Loud & Low 8th Gen Civic UBL #2

[scooter99]

Ok let's get busy! First things first, the compressor. I got the compressor set up a bit, and ready to use for this. I am in fact going to be doing the shop in the up coming weekend, days, etc. I found out I do have to get a dedicated line for the compressor. It's just too much pull on a line with other stuff on it. So, that will happen. I guess I'm going to need a bigger box then I wanted originally.

I did manage to do my first video, in a while, on the comparison of the old vs new compressors. Night and day comparison. Check it out.

I am planning on doing a couple of things. First things first I'm planning to get a decent camera for video as well as pictures. I may continue to take pics with my S3 phone, but I need a dedicated camera to do this stuff, and specifically videos. I am looking at reasonably priced cameras with HD capabilities as well as a mic that will do well with bass. I hear Sony Cybershots do well, but I'm also looking at some Samsungs etc. too. So any suggestions would be very welcomed.

There will be much more video in the upcoming build. I'm not Mr. Meade, or Mark from CAF, but I'll get some build video and some explanation etc in there as well. And there's always pics too.

Speaking of pics, lets get to it.

Not a great deal of update, but I had to take a step backward to get moving forward.

First some new toys and equipment.

Got these little guys from Dre. Wonder what these could be for! I already have a set for the 1100.4. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, guess you'll have to wait and see.

New Air Saw for the new compressor!

Blades

Nice and compact. Feels great!

I absolutely hate this safety peg, whatever you wanna call it. It's a pain in the ass. I wanna be able to grab the saw, push the lever and it work. Not have to worry about pressing down some safety switch! So that's going to have to go.

How it works. in the up position if you press the lever, that stops it from turning on.

So you press the metal thing down, and then you can press the lever. Pain in the ass!!

Onto the amp rack. This just wasn't sitting well with me so I decided I was going to cut it off, and replace it with a wood piece and then glass around it. You can see how bad and uneven it is.

Back side view, it's very rough. Recall I had nothing to really hold it up. So that's why it failed.

Remember that I was going to just use filler and smooth it out and make it look good. After taking this long to get back to work on it, and thinking about it, that just wasn't "my way" of doing things. So true to form I decided to fix it the right way.

[scooter99]

Made some initial marks. But let's get it in the trunk and see where we're at.

You can see the gap behind it. That's space that's much needed and quite frankly it's so tight in there that I can use every eighth of an inch as I can get.

So after looking at it in there I decided the whole back wall needed to go. Cut it out completely then replace it the right way! Time to use the new saw!

Back wall gone!

Just a little view of how thick it was with filler. It's pretty heavy actually. So I'm happy to be doing this now. That's about 3/8" right there at the widest point. That's a lot of space to be loosing, on top of the space behind it that I was loosing. Should give me some good breathing room. I'll get about half of that back.

Now to clean it up. I bought this last year, so now I get to use it on my new compressor. Let's see how it does.

What I'm cleaning up is the top edge of the rack. Don't care much about the end of it yet. I'll address that though later on when I need to.

Nice, a little 80 grit and some love, and she's flat and good to go.

another view, closer up.

Some spots that are a little thin. That'll get taken care of when I replace it. NOW, to the trunk!!

[scooter99]

My tools of choice to make my template. Knife, tape (may not be needed), pencil, and some cardboard. We actually just bought some new furniture for the new remodeled room, so I had some nice thick couch cardboard. Nice and sturdy. Perfect for this.

Traced it out to the end of the amp rack. This will give me the ability to just get the other areas dialed in because the bottom is fine.

Perfect fit

Closer view

So here you can see, it's a much straighter piece. But there's still too much gap behind it. So I'll do some trimming and get it to sink in better. My goal is to have it sit flat against the back.

Trimming some more. Went from a straight piece to cutting out around a couple of grooves on the sides.

Here is why. These spots on the sides, round out bigger then the level of the back.

Other side.

Pretty tight fit on the bottom, and there's another round out there that needs to be cut out, or possibly.

Trimmed a little more for a cleaner edge. Probably being too perfect on it, but that's me.

Cut that bottom part out, it was pushing the piece out a little bit.

Trimmed a little more on the other side.

