USE YOUR HANDS: January/February 2001

I will now turn things over to Manny “Maddog” Machado who came up with this idea and put it into motion...

Hi guys. As Fish explained, I wanted to do something extra hot for the subwoofer enclosure used in the passenger compartment, so I thought I would integrate the enclosure into the center console and dashboard we went over last time. The dashboard, center console, and subwoofer enclosure will look like they are one large piece, but they will actually be five different units. The gaps and seams will be filled in using plexiglass backlit with neon. I knew I wanted the subwoofer enclosure to follow the contour of the center console and the rear seats. We decided to keep the seats that were delivered with the Pyle Beast. They are high-quality bucket seats with the Pyle logo embossed on the headrests. I thought of using four 10-inch woofers, but I decided on a trio of Pyle Wave Series 10-inch woofers, since they would perform better in the amount of room I had to work with.

So, to get the shape I wanted, I took a rectangular piece of MDF and traced the outline of the seats. Then I cut out this shape using a jigsaw. I then made a template on the router so I could make an exact duplicate. Now that I had the sides of the subwoofer enclosure created, I concentrated on making mounting rings for the woofers so they could be inserted into a “curvy” box. I made three rings out of 3/4-inch MDF. I used 3/4-inch MDF because I wanted to leave a little lip around the woofer for a grille. We have not decided what we will be protecting the woofers with just yet.

I positioned the three rings approximately where I thought they should go in the subwoofer enclosure. I wanted one of the woofers to fire up from the floor, one to fire at the passengers, and one to angle down from the roof. I used glue and a nail gun to hold the rings in place. Once everything was lined up, I stretched fleece around the entire enclosure except the rear. Then I started to apply fiberglass. Once I had the outside of the enclosure covered in just enough fiberglass to make things strong enough, I turned my attention to the inside of the subwoofer enclosure. Since I left the rear of the enclosure off, I was able to apply more fiberglass to the inside of the enclosure to really stiffen it up. This makes your life much easier — you get the strength you need for a pounding subwoofer enclosure but you do not have to sand the exterior forever because you glopped on so much fiberglass on the outside looking for strength. Once the exterior was sanded, I used bondo to make things perfectly smooth. Then the enclosure was ready for paint.

I used 3/8-inch bending wood for the back of the enclosure. I know what you are saying: “If you used MDF and fiberglass to make the three sides of the enclosure, what good is having the back be 3/8-inch bending wood?” Well, if you remember, I have three big 10-inch holes in the front of this enclosure. I just used some fleece, fiberglass, and dexterity to coat the rear of the subwoofer enclosure in fiberglass.

I wanted to keep things going on the top part of the enclosure, and I thought it would be great if the enclosure split apart and then became pods for speakers for the rear passengers. I decided to use a Pyle 4-inch woofer and 1-inch tweeter to fill the pods. I used the opening for the dome light to weld hardware so the pods would be secure. I made arms for the pods using 1/2-inch steel tubing. Next, I fiberglassed the arms. You can adhere fiberglass to steel by lightly scuffing the surface and then making sure it is very clean. Finally, I make the pods just like I would make pods for kick panels. Since I already have hardware welded up to the dome light area, which is a good mounting facility, I will probably build a unit for a rear passenger monitor in this location.