I want to do a custom sub and amp box to fit on the left side of my trunk. The sub box I already have sits in the middle of my trunk and takes up all of the space, so I thought about moving it to the side(s). I have a 10" RF sub, and a Kenwood amp. Does anyone have any tips (besides the ones in the FAQ) or installation pics on how this is done right. I was also thinking about adding another 10" sub (since my amp can hold 2) and putting it on the right side of my trunk.
Here is my basic idea....
i always love your pictures lol
96Z24Colorado (The Other Matt) wrote:i always love your pictures lol
Yeah, I am shooting to be a comedian when I grow up, this is just my starting gig.
this was my solution to that problem, now i can cram stuff behind it, around it and under it
. I have more pictures of this thing but i'm not buggin anybody with them lol.
as far as glassing in a box, your going to be making a mold of the side of your trunk, decide if you want the box to follow the carpet, or if you want it to replace the carpet, there are some supports behind the carpet in cavies you can use to tie into to keep the box from rolling around the trunk.
First get some foil wrap and some masking tape, mask off a HUGE area with foil and tape, anything you think might get glass or resin on it mask off resin will find any thing you dont want it to and its impossible to get out of anything this stuff is 110% permanant. next your going to lay your resin and glass into the area you preselected, this will give you your back shape, but down a shape bigger than what you need so you can trim the edges up and make everything fit just right, next let your first layer of glass cure completely then check it to see if its solid, if it is pull it out carefully and add 3 or 4 more layers to it, the goal is to keep it from flexing. If you wanted to you could also buy a 1/4" thick peice of plywood from home depot or lowes and glass peices of that to any flat surface in the box then fill the corners in with glass, this adds strength which you will need in sub box, Any flat area use wood whenever possible its solid and when resin hits it, its a rock from that point forward. once your back peice is finished you need to add your mdf rings, figure out some way of supporting them till the resin dries, i used some chunks of mdf, doesnt really matter your removeing them later anyway. the goal is to figure out the area you need for the box, guess at your overall height with the rings and you'll probably be close, when i build my box i needed .75' total inner area, i ended up with around .8 or .9 its close enough i'm not gonna complain alittle difference wont hurt unless your running sq comps.
now once you think your close in size that you need go to wal mart pick up some fleece, the bargain rack usually has somethin to choose from and its cheap, lighter stuff is easier to work with because you can see the resin soaking into it the darker stuff will look coated but still be dry deeper down. next go home, get a staple gun or some glue that will bond to fiberglass ( super glue does not work on fiberglass resin cure or not) attatch your fleece to the back peice stretching it over the mdf rings and keeping it nice and tight, avoid wrinkles the best you can as they will mean lots more work later on, figure every wrinkle will take you 2 hours of sanding to get down and you'll have the right mindset
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once this is done make a small hole in the middle of the mdf rings find a box that is 12" x12"x12" go to www.the12volt.com and check out their volume calculators plug in those numbers and it'll tell you the volume of the box, now fill your box with packing peanuts, put the packing peanuts into your sub box fill it up completely, now take all the peanuts out and put them back into your box measure the depth of the peanuts in this box and plug those numbers in and it will give you the exact area of your box, remember to add room for the magnets displacement as well as allow for the bracing to take up some space, if your within .1 or .2 of where you want to be thats pretty close and probably good enough.
next soak the fleece with resin, my box used a full 12oz cup of resin to soak the fleece completely, so mix up alot and prepare to move fast
once resin starts to set your kinda screwed as the gel it turns into isnt very usable. once you have that takin care of, figure out how much space you have, if you have alot of extra room check for a product called cabasol, theres also another one i forget the name of it www.the12volt has info on this your going to create a foamy thickened form of resin with this and coat the inside of your box giving you strength without changing the overall shape of your box, most applications can get away with this, the goal is to be able to push on any flat surface with your thumb and the glass not move at all, once this is done you know you've got a good box. the process is the same for the amp rack just make sure you make the glass box deeper than the amp and put a plexiglass lid on it and some leds under it and you've got show quality on a shoe string budget
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J~
j's got a pretty good go of it, only thing i'd change is dont mix up large batches of resin until u get the mixtures right, u can make a small amount and then mix up more later. if you mix up a huge mixture first and u put to much hardener in, it may cure on u to fast and now u have a solid resin puck in your mixing bowl wich isnt good for anyting, cept maybe a ghetto paper weight.
i also like to do a couple of layers of fiberglass/matt before i pull the piece out of the car. even with 1 layer u can get some shrinking when u beef it up because one layer sometimes isnt enough strentgh to hold it in place when shrinking occurs during the curing process. other then that follow his tips and u should be good to go.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sndsgood/ https://www.facebook.com/#!/Square1Photography
another tip...when you are making molds like that. use some 3M spray glue and spray down the area..then attach your pieces of mat. THEN soak it all in resin. that way you won't be fooling with making a mess trying to to stick pieces on...
is it expensive to do all this work or could you make a custom glassed box relitively cheap?
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tha_prowler wrote:is it expensive to do all this work or could you make a custom glassed box relitively cheap?
it's not as expensive as you might think. you could make a sub box yourself for under 100 bucks in materials (provided you have the tools already)
compare that to the 500-600 price a shop might charge, id's say it's "relatively" cheap
