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Is gluing a must for building a speaker box?

M

Mohammad Ali

New Member
Hi all,

I'm thinking of making a speaker box with two 4" full-range drivers and one ~6" passive radiator. I've come across many speaker/subwoofer box builds online for inspiration and literally every single one of them shows the box panels being glued together and/or screwed together as the glue is drying. I have plenty of gasket tape, and I've seen many builds where gasket tape is used to provide an air-tight seal for the back panel, while all the other panels are glued. So my question is, is there an issue with just using gasket tape for the whole box to keep all the joints air tight, or do I have to use wood glue for this purpose?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks
 
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YES!!!

The box as a whole just won't be sturdy enough if you don't at least glue the sides and top and bottom.Screws and nails alone just won't cut it... For the front baffle on some they use a foam seal between parts with screws so they can be removed.. Same with backs.. Although I've seen them without, and those I've always added a foam seal.
 
If its a ported or vented box you might get away with it. But if the box is of acoustic suspension design, then no.
 
twiiii said:
If its a ported or vented box you might get away with it. But if the box is of acoustic suspension design, then no.
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no. they all need glued airtight. well. not including the port if thats the case;)
 
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nj pheonix said:
A lot easier to get Bass with a box.
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True... and my friend who has a pair of Pure Audio Project speakers has the model with the dual 15" woofer, which at least to my ears have plenty of bass (even if they still don't go down to 20 htz). I'd love to have even a smaller, less bass heavy open baffle speaker, but I figure that if I was unhappy with the level of bass, I would just use a subwoofer, which is what I do now anyway. The design that the OP is speaking of with those two little full range drivers even with the passive radiator probably isn't going to have a ton of bass either. I'm not that much of a bass head though and I figure that if a speaker can do reasonably tight, fairly low down bass on it's own that I would probably be OK even without a sub.
 
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the ability to take it apart again? Or the ability to endlessly chase rattles.

the glue adds a huge amount of strength though. A properly glued wood joint is stronger than the wood is. If you really want to be able to take it apart later, you can do hide glue. That will let go with hot water or steam. Still can be a bit of work but modern types of glue are pretty much there forever.
 
As above YES.
As far as having a rear panel screwed and gasket taped that would be fine while getting your crossovers figured out or for easy access later to service. Plenty of older speakers were built that way.
Peace
 
Not only do I use glue for assembly but I run generous portions down the inside seams to block any air gaps ( ported or not ). Both sides of joints need glue. DIY guys always say "you can't have too many clamps" and it's true. I use original Titebond and not the quick set up glue as you will need to make adjustments and it gives you the time to do so.

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Hi all,

Apologies for the late response, I didn't know so many replies came in.

Thank you all very much for the insight. I really appreciate it. It seems quite clearly that it's best to use glue, so I'll take care of that soon.

Many thanks once again
 
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