Over the school year while I was down in Boston (without the car) I caught the fiberglassing bug. I decided I'd try to replace my crappy Wal-Mart box with something that wouldn't take up so much space. The resulting product turned out far better than I could have hoped for in my first foray into fiberglassing. I figured I'd share with you guys.

The Wal-Mart box: .75 cu ft, 3/8 fiberboard...pretty crappy.


The location of my new box:


The box after making the mold, stretching the front and adding some resin:


A test fit:


The semi-completed project:




I plan on running those wires behind the plastic, as well as painting the box to match the rest of the plastic. The box ended up being 1.5 cu ft and is ported. It sounds fantastic. Let me know what you guys think

man thats great, nice work on it, looks clean ... wanna drop me soem pointers on it? i know there is how-to's all over the site, but i like it from the source ya know ... you've done it and done it good, any pointers for us? thanks man

What kinda pointers r u looking for? What r you're plans w/ fiberglass?

Some basic ones:
Start slow on the resin...I wasted probably 8oz in my first three batches. ( once I got a rythm i was mixing around 5oz)
Cut your fiberglass ahead of time and plan where you need certain pieces so you don't waste time once you've mixed.
Plan on spending a lot of time on it. I figure I've got at least 30 hours into it at this point, thought some of that is just waiting for it to dry a little.

Let me know what you've got planned and I'll help you out however I can!

Jason

that looks great!!

i have to ask though...what kind of port noise are you getting? thats and awefully small port surface area.

edit: wait...do you have any port length at all? it looks like you might just have a hole in the bottom of the enclosure. please tell me im wrong.

So what did you use to make a mold? Thats exactly where I wanted to put my sub. :-)

I just taped off the area with blue painters tape and laid the fiberglass over it. It wasn't as difficult as I thought...just plan on using a lot of fiberglass cloth as opposed to mat.

Huh, looks familiar, lol


Good job man.

thats a nice setup...i hadnt seen pictures of it before. i'm going to put my amp right where yours are too

I'm not getting any port noise. I designed the box with WinISD. The port size is 1.5x3 with around a 4" length. WinISD said port mach would only be .11 or .12, well under any whistling speeds.

Whats WinISD? Where can I get it? This Fiber cloth you speak of, where can one find it and what does it cost?

just search for winisd...its a free program...fiberglass cloth is sold anywhere that the resin is...it looks like white carbon fiber

i have a shitload of experience with fglass, and i stay far away from fglass cloth unless you like rolling it alot, i use straight chopmatt. its easier if you start with a heavier ounce matt as your base and then do 2-3 smalller layers of it with each addition coat of glass. then all you do is sand down with a DA sander with some 80, then 200 to remove the scratches, one coat of thick primer, wetsand and your done. no offence or anything, but if you have 30 hours in that small box, your working too slow, lol :)
looks good though bro. get some pics up when its painted!

Originally posted by eclipse982nrRST
i have a shitload of experience with fglass, and i stay far away from fglass cloth unless you like rolling it alot, i use straight chopmatt. its easier if you start with a heavier ounce matt as your base and then do 2-3 smalller layers of it with each addition coat of glass. then all you do is sand down with a DA sander with some 80, then 200 to remove the scratches, one coat of thick primer, wetsand and your done. no offence or anything, but if you have 30 hours in that small box, your working too slow, lol :) looks good though bro. get some pics up when its painted!

Thats even alot of work. Why not just drape it with fleece and resin it. After the resin is cured(I hit it again with resin, but you dont have too), get some resin expander, mix it with resin until its thick like cake icing and got nuts with it inside the enclosure. After thats cured, coat it with filler primer, sand/wetsand and its ready to spray.

This way you save alot on supplies, ecspecially chopped mat.

Not saying ^^^^^ is a bad idea, I just think its faster and a cleaner job.

=.02 cents

cloth is much stronger, and requires less layers to provide the same support...that is...assuming you dont get any air bubbles, which can be common for cloth.

Originally posted by DJ420a

Originally posted by eclipse982nrRST Thats even alot of work. Why not just drape it with fleece and resin it. After the resin is cured(I hit it again with resin, but you dont have too), get some resin expander, mix it with resin until its thick like cake icing and got nuts with it inside the enclosure.

cuz with fleece, usually the product gets too thick and it doesnt fit in as good as if you use matting. i only use fleece for a base on my sub boxes i make = .02 too :)

I'd hate to post about something that's been mentioned before, but I can't seem to find anything on it with search, but since you guys are already on the topic, here it goes:

Where can you get resin? Home depot/hardware stores? How do you mix it? How do you form the enclosure?

A link with these answers would be fine.

p.s. Looking good, Silv Blt. If my project turns out half as good I would be happy.

Originally posted by ericx
I'd hate to post about something that's been mentioned before, but I can't seem to find anything on it with search, but since you guys are already on the topic, here it goes: Where can you get resin? Home depot/hardware stores? How do you mix it? How do you form the enclosure? A link with these answers would be fine. p.s. Looking good, Silv Blt. If my project turns out half as good I would be happy.

I get all my supplies from here(link below), they ship fast and are really cheap. They sell just about everything you need. As for mixing it, it will come with the needed directions and from that site, it comes with measuring cup for hardner if you need it to be percise. Rule of thumb, 1oz resin 7-10 drops hardner and that is for about a 15-20 minute batch with low humidity and shop temps between 58-75. More hardner the faster it will set. A plastic cup/bowl works great for mixing in, a key though when you first start working with it, go a little light on hardner as it will give you extra time to play around. As you get better you can mix a 3 minute batch, speeds up the whole process quite nicely :thumbsup
Enclosures, looking good btw

http://www.shopmaninc.com/index.html

www.fiberglast.com