Inspired by the walnut inlaid amplifier that Kyle made for Beth for last year’s Christmas name exchange, I decided to make a simplified design, taking advantage of the lessons learned from Kyle’s build. I also took advantage of a piece of 2″ thick white ash left over from Kyle’s Platform Bed build.
One of the lessons was the difficulty of holding all the pieces in perfect alignment for the final glue-up, so I incorporated 1/8″ dowels at the glue joint interfaces, using holes drilled before the side pieces were cut away on the bandsaw. The dowels just had to be strategically placed so they ended up in the sections left after the internal sound chamber was sawed away. Plus … who knew you can buy 1/8″ dowels at the local Ace Hardware?? Instead of filling in the dowel holes on the outside of the amplifier, I decided to leave them as a “feature.”
With a few coats of MinWax Water Based Oil Modified Polyurethane and a little branding iron work, these amplifiers came out looking good and they really pump up the volume when a smartphone is inserted!
Cross-cutting blanks from a 2″ thick white ash board
Blanks ready to square up
Drilling strategically placed 1/8″ dowel holes before the sides of the blanks are removed
Removing the sides in preparation for bandsawing the internal features
Removed sides showing how the pre-drilled dowel holes span across the future glue joint
Preparing the paper templates for application to the center portion of the blanks
Bits of painter’s tape to prevent the spray adhesive from fouling the dowel holes
3M Super 77 spray adhesive works great for adhering full scale paper templates
A 1’4″ 6 TPI hook tooth bandsaw blade will help with sawing around tight radii
The left and top right pieces with dowel hole positions indicated will be glued back between the removed sides
All the pieces, including waste, were carefully kept in order so the grain patterns matched on glue-up
The oscillating drum sander drum was just tall enough to sand the bandsawn pieces in one pass
A little acetone helped remove the paper templates and any remaining spray adhesive
After some trial and error, a quick little jig to cut short pieces of the 1/8″ dowel with a razor knife worked the best
Sanding a tiny radius on the ends of the 1/8″ dowels made inserting them much easier
A bit of dry fitting with the dowels showed that the glue joints were going to line up nicely
More dry fitting
Final dry fit of all the pieces. The bottom wasn’t doweled, as it didn’t have to line up perfectly
Transferring the internal profiles to the side pieces to facilitate finishing the internal cavity before final glue-up
A small artist’s brush made coloring between the lines pretty easy
Internal cavity surfaces finished and ready for final glue-up
Titebond III PVA carefully applied to avoid too much squeeze out to clean up
Y’all know what Norm says …
After cooking the clamps overnight, these squares will be ready to make the rounds
Laying out the final circle shape on the bottom surface, so the center mark won’t be too obvious
The circles were cut out freehand, staying just outside the layout line
After sanding the outside surfaces on the oscillating belt sander, an 1/8″ radius was added to the top and bottom on the router table
The Marietta Wood Works brands on the bottoms helped to hide the center point dimple from laying out the circles
More water-based poly on the outside surfaces brought out the attractive white ash grain
Four finished Smartphone Amplifiers
The glue joints practically disappeared on the final products!
