Progress on the DIY Clairtone Project G is inching along.  First, my friend Eric made up these ferrules for the end of the speaker support arm.  Eric is an accomplished woodworker and has been doing some volunteer work at the Western Canadian Aviation Museum where he has access to a metal lathe.

On top the ferrules the Project G had a 10" aluminium disc that acted as a support to stabilize the speaker globe.  I don't have any facility to make such a disc from metal though I do have facility to make it from fibreglass and make it look like aluminium.  I used the shell that I had made up for determining the holes patterns as a mold.  Once the pieces were cleaned up and sanded I was able to paint them with aluminium  spray paint.  In order to get the tool marks that would have come from spinning the metal, I secured the parts to a pottery wheel and applied 100 grit paper to create the circular texture.  Once painted again, the effect is quite convincing, especially as this will be underneath the globes and you will have to kneel down on the floor to even see them!

I also treated the back shells of the globes the same way.

 

 

 

 

 

Progress! Now that all of the holes have been drilled I can move onto the reinforcement rings and back of the shell bracing. I just got the first coat of paint on and I'm liking it. I had to do some careful arrangement with the rings so that the front shell has something to register onto the back shell. The front has some nice translucency to it. 

 Now, a little more work to complete the finish and I can work on the dish which these sit on. 

 And...yes...the speakers do fit inside. I checked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Furthering my Project G project: More holes! Even though these photos show that I am only about half way to the pole, I have now reached the pole and am now returning to the equator drilling the last hole in the center of each square. The pattern ended up too dense near the pole region and I will have to fill that in and re-do it so that it looks even. You can also see my screens sitting atop of the backs, as well as the penciled in hole pattern.

 

 

 

My new dome drilling jig in operation laying out the lines for the holes.  Starting out with dividing the hemi-sphere into 16 sections along the longitudinal, then a whole bunch of latitudinal lines spaced 6mm apart.  This makes a grid oriented to the longitudinal, afterwards I will drill another hole in the center of each square.  Oie, that's a LOT of holes!

 

After a good fair bit of head-scratching about getting the hole pattern correct for the globe just right, getting close but not quite right (see the first photo!), I finally figured it out. 

 This necessitated a whole new rig for the hole drilling. The first one that I made was too wobbly and imprecise. The new one is a turntable mounted so that it can rotate under the drill press. Much better! I have the two new globes made up for the screens, now, so I can work away at this for the next good while. I tested it out today and so far so good.

 

 

 

So, onward with making my globes and its time to make the front screens. However, in the absence of spinning perforated aluminum I am faced with drilling the hole pattern. The pattern is critical to get just right, so after laying out the dots in as close as possible to the proper interval I can see some of the pattern emerge. Now I get how to draw it out and in order to repeat it accurately I am making a simple fiberglass of 1/16th the globe overlay on which I will put the pattern and repeat it. I started with a spare globe shell on which to practice the layout. Lots of work ahead of me! But this should make it simpler.

 

 

 

 

Having finished the two kevlar canoe repairs requiring gunnel replacement, I am now working on yet another Huron?Bastien Brothers/Big Chief canoe.  This one is not too bad, actually.  Opened her up, 4 rib repairs, stem repair, sanding and two coats of fresh varnish, re-canvas, paint, etc.  Pretty straight forward for a change.

But that's not what I want to show here!

Tadaa! Two demi-globes successfully made!

Now to turn my attention to the screens. I had thought of laying in random strand but then thought about drilling them in another globe screen made for the front. So I drilled some test holes in the sample piece that I had made in order to test my mold and fabrication process. Three sizes of holes. I just aligned these by eye just to see how it looks and how strong the shell would remain. At this point my son is still trying to talk me into making authentic style aluminium shells. He has no idea how much work that would entail, especially as it isn't him that would be doing it!

 

So, how to drill all those myriad holes in a pattern? Some head scratching all weekend provided me with this idea. A drill in an old drill/drill press tool, that I had inherited from my father-in-law and couldn't throw out, is mounted on a pivot allowing the drill to arc around the globe, which in turn will be mounted on a disc which rotates on a centre pin. I'm still working on this, not quite done, but enough for you to get the idea.

For those of you who have been following my Clairtone Project G project:

Well, after nearly screwing up catastrophically making the mold (wouldn't come off of the pattern!) I finished cleaning and polishing the mold in order to make a laminate for my repro Project G globes. Monday I made up a small test sample to see if it would come out OK...And it did!

Next, I gathered up my courage, laminating a full demi-globe, risking total failure. My son asked me, "So, what's the worst that can happen?" The worst would be that the laminate would NOT come out of the mold and I would have to start over. Do-able, but wasting a great big pile of work that I would rather not do again. So, buying new mold release wax and using polyester resin this time, and carefully and gently spreading the gelcoat so as not to work it into the wax...I made a full laminate.

Left overnight to cure, I pried along the edge, and pulled. All of a sudden...POP! out it comes! All nice and smooth. I cut more fibreglass pieces and tomorrow I'll laminate the second globe back. I could have done it today but I really didn't feel like facing the wonderful aroma of polyester resin two days in a row. Plus, I had paying work to do in the shop.

 

 

 

A little more progress on the mold for the Clairtone globe shells. I had a lot of problems getting this off of the pattern, neccesitating quite a bit of remedial work. The residue is cleaned out, sanded, and coated with new epoxy. I have about 5 coats on and I am letting it cure hard before sanding and polishing. Pretty soon I can take some laminates from it! Then I can progress on making the rest of the cabinet and stand. THEN I can put the components in and use it.

I had some trouble taking the mold off of its pattern. I tried, off and on, for about a week to pry it off with no success. One day I just said "This thing is coming off today!" A dremel with a cu off whell made a cut across and and I peeled it off. A lot of the filler came off with it. No wonder it was sticking. It is scraping off quite well with a hardwood "chisel". All is not lost, but its more work than I wanted to do.

The pattern with filler as it looks now. It used to look so nice...

Spent a little time refining the surface of the pattern for my Project G globe mold. After coating it with fairing compounds I used a semi-circular sanding block (ie. a block cut to exactly the radius that I desired in the finished pattern), glued some sandpaper on it, and sanded away. Filled in the gaps, sanded some more. Filled in the remaining gaps, sanded some more. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Then I spray painted it gloss black and sanded that to find any remaining hollows. I'll be repeating this a couple more times.

But for now its looking pretty good!

I've been listening to my new speakers for awhile now. The sound is very articulate and transparent. They don't have the bass extension nor the "openness" of the previous Studio Reference Monitors, but the bass is very precise. It is also very present once the volume is put up a little to moderate levels.

These are the speakers which will go into my Clairtone Project G build.

I keep referring to these as "Deathstars", for obvious visual reasons.