These are the enclosures for an Audax home theater system. The veneer has been applied and the first coat of stain is drying. The veneer is red oak and the stain is Minwax Red Mahongany #225.

This is one of the surround speakers after the veneer had been applied. The careful edges were done using a laminate trimmer bit on my router. The speaker is sitting on my recently purchased table saw. Both of these tools are essential to building speakers from scratch. Without them, you need someone else to make your cuts (which is a pain if you screw up a piece and need to cut a new one).

One of the surrounds in testing. It's important to check the crossover and completely assemble the speakers and listen to them before final assembly. Make sure they sound good, the crossovers work, and the speakers fit properly. Once the veneer goes on, it's too late to change much. Some people mount the crossovers externally to allow them to tweak things later. That's great for audiophile speakers, but for home theater speaker you need to keep them compact to achieve SAF certification (SAF=Spousal Approval Factor!)

This is one of the surround crossovers after the parts have been glued to the pegboard. I use carpenter's Goop, sold at Lowe's, to put the components on the boards. Let it dry overnight. Notice the cascaded capacitors in the upper left corner. These surrounds sounded fantastic all by themselves when I tested them. A pair of these would make a very good set of booksheld speakers, although I would probably want to go with something with better bass extension. The F3 for the surrounds is a little under 90 hz (sealed).

After the speakers were all tested to make sure everything fit and the crossovers were performing properly, the electronics are removed and the veneer goes on. This enclosure has the first coat of stain. Also, notice that the veneer is bent around the rounded baffle with the grain. Veneers bend easily around corners if you make sure the bend is parallel to the grain. The veneer will not bend around a corner perpendicular to the grain (it will, but you'll never get it smooth).

Here are the speakers with the crossovers mounted inside. Now's the last, good chance to check all the speaker leads for length. Make sure everything is long enough (also, you should solder the spade connectors on now to avoid the possibility of damaging the finish once the veneer goes on.

This is one of the L/R front speaker woofer crossovers. I didn't cascade the caps for this one but I used all Solen caps. Cascading would have been a waste, I think, since this crossover is a relatively simple 2nd order with a parallel notch filter. Notice the alignment of the inductors and the size of the 12awg aircore.

An internal view of the crossovers inside the surround speakers. I check them for proper positioning, then remove them to seal the interior with silicon (use a caulking gun... it's easy, fast, and a good way to get the caulk at a decent price.)

Here's one of a finished surround.