How To Make A Fiberglass Subwoofer Box
How To Make A Fiberglass Subwoofer Box
How To Make A Fiberglass Subwoofer Box
Fiberglass subwoofer enclosures present some real advantages for a custom car audio setup.
First, they can be shaped to fit a specific vehicle or space within a vehicle, taking advantage of
space that couldn't be used with a normal rectangular subwoofer enclosure. Second, if properly
executed, they can present a real custom look that will make your car audio system truly "one of
a kind."
This tutorial shows you how to work with fiberglass to make a sub box located in your trunk
behind your wheel wells. Although this tutorial is made to go into your wheel well areas, you
could use this tutorial for anything, kick panels, racks, and other speaker boxes. If you have some
knowledge of working with glass, then this should be a walk in the park.
What you'll need:
-1 Gallon Polyester Fiberglass Resin
-Fiberglass Matte
-Additional Resin Hardener
-MDF (For supports, and speaker rings)
-Dremel / Rotozip / Cutter
-A GOOD Respirator
-Disposable Paintbrushes Brushes
-Masking Tape
-Tin Foil
-Glue Gun, or Adhesive Spray
-Fleece Fabric
-Wooden Dowels
-Carpeting Material
-Packing Peanuts
-Wiring Materials
-Light Sandpaper
Additional Information
This project will not be easy, it will require about 30 hours of work, drying, and adjustment time.
Expect at least 8 hours of working on the first day to get your car in order, and get a good pull of
your trunk space. In the end you should have a show winning sound set up that will look as good
as it will sound.
You are now going to need to remove as much as you can from the trunk, everything you may
have in there that will get in the way should be removed, even the trunk lid if it gets in your way.
The carpet should remain, and you will need to get it as smooth and as perfect to the contours of
your car as possible. Use a Vacuum to suck up any debris and dirt that will be in your trunk, you
don't want to be dirtying up your box.
Using a good quality masking tape, the blue painters tape works best, start creating a layer of
tape in the area that you will be glassing. I recommend that you do 2 layers, and crisscross them
to ensure you don't get resin seeping through. Resin will not come off of metal, clothes, carpet,
or your dog, so be careful. Extend the tape layer a few (3-4) inches past where your box will go,
and also glass out a few inches past that (but within the tapes area).
I have seen some tutorials do this, and some not, it is really up to you. it is an added layer of
protection from the resin seeping though to your carpet, and I highly suggest it. Use squares of
the foil, taping and overlapping them as you go. You should now be ready to start the glassing.
Protecting the interior is very important as this stuff will not come off. I suggest placing
newspaper, or drop plastic all around your work area. Also, if you like you can also put a sheet of
plastic between your trunk and cabin to prevent fumes from getting in and stinking up the car for
a few days.
This is where all the fun and time goes into this project, it will take forever, but you need to take
your time. (NOTE: It is very important you wear a face mask, and a good quality expensive one,
not the disposable kind, the resin, and fiberglass fumes will get in your lungs and cause problems
for you breathing. Get a good quality one from Home Depot, and work in a well ventilated area.)
Prepare your resin by mixing the recommended amount of hardener and resin as listed on the
package. You will not want to work with large amount, or change the amount of hardener (you
can vary it depending on temperature). I recommend that you use no more than 2 - 4oz at a time.
I suggest mixing a batch in plastic cups and working in small areas. You should get about 30
minutes of work time, and good area coverage with the right amount of hardener, and resin.
Once you have prepared your resin, you will need to prepare the fiberglass. This isn't that hard,
just rip up the matte into manageable strips, about 1" x 4" long. (Wear your mask!, and some
disposable gloves at all times!)
Now you can finally begin. The procedure I used is quite like paper mache if you have ever done
that. Take your cheapo brush, and dip it in resin, spreading it over the area your are going to be
working on. Then take one of your glass strips and place it on there. Then use your brush again
to dab resin onto the strip until it turns more transparent. (Look out for bubbles, if you see white
areas bubbling up you have air trapped. Use your brush and try to spread out the air to get rid of
it. Air bubbles could make your box boom itself to pieces if its too weak.) Continue laying
fiberglass in this fashion, crossing over the other pieces until you have a good layer that covers
the taped area. (Remeber to make your shell bigger than you actually want, you will trim it down
later). Wait about 2 hours until it has dried and become touchable. (You can use a hair dryer to
help speed up the process!)
You will want to add a few more layers of fiberglass now using the same technique in the
previous steps. After a few layers it may be strong enough to remove from the vehicle, it is much
easier to do the work outside of the car! You could have problems keeping the contours of the
trunk in your box if it is not strong enough, so make sure it is strong once you remove it.. You
will need to add about 4-5 (more is better) layers total of glass on the inside, so whether you
want to do it inside the trunk or remove the box and do it outside is up to you.