[scooter99]

And this is the final piece. I apparently forgot to take an over head view.

Time to make it wood! I'm going to get some more 1/4" wood. This is pretty warped and it's in pretty rough shape. I'm going to be making lots of templates, so probably not a bad idea to get some new straighter stuff. I may get some smaller sheets so they're easier to handle.

Got my cardboard all traced onto the wood. Ready to go.

I didn't use the air saw on this, I used my trusty electric jig saw on this one.

After some test fitting it still needed a bit of trimming. The cardboard does flex a little so it makes for a difficult template, or final one anyway.

After a little more test fitting, I decided the edges needed some trimming on the amp rack now. So I marked where that needed to be done. Then shaved it off with the sander and the 80 grit.

This is a much tighter fit. It's actually able to go all the way back flush against the back wall. Much better than the last one, and even better than the template. This gained me almost a full half inch.

View from the back seat. This will be much better. I'm kind of giddy at this point to be honest, while taking the picture anyway. And it only gets worse as the night goes on.

this is just the tape and getting ready to tape things off.

After doing that, and getting the rack back in, and ready to glass, I noticed that there wasn't anything behind the corners to glass to. So I decided to use some more of the orange fleece to fill those in.

Like so! Fills in the corners nicely and will work well for a first coat.

Close up of the driver side

Close up of the passenger side. Now, we're ready to glass!

So like a lot of folks do, I didn't obviously take pics while glassing. No resin on the phone!! So I layed down a nice layer of resin on the seam and the fleece. Soaked it pretty good. Then while I still had some left, I went ahead and laid down a layer of chop. then soaked that all in.

Ripped up some more chop and got it in place.

And got another coat of resin down. So that's 2 layers of chop all the way across and a layer of fleece in the corners.

View of the passenger corner

View of the driver side corner.

Much much better than the original. I'm very very pleased at how this came out.

This is really what made me decide to get new 1/4" material. Even as straight as I thought the ply was, you can see it's a little warped. Even for this small piece. I noticed it before I put it on, but there wasn't much I could do about it, and I didn't have time to go get more.

Also had an issue with the resin. My 3m resin isn't good anymore. Clumpy and stringy. Hard to explain but it's time for new, bottom line.

So that's it for now. I'm going to go an put an order in at US Composites and in the meantime I'll get the filler out and start getting this thing back to ready for finishing. More to come very soon!

Again, if someone has a suggestion on a camera that will do 1080 HD video and has a good mic for bass, as well as being relatively reasonably priced, I'm happy to listen.

Also check out and like the facebook page to get your chance to win a lanyard. The page is linked in my signature.

If you wanna see the pictures and not the chatter, check out the UBL which is also linked in the page.

My goals are to be playing and close to done by September 20, 2013. That's not far away. Not sure if that's gonna happen or not, but we'll see. Things are going to start happening fast folks. Hang on tight, it's gonna be a ride for sure! WOOT!

[scooter99]

Ok guys, so I took your advise and started working on the shop. I got A LOT done this weekend. It was a big weekend for me and got a Ton of shit off my plate. Friday night I worked after work to get some fans put up, an outlet ran for a refrigerator, and some lights removed, and a couple other things for my studio I work out at. In trade for some monthly membership. This has been looming for about a month. CHECK!

Saturday after sleeping in a bit from working till 2:30am the night before, I got up and finished the room 99.8%. I have to caulk and paint, but that's not going to happen for a while. So for now it's good. I also have to rehang my outdoor speakers with new brackets. That's it.

Sunday, I got a bunch of shit cleared out of the garage per the wife's request, although goodwill wouldn't take our couches (cause the dogs chewed them) so those have to go to the dump. But they're now out of the garage. CHECK!!

After that I went to Home Depot and did some materials shopping for the shop.

Materials run CHECK!!!

Picked up some electrical stuff, some framing stuff, some ply, and some template 1/4" mdf! Time to go do work.

So I cleaned out the one side of the shop.

Man I can't wait to get electrical in here. All I have now is that little fan which is laughing at the heat inside this thing. But that's later on down the line I guess.

So I got to work on framing the workbench lower half.

Then I decided to make a little change. I decided the compressor would be better served in the corner there instead of the middle of the back wall.

