interesting laminate for singular cabinets

well, I finally had to give up on getting some birch ply for my singulars. It is impossible to obtain here. I am stuck with MDF, this is quite upsetting, I didn't think it would be so hard to get some decent wood.
I was looking for some nice dark timber veneer to hide this oversized cardboard that I am forced to use. I stumbled over this stuff, it is a high density laminate backing with some carefully oxidised copper foil behind some protective plastic.

the larger piece is 150mm square and less than 1mm thick.

This is a really interesting material, I dont know if I am brave enough to use it on my singulars yet. It's probably as common as mud in europe but I've never seen anything quite like this. It's almost subtle enough to get away with. The colours on the smaller piece change slightly with the angle of the light, it looks quite subdued until some direct light hits it.

If they arent going to sound right I may as well try to make them look nice, this theory seems to work for speaker cable manufacturers... :grin:

would a material like this help inhibit the resonance from the MDF or make or make it worse?

[image]

Tags:
0

locked

8747 views

Oh Mike...it seems I have to jump on any topic for the time being...:embarressed:

I don't know if it would work better than painted MDF....but steal a couple of samples, glue and make a "knocking" test. If you like what you hear..then :yes:

Another possibility is to find solid wood. Much better than MDF. You don't have that around?

Where are you living? Sahara or the North Pole? :grin:

Tags:
0

locked

8340 views

Well, I see green grass in the picture so he doesn't live in either of those places... :wink:

Tags:
0

locked

8283 views

Well, I see green grass in the picture so he doesn't live in either of
those places... :wink:

But if there is grass in Mike's surrounding, there must be wood as well? :no:

I had luck building good sounding cab's out of laminated wood. I mean wood sticks 2 x 2 cm's square cross section glued together, forming a board.

What about Birch-wood from the local bulding marked?

Tags:
0

locked

8277 views

Another possibility is to find solid wood. Much better than MDF. You don't
have that around?

Where are you living? Sahara or the North Pole?

Solid timber will fall apart, humidity varies between 10% in winter to 90% in summer. It is so hot we keep the air conditioner switched on for 9 months at a time.
Trees? Ha ha ha. we get 30 cm of rain in a good year. they don't even bother putting gutters on the houses. Wood is too expensive to build houses with, we use steel instead. Any timber has to be trucked up from Perth, adding to the cost. There is no 18mm Birch ply in Perth at all.

Sahara would not be so bad, to help you understand the difficulty in building a pair of singulars here:
I live in a town 1600 kilometres north of Perth in Western Australia. We are lucky to have 3 hardware shops. The nearest town that is larger is several hours drive away. Unless you are from Siberia you may have trouble getting your head around the distances out here.
If you are interested below is the nearest degree confluence point to here (even degrees lat and long). The terrain is similar here but we have more rocks.
http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=-21&lon=117

Tags:
0

locked

8207 views

Hi Mike

Wauw...I got you point. Thanks for sharing your geographical surroundings. :heat: :grin:

I see the problem you have, and my questions were merely emerging out of, how can someone live in place with less options to choose among than here...but I see it is possible now. :yes:

Good luck with keeping the Singulars together in one piece under the stressing climatic conditions excisting there. :good:

Tags:
0

locked

8341 views

Good luck with keeping the Singulars together in one piece under the
stressing climatic conditions excisting there.

I have chosen a moisture activated polyeurethane adhesive. It expands and foams slightly while curing which seems like a good idea for cabinets without leaks. It must be firmly clamped for the curing time so it will take a long time to assemble the cabinets. Methyl Ethyl Ketone is a very nasty solvent so I have to do this outside. website for the adhesive:
http://www.selleys.com.au/Selleys-Aquadhere-Durabond/default.aspx

Has anyone had any problems with this type of adhesive?

That copper laminate is only 105 euro per sheet, this is half the price I expected so I will order the ragged one on the right, I tried a test on a spare piece of 12mm MDF with contact cement, it was noticably deader on a knock test than a plain piece of MDF. (this is a good time to warn people to use a dust mask when cutting MDF, it contains a formaldehyde adhesive which is particularly nasty and a couple of small cuts were enough to cause coughing and irritation to my lungs and nose tonight.)

I don't have any web space to do a step by step construction but I can take some pictures if you like Bert. The boxenbau woebking site covers construction very thoroughly, if there is any particular stage you would like more photographs of please let me know. I will be happy to assist. I would very much prefer to document the construction of a pair of Orpheans instead, maybe in a year or two. :grin:

Tags:
0

locked

8347 views

http://www.selleys.com.au/Selleys-Aquadhere-Durabond/default.aspx

Has anyone had any problems with this type of adhesive?

Maybe depends on whether you are allergic to one of these :

isocyanic acid
polymethylene
polyphenylene
ester - 9016-87-9

:grin:
Peter

Tags:
0

locked

8318 views

I started assembly this afternoon.
use this stuff sparingly, it foams up and dribbles a lot.
I ran beads of glue about 3mm wide and it is fizzing out the joints.
It sets very hard but is easy to sand and file the surplus off.

Tags:
0

locked

8261 views

I have some hard work ahead of me to clean this up! fortunately the 60mm port in the new design allows me to s****e it out with a vacuum cleaner.
this polueurethane glue expands a lot. I'm pretty confident I wont have any leaks.. :grin:
[image]

Tags:
0

locked

8240 views

I have some hard work ahead of me to clean this up!

You seem to have used a bit too much of that glue... :shame:

Should not be a problem though, no need to have everything smooth in the corners of the column.

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

Tags:
0

locked

8222 views

I have some hard work ahead of me to clean this up!

You seem to have used a bit too much of that glue... :shame:

Should not be a problem though, no need to have everything smooth in the
corners of the column.

Bert

I squeezed that line of glue out of the bottle as thick as a matchstick, when I screwed the side on the cabinet glue wasn't even visible at the edges of the joint. Let this be a warning to you all when using this stuff.
Fortunately it is a foam and relatively easy to s****e off. (s c r a p e)

Tags:
0

locked

8094 views

Hi Mike,

... as it is changing the frequencies of the material.

This way you did manage to have laminated material in the end!

Looks cool, I think, hard to tell from a picture..

Ciao,

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

Tags:
0

locked

8266 views

I think it is this stuff. The MSDS doesn't tell much though. http://www.fusionsurfaces.com/mod_products/product_information.asp
Peter

Tags:
0

locked

8275 views

yep, that's the one. Great detective work Peter!
if interested look at laminex.com.au
the "iNovations" range.
I think similar products are made in europe under the name Formica.

Tags:
0

locked

8158 views

Price in the catalog: $177.
In very, very fine print: per square metre, sold in full sheets only.
Means: $1100 for 2 sheets of laminate.
end result: Not happening.

So my singulars are assembled in Hideous raw MDF being run in connected to the television.

Tags:
0

locked

8152 views

RSS Feed of thread

interesting laminate for singular cabinets (Singular)