grill masters (as in speaker grills)

tajanes

Has anyone used foam for a grill ?

I'm playing with possibly having a slightly curved baffle, needing a grill of some type.
Looking into using an acoustically transparent foam (and/or placing grill fabric over a very open metal grill mesh).

Any thoughts / suggestions ?

GeoffMillar

JBL and Superscope (Marantz budget label) used them in the 70s, but no idea how they sounded or whether or not the foam grille worked well.

Geoff

tajanes

Very early doodling stage - may not end up going this direction? I’ve cut foam pieces (for internals) on a table saw - cuts surprisingly clean. Thinking attaching via velcro. Could place a shallow cut on the front side (btwn coax and woofer) just for looks?

tajanes

I just ordered a couple packs of 1/8th baltic birch 12x30 (from Woodworkers Source) and plan to glue these up 2 or 3 sheets at a time in a jig for the baffles. Thinking this will provide a better result than kerfing a ¾ in piece.

Also looking at mounting drivers from the rear > and cutting / routing the holes will be a bit tricky on a slightly curved surface. Thinking going from the concave side attaching a small block of wood (height equal to what will be edge of circles) so that the router swing to be perpendicular to the face to get flat surface for the driver’s to mount up against. Should prove to be a bit of an interesting challenge?

My initial design idea with one curved speaker side (pic attached in a previous post) just wasn’t sitting with my left brain. Next was a pure flat rectangle front baffle- but then (once again) getting my inspiration from a recent Ugly Woofer post whom ‘doesn’t do just std boxes’ … guessing he can’t ‘just drive 55’ either- ha