DIY guitar speaker cab

For some time now I’ve been thinking about replacing my guitar amp. What could then be more fun than building one yourself?

As amps in general, and especially tube amps, are high voltage devices, I don’t feel like taking any risks by designing something from scratch, but rather build something from a kit. More on the amp later. This post will be about the speaker cabinet.

I don’t have a lot of experience trying lots of different cab types, so I went to the all-knowing internet for some guidance. Through reading blogs and forums on the topic, it cleared on me what I wanted. I went for a single speaker (1×12”), half-open non-resonant cabinet. My material of choice was 18mm locally produced birch plywood. This isn’t the cheapest of materials, nor is it the easiest to work with, but Finnish plywood is usually considered to be of very high quality, so you get what you pay for.

One thing I’ve learned in the process of building stuff is that careful planning always pays off. I started by making a detailed layout on paper with all the measurements scaled down to 1:10. This way I was able to get all the pieces to fit on the smallet possible piece of plywood. Once I had all the planning done, it was time to cut all the pieces. (at this point I made my only deviation from my original plans, as I used 12mm plywood or the back panels).

The pieces were joined together using wood glue and screws. As I prefer having the screwheads invisible, the whole construction is screwed together from the inside:

Once all the pieces were fitted together, it was time to round the corners using a router. Then I did a first round of sanding, painted one layer, and then more sanding and more paint:

One thing the internet community pointed out that I would have missed was to paint the front of the speaker baffle black to avoid it from shining through as the cloth is applied later:

I also added a thin wire mesh over the speaker cutout, just to be sure the speaker is protected. To avoid rattling in the future, i sealed it with an elastic filler and tiny woodscrews.

For the speaker itself I went for a Jensen Tornado. I hadn’t heard of this speaker before, but it was recommended to me by the guy who sold all the other hardware I needed, so I trusted his judgement. It is a neodymium speaker, so it’s lightweight. (Actually I had been wondering why guitarists haven’t accepted neo magnets yet, but appearently they are coming at last…)

Then I added all the usual necessities; metallic corner protection, rubber feet, handle.

The last touch was of course the front cloth. As I live in Finland I wanted to give a really Finnish finish, so I bought some marimekko unikko fabric. It was expensive, but at least my speaker looks quite unique.

So that’s it! Now I just have to build an amplifier to match the cabinet, which will of course be a completely different project, but I’ll get back to You on that one.