When you do remove your box from the car it is now a good time to also remove all the tape
from the box, and inside of the car. Its ok if some of it sticks to the box, you won't notice it. You
should now be doing all your glassing outside of the car. Just make sure everything is dried
before you place it back in the car
On my vehicle there is an moving part of the trunk that would come in contact with the box
when you close the trunk. It is very important that you note and obstructions and create a
clearance in your box. Now is a good time to do it, before you begin to install your speaker rings.
Create a necessary jig out of MDF to create a pocket in your box. Then use wooden dowels and
hot melt glue to secure the piece in place where it encounters the obstruction. Once it is in place
you can fleece and fiberglass the area around it (step 10), or wait until your speaker rings are also
in place. It is up to you what you do, but I recommend working on the obstruction area first
because it will be easier to lay fiberglass on the inside.
will not go through this process very much. You will need to construct your speaker rings out of
MDF preferably 3/4". Your subs should come with some kind of diagram on the sizes, cut as to
their specifications. If you would like the added look you can make a second ring to countersink
your sub in the box more. Just secure the 2 rings together, and go with that, it will look very
good. If you are using carpet, and counter sinking, it is important to make your ring bigger than
normal so you can put carpet underneath the subwoofer. You may choose to paint your rings
black if they are visible. Additional information about speaker rings can get found elsewhere on
the net.
You should now take into consideration how much volume you will have in the speaker box
itself. If you are just now figuring this out, then you may have problems with having too little
space for the desired sub you are using, which could be very bad. A method that has been proven
to be an easy and cheap way for finding volume is to use packing peanuts. Take your subs
desired volume and fill up your box with that around of packing peanuts, hopefully you took the
volume and wheel well volume size into consideration before you started.
Take your speaker ring, and place that where the packing peanuts stop, you will want to be a
little bit further out than that due to your subs coil taking up space. (Remember, its better to have
your box built with too much room rather than not enough.) Hover your speaker ring in that area,
and remember about where it was. You can now decide if you want to angle it towards anything
as well, the front of the car, and other side of the trunk, or upwards.
This is now a rather tricky part you will need to take your hot melt glue gun, and dowel rods and
some how make your speaker ring float in the area where you want it to be. There are other
methods with using plumbers metal positioning wire to hold it up, but I feel that's just more
work. Make sure the ring is firmly in place, you don't want it to come undone or collapse.
You will need enough Fleece, or some other cotton/polyester material to stretch over the big
opening between the fiberglassed parts and your speaker rings or MDF. Using some hot melt
glue attach the fleece to the top of the fiberglassed area. You will need to then stretch the fabric
over the MDF to the other side of the fiberglassed part, securing with more hot melt. You should
now have a fabric covering everything that is not covered in fiberglass. Make sure you get every
single wrinkle you have out of the fabric, it is very important, make tiny cuts if you have to, but
hopefully it will stretch around everything cleanly.
Using the good mixture and the resin and hardener (as mention in step 4), take your cheapo paint
brushes and start painting the fleece with resin. Cover the whole area, except where your sub will
go, that isn't necessary to do. Saturate the fleece with the resin until it becomes soaked through
pretty well, it will need to dry, but once it does it should be pretty solid.
How you finish the look of your box is up to you, there are several choices you can do. Paint the
outside of the box in the color of your choice, add a layer of vinyl over is all, or carpet it to
match your interior. For this tutorial I will talk about carpeting because that is what I choose to
do. Automotive carpeting should be pretty easy to find, some hardware stores actually sell carpet
that is a good match for your interior, just go to your home center and look. For mine, however, I
wanted the exact carpet that was used in my car, so I went to the local junk yard and pulled the
old carpet interior out of a junked car. Same stuff, you will just need to clean it up a bit.
Attaching the carpet to the box is simple, once you have it cut out to fit and have made sure that
it does fit, you just need to use some 3M adhesive spray to adhere the carpet to the box.
You can now install your sub in the hole, wire it up, and install the box into your car. It should be
a perfect fit, nice and snug. If it isn't, I don't know what to tell you. If its close, you can go ahead
and place some screws into the box and into the frame of the car to secure it. You may also want
to think about purchasing some sound deadener to place in your trunk and behind the box. It will
prevent any rattling of loose objects around your box. Run the wires to your amp, and CRANK
UP THE BEATS!
emma814
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Tags:how tomakefiberglasssubwooferboxcarspeakerstrunkamp
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