Box Building Part 2

This weekend my aim was to get the sides of the box finished - First off I added some expanding foam around the sides and back of the box

As you can see in the above pic - the side panels have a little gap - this nees both filling and tieing to the bottom panel That means getting in a brace to join the existing panels together and then adding a 2nd layer of 18mm MDF top and bottom.  My workshop for the day

And in the back groung - the workbench every good bass head should have

An 18" sub box!

Any way - I started by cutting some panels wide enough to join over the gaps

And with a little trial and error with the circular saw I managed to accidentaly make the right cuts whislt trying to trim this down

Glued (with pu expanding glue to get into all the gaps) and screwed along the join

Here you can see the accidental deep cut i made that worked well in latching the panel to the ledge of the join - a screw up that actually worked out!

And the 2nd panel added to the front

The centre panel isn't perfect but when the top and bottom are in the centre panel will be filled with fibreglass filler to make a single smooth wall, more on that later

The same was done on the other side

again the 2nd panel isnt perfect but nothign that wont be taken care of with the filler

That was yesterday - I was working on my own so couldn't get much else done - but this morning my dad came round and we measured up for a trip to B and Q to get the MDF for the top and bottom of each side cut - only needed simple cuts so let them do it
A template was made to get the contour right for the back of the panel and transferred to the MDF

And cut out

Once cut to size and test fitted it was covered in PVA and screwed to the side - and anyone that tells you they work with PVA glue and don't cover there hand in it and wait for it to set and peel it off is a liar

The wife is loving the new drill so made swift work of getting the screws in - anyone wanting to to do a stupidly big build like this should get yourself one of these - I couldn't have managed mine without it the drill is pretty good as well

She also makes cracking bacon sarnies and delivers Jupiler at just the right moment!

2nd panel went up nice and quickly

Next up was the tough part - cutting the contours over the arches - Craig made this look easy last week so I stole his pen on a stick Idea to trace the contour of the arches to the MDF and started cutting and managed to do not a bad job - please remember im an IT consultant my day and so this DIY lark is a bit of a stretch for me but im learning as I go along! Covered the back of the board in PVA glue and screwed it on

Needed to make a slight adjustment to the front end of the board to cut a notch out to fit around the centre brace but no problems after that

the same was done on the other side - a little bit of a bigger gap this side but again - filler will sort that!

Once both sides where done we proceeded to give ourselves a headache with some filler

The gap to fill - whoops

And with the weather as it was today - the ice cream van was about so we took a break

The FG filler went in a treat and will be sanded back when finished to give the sides a single smooth wall - we ran out of filler so managed to get most of one side done

With the long weekend coming up I'm hoping to get the roof in place and the fibre-glassing started before it goes to Paul Richardson at A1 Audio Designs to have the door builds and boot door amp rack built.

First Weekend of Box building

Well I just got back from A&E (more on that later) so am updating on the weekends work.  Again I was over in Milton Keynes with Craig 'cdfocus' Dillow this weekend making a start on the box build.

First up we had to cut and bolt the floor in.  Yesterday it was chucking it down with rain but we managed to get a lot done - including a visit to B&Q to get wood and a circular saw - Thanks to the 20% sale we got it all for a good price!

The starting point

Cut to size

And arches cut out

And dropped in

The back cut out and fitted

And both parts fitted in

Front section cut to allow the main wiring loom through - the wiring for the power and signal will be run under the car

This is as far as we got on Saturday so started today with the task of bolting the panels to the boot floor but before we did that we needed to work away of bracing the front overhang.  we started by drilling holes in the some 25mm mdf and bolting them down

This will then allow us to brace the overhang to the floor - pics coming up later - back to bolting the floor down.  On the tops of the ridges we laid down alot of PU glue

About this time I was crawling under the car to find a safe location to drill boltholes - on getting out from under the car this happened

A nice 1 inch gash right over my eye - but I bandaged it up and carried on working - hence why I only just got back from A&E

Bolted and tied down nice n tight

Once the floor was bolted in I could brace the front with some nice big fence post!

Once the floor was nice and solid we started on the sides - we were able to screw wood behind all the panels that we could get access to to allow us to screw through the wood panel, through the bodywork and into the wood mounted behind - sandwiching the  bodypanel

We were able to bolt the side panel to the door opening in 4 places - we will then also bolt the 2nd panels using the bolts

SPL FUEL!

The otherside went in a treat

We then started in the top panels.  As you can see from this picture we are coming right upto the front of B Pillar but had to cut around the seat belt

 
And the whole thing done - this is just the first 18mm layer - there will be more along with lots of fibreglass on the outside (where the doors are) as well as over the arches plus lots of expanding foam