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Kydex DIY waveguides?
My mind was wandering today...
Anyone worked with Kydex before? A thermoplastic that you heat up and press into a form. Often used to make DIY handgun holsters and knife sheaths since you can form it around the item fairly easily with a heatgun.
I thought it could easily be used to make little waveguides for tweeters without faceplates. Possibly faster/chaper than 3d-printing with less prep to get a final product.
I'm interested to try some prototyping, probably just start out with a 45 degree chamfer mold with edges sanded down a bit. Since I've only got a 1/4" shank router to work with. But I imagine other larger routered profiles or 3d-printed molds could realy open the doors to other options!
Thinking of trying with smaller rear mount tweeters like lavoce TN100.70 and Peerless OT19NC00 since larger ones already seem to fit the visaton waveguides.
Thoughts?
Comments
You are a thinking dude.
How well does Kydex take glues/adhesives?
Good question. I figured gel super glue might work to attach them then use some silicone to make sure it is sealed up. At least that is what I'd try first.
These guys cover the adhesives for Kydex pretty well --> https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/adhesive-for-kydex.153848/
A guy named Dave Pellegrene damn near perfected something similar about a decade ago. He used a heat gun and a laser thermometer to get a sheet of some type of plastic to the perfect temp and then squeezed it between a couple of CNC'ed MDF molds. He got really consistent results and the guides looked great. I don't have a link, but I think he posted some stuff on PE Tech Talk while he was doing it.
Faster: I have only printed a small 4" elliptical waveguide so far. But I bet a 6" circular waveguide would take my budget printer 20 hours.
Cheaper: However, that 6" waveguide would probably only cost me $2-4 in filament.
The finish from a budget 3D printer is not good enough for a finished product. I do quite a bit of post-processing. So I think this is definitely worth some research/experimentation.
Interesting:
https://johnr.hifizine.com/2014/04/sb29rdc-on-pellegrene-waveguide/
I found a three pack on amazon of 1/8", 12"x12" sheets for ~$21 shipped. So if chopped into 6" pieces would yield $1.75ea. I'd probably start smaller anyway. 4" squares gets 27 pieces at ~$.78 ea. Cheap enough that failures are pretty painless. And the prototype mold (die?) would probably be made from scrap material too.
If I actually do try it, with any success, I don't have much interest in selling em.. Most likely just hand out the few that get made at gatherings. This is more for my own personal curiosity and hope it could inspire others to try too.
My buddy, Adam made some of those plexiglass waveguides. He made a jig that used his drill press to push down on the sheet after heating it up with a heat gun. I don't have any pics, I'll ask him to post up if he does.
Got some material in.
I do like the drill press idea. Initially I thought I'd hand press them and clamp until cool, but that invites lots of oportunity for distortion in the plastic that might look unsightly. I've got a bench top drill press. I think it should have enough throw for a short horn/waveguide.
Cool material , I dont holster my pistols in any because of wear on the frames. Static though, Im curious.