-dr EL; what binders are those ???

Here's view from inside...plus outside with a few of the driver cutouts made (lots of sawdust made this weekend! getting close to done...will be a long time before I do another "project"! :dd ), plus pic of a finished stand (other one still needs to be finished). I chose a red stain for the mahogany to contrast with the silver finish of the speakers.

Question: this new way of making a MDF spherical shell is a lot easier than the old way I used that involves cutting out "layers" and glueing the layers together. But should I plane off the "ridges" and make a smooth spherical shell or leave these "ridges" and thus the "disco ball" look? Probably will "smooth it out" just so it matches the first one, but just curious what others think might look best. Accoustically, I doubt if any differences.

Herr Rabbit,
From 1/23/09 post:

"I'll post some pics soon of the one I have completed on it's new "stand". I was going to hang them from the ceiling but elected to go with stands for several reasons (portability, wife "issues" about big silver globes hanging from LR ceiling, etc), but also so I can easily experiment with their orientation (driver orientation wise with respect to the room walls, etc)."

read: "wife issues".....plus some other rationalizations as to why I didn't REALLY want to do it anyway :-s

add: also, I'd either need ~36' speaker wire (instead of 18') if I hung them from ceiling or would have to put the power amp in the attic (neither of these options is practical; hence the stands).

I'd be very interested in hearing them; but all I can imagine is what a freaking nightmare you're going to have with reflections all over the damn place....

:-"

The "cutting/fitting" is a lot easier than it looks. Basically four different pieces: 5.5" x 5.5" with 11.25 deg. bevel on all 4 sides (very easier to "mass produce" with radial arm or table saw); this same basic piece with tapered edges at a different bevel angle on these tapered sides (16 pieces); eight "pointy" pieces at the two "top" and "bottom" vertices; and 16 tapered pieces that are 4" x 6.25" and tapered to a point. ~80 pieces start out as the simple 5.5" x 5.5" square piece. I made a "mirror image" dowel template so that these square piece joints are strengthened with HW dowels (on the "circumferencial" joints). The tapered pieces next to the four "middle" location woofer cutouts are joined to the adjacent pieces (on two adjacent sides) using HW biscuts. These help hold everything together as the woofer cutouts remove a lot of material at these locations. I could have used biscuts to join the eight "pointy" pieces at the upper and lower woofer cutouts, but this proved to be a little too difficult alignment wise; hence the metal corner pieces used to help tie these pieces together (in addition to glue on the joints as well of course) shown in the inside view pic...