I had forgotten that the plans call for front mount. Our old dietz was rear-mount, with a removeable baffle...which is a terrible idea. Ours all have frames and grill cloth. when I was broke I built myself a pair of the 1x12's used burlap for grill cloth- worked great.

Opened up the Digico at work yesterday to reseat ribbon cables in hopes that it addresses an intermittent display issue where the display has a fog-white sheen over it making it difficult to see the channel strips etc.

Undid the one million screws and as per usual my phone flashlight getting full use as I poke around making sure I'm not missing anything. You see where this is going. Put the display back in, plug the IECs back in, fire it up screen works, AWESOME, put back the one million screws and move forward w/ sound check.

Later...panic. Where's my phone. Looking everywhere. I remembered leaving the car w/ it. No other apple devices with me and using the work ipad, I cannot login to the "Find My" feature because...you guessed it...MFA is tied to the phone.

I white knuckle through that panicked feeling of my phone being stolen until I get a window to run home and get my ipad. Find My on the iPad shows the phone still on prem so panic is subsided a bit at least.

Get back to work & use the Play Sound function and we hear it immediately and are checking around, beside, below, everywhere close to the console and can't figure it out...and then looking through the ventilation I can see the light on and realized what I'd done.

Enjoy the chuckle at my own expense. Subjecting myself to a bit of public humiliation as a reminder to not be a dunce (and maybe not try to fix things under duress). If it were a metal flashlight or a tool, this easily could have fried some components.

ugh. Misplaced my phone again. I have broken 2 phones in my pocket moving gear and so I have a bite-me-in-the-ass habit of taking it out of my pocket every time I put hands on gear and left it out in the warehouse storage space.

Garth wrote: Sat Jul 19, 2025 5:32 pm ugh. Misplaced my phone again. I have broken 2 phones in my pocket moving gear and so I have a bite-me-in-the-ass habit of taking it out of my pocket every time I put hands on gear and left it out in the warehouse storage space.

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