4thgen91EFhatch

hey guys whats up...this is my first time posting in this section of the site...anyways, i recently built a box for my friend and it turned out absolutely awesome...the other night i read a write up on making a fiberglass box...i have worked with fiberglass before and know what i'm doin...anyways, i'm gonna do a fiberglass enclosure in the back of my hatch...here's my questions

1. Can i port a fiberglass enclosure, will it work well, should i just make the port out of MDF and then somehow make it stay in the fiberglass?

2. Which way should i point the subs...you can see the back of my car in the sig

i'm gonna do all fiberglass panels in the rear so they're however i want em to be...i'll post another pic of the back of my hatch though...

...that carpet is just some that i pulled from the spare tire well in another one of our cars

i'm really only doin this in hopes i can make a little money doin custom fiberglass enclosures for folks...thanks everyone

rcurley55

So long as you get the box size right, you will be fine. I'm assuming you want a 'glass baffle. If so, just grab a router, but a doughnut (from MDF) with an ID that is equal to the OD of the port tube you will use. Then use some MDF to frame it up, and when you stretch your fleece, you will have a spot to mount the port.

Generally, hatches do well with the subs firing up against the rear glass.

Making money on 'glass parts out of your house/on the side is going to be difficult at best. Unless you are fast and good, it will be tough to charge top dollar. It also depends if you can spray paint or not....I consider it a break even proposition at best.

4thgen91EFhatch

a glass baffle? whats that?...i'm probly gonna be usin kicker subs and usin the square/rectangle ports...i guess i was a little unclear about that...i'll just make the same size ports i did when making my kicker boxes...will it sound as good as MDF as long as i get it air tight, get the right size, and the right port size?...thanks

rcurley55

A fiberglass baffle....I thought that you wanted to make the baffle out of fiberglass, not MDF. If you want to make it out of MDF, then just attach the port to the baffle and you are good to go.

There is no mystery to fiberglass. Just make sure it's plenty strong, and air tight and you are good to go....alll they are is sealed boxes with fancy shapes....that's about it.

4thgen91EFhatch

okay...what exactly is a baffle?...is it the same as the enclosure?... i dont want a sealed box...i want a ported box...(when i say box i mean enclosure)...the subs are going to sit in mdf surrounded by the fiberglass and the port i'm thinking will be mdf...also, the port size kicker recommends is going to be 582 in. cu., with a 4 in pipe it would have to be 48 inches long, so i'll probly be going with the mdf rectangle...but could i use four, one foot long 4 in pipes instead?...thanks

rcurley55

The baffle is the part of the box that the driver mounts to.

I think you should do some research on porting boxes so that you learn what drives the tuning. There's a few great articles over at www.jlaudio.com under the tutorials section that should get you started. I highly recommend you read those....that's how I learned to build ported boxes.

It will show you why in fact you can't just cut that port into four pieces and divide. Tuning frequency is driven not only by the size of the box, but also the length of the port(s) and the cross-sectional area of the port(s) - notice I didn't say volume of the ports!!!

Technodigifreak

don't know enough about fiberglass installs to be much of a help

4thgen91EFhatch

yeah dude...i have built ported boxes...not tryin to be defensive or whatever...that's right, crossectional area, i was pretty sure it wasnt just volume...thanks...the baffle is going to be made of mdf...here's a little print shop pic of what i'm thinkin for the baffle...all 3/4" MDF