Real wood for sonosub

[macebanyon]

Can anyone comment on the drawbacks on using a Maple 10ply drum shell as an enclosure for a sonotube type sub. The drum shell has a wall thickness of .270"

I realize that real wood will potentially "color the sound", but thought I could get around this by using something like Cascades VB-1S PRO damping spray on the internal walls.
The whole reason behind doing this would be looks only, but at the same time I didn't want to hurt the SQ.

Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

[MCH]

I think you should give this a try. I don't think you have to worry about colouring the sound as you are only producing low frequency waves. I think stability is more important. A maple tube has to much better than the cardboard based sonotubes that are so popular for sub builds.
I say give it a go!

[macebanyon]

Thanks alot.

[pelly3s]

that should work fine. like MCH said its gonna be stiffer than cardboard

[jbandpc]

I would think you could even go with a cheaper, thinner shell. The 5 ply (3.3 mm) is a good bit cheaper (at http://www.precisiondrum.com/ - one of the main distributers of keller shells [ http://www.kellerproducts.com/ ]).

For anyone else interested, from the same company, you can also get mahogony, although slightly more expensive. You can also get re-enforcement rings at the top and bottom to give you more strength where the endcaps would attach. (I dream of drum building as much as speaker building)

Philip

[kevyjo]

Could you laminate the inside of the endcaps with MDF? I don't know what type of sub you are building, but my sonotube sub is essentially a clone of the the old HSU 24" type which I went with a double layer endcap on top and a triple layer (3/4" MDF) on the bottom. It was overkill as far as strength goes im sure, but if the sub is going to be pretty powerful, it's got to be heavy enough not to bounce around, which I've read some complain about the HSU sub.