Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The Brain,Pt. 2

In order for the board to sit flush with the potentiometers properly seated against the wood, I routed a shallow groove into the inside surface of the face.  Once I finished drilling out the holes on the back piece for connectors, I was ready to glue them together.

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After gluing the front panels on first, I noticed that I still had about 3/8" of extra room at the back of the board.  I want to keep these units as small as possible, so I made a jig and cut them all down to size on the miter saw.


Once I cut them down, I still had enough room to swing in the board and have it rest snugly against both panels.  A friend of mine said he was surprised that it could even be removed; it appeared that it had been glued together like that.


I also ran the front panels that had been glued up on a roundover bit to give them the first part of their shaping.  Eventually, all of the sharp edges will be rounded over, giving the wood a smooth, warm feeling that begs to be touched.



Gluing up the first batch


Once all the pieces were glued up and had time to fully cure, I started on the rest of the roundovers.   The front and back faces have the larger 1" radius roundover where they meet the top panel, while the edges of the front, back, and sides used a 1/2" radius bit.  After a little careful sanding, they have just the look that I was going for.





















As usual, you can find the rest of this and my other projects at my Photobucket.

Monday, January 23, 2012

The Brain Pt. 1

I am getting pretty close on the amps that I am building for this project, so I figured I would share the progress I have made sofar.  I am using modified Lepai amps for the board and making my own enclosure for them out of more bamboo ply.





I started with some ~4 wide pieces that made up the bottom of a sign.  I sectioned into pieces that were about as wide as the amp boards.  I wound up with 6 per board, as there was holes to work around.



I cut half of the blocks in half lengthwise to make up the front and back panels of the amp housing.  I clamped them into a single block and router the corners to have a rounded profile.







I drilled out holes for the potentiometers and used a forstner bit to cut recesses for the knobs.









For more pictures of all of my projects, you can visit my Photobucket.