Home Theater - 12

June 25^th.   I need to counter bore the face of the wide surround speakers to accept the speakers cleanly, and reduce the depth of the grill.  You can see my method to accomplish this below.

 

I created a router template that would allow me to cut 75% of the material.  I’d then rotate the template along it’s axis and finish the other 25%.  It worked surprisingly well, just as planned.

 

Template.

 

June 26^th. The speakers need speaker grills and the speaker internals blacked out.  So I cut out the speaker grill supports from cheap ‘luan’ board and painted them using flat black spray paint.   I also spray painted the speaker mounting provisions black to ensure that no raw wood would show.     

Covering the speaker grills with black grill cloth.  I used two layers of black speaker grill cloth to ensure an even look with no chance of visible speakers or structure.

Installing the speaker ball studs.  You simply drill a hole and press them in.  I pre-drilled the frames to the speaker cabinets before covering to ensure the ball studs would match perfectly with the speaker grill cups.

 

Badda-Bing… two wide channel speakers.  The wood veneer is FSC Ebony Composite (Log #607Y12 from Custom Plywood, Inc). The finish is several layers of satin polyurethane sanded and buffed between coats.  I didn’t want these to be noticed, so I felt the high gloss would give it too much sparkle and dazzle and may become a focal point in each corner.

The speaker grill is assembled just like the rest of the grill covers on the mantel, but in black acoustic speaker fabric, and is removable using standard small speaker grill cup and ball studs.