LIKE A GLOVVVVEEEE!!!

Time to deck it!

It was about this time, I looked out and saw some guy at the gate looking over! Was like what the fuuuuuuuuu? Not many people tall enough to just look over the gate. But he was holding a box. Hmmm who and what could this beeeeeeeeeee

I actually forgot that he was coming I got so wrapped up in my benches. It was Jon, headed down to LA hittin me up on the way. Made a couple changes to the plan. Decided to do away with the CCA, and get some OFC. But also decided that instead of making several runs to the back, I'll only do a pair of 2/0 OFC.

And since I was doing OFC for the runs, why not do OFC for the amps too.

So Jon was nice enough to drop this by on the way through town! Thanks Jon!!

Now back to building!

Finished up the bottom deck.

Time to get the top going. You can see the top ledger rail already up there. Leveled out and ready for service.

[scooter99]

Got the top framed up.

Legs on and 45's on top.

Got the top deck on.

Rounded the corner, since it's by the door, so noone hits it, kids heads, shoulders, arms hips, whatever.

And a nice roundover to smooth out the edge.

So I know that wasn't audio related, so to speak, but it kind of is, cause this is going to help me with the build and being more organized and better equipped to do the build.

I still don't know what I'm going to do with the top. I have to remove the carpet on the other bench, cause the metal shavings from the drill press have completely done it in. Well not completely but I'll never get them out of it.

I'm thinking about resining it with the remaining 3M stuff I have. It should be good for this. Besides my US Composites order comes in on Friday. So that will go to the build. Then I'll probably just paint the benches.

I also got another piece today that I think is going to help boost the clarity of the build. Picturs and videos. Maybe get a few more people in here. But I won't hold my breath.

First off, WHAT THE FUCK UPS!!! THIS ISN'T A DAMN FOOTBALL TO PUNT AROUND! WAY TO TAKE CARE OF SHIT!!

Canon Power Shot SX160IS Digital Camera and a 16gb memory card

Now when i was looking at it on Amazon, I thought I saw it say it had 1080HD, but come to find out it's only 720HD. Well I guess it's better than nothing, but I was a little disappointed in that. However, I was not disappointed when I saw this in the description, " The camera also incorporates an electronic wind filter, which suppresses wind noise that can muffle or distort the sound." So I'm hoping that means that when I do get this thing up and running, I'll have nice clear video playing.

So that's really all the update. Tonight I'm going to go run some wire, and get some things done in the shop. Tomorrow night I'm going to try and take a break from all that and get back to sanding the amp rack. I know it's been sitting since last week, and I don't want to just take time up doing all shop stuff. So I'll do my best to stay on build updates as well.

Look for the Sky High CCA spools I have as well as some other stuff like fuse holders and ring terminals etc, to go in the classifieds.

Also still looking for those 100 likes on the facebook page. So hit that up and share it if you already like it, and get more people in so we can have this and more contests with it.

Let me know if you guys want to see pics of the finished room I was working on. I'm happy to post them up, in the build log only, but only if you guys care about seeing that.

More to come, with better clarity! Thanks for tuning in!

[scooter99]

Wow! So I got a little work done.

Fist I had to check out the new camera! MAN IS THIS NICE!! These are pretty much the same pics I took last night, but these to me seem way clearer.

These two are the most impressive to me.

And this one I was about 20' away from it.

So obviously I have no sounds, so I can't tell what it's like with bass, but I like the pics so I think it's a keeper.

Onto what i did tonight.

Had an issue tonight with my compressor, it's not holding air and I can't figure out why. So that cut my night short. Kids were going to bed and so it was just time to wrap it up. Not a lot to show, but I got a lot done.

Here's a spot where the new piece is going to go.

And here's the piece. A nice large shelf unit. 7' tall, 4' wide, and 19" deep.

Still have a couple more shelves to put in it, and some other bracing etc, but it's good. I like the way it fits in there. Btw, don't look at the bowing shelf and top. I still have bracing going on them. They'll be straightened up .

So that's it. That's what I got done tonight. Tomorrow I'm not sure if ill get anything done or not. My issue now is the compressor. I could use the big one but it puts a big time strain on the electrical. Struggles. So I don't want to ruin anything. We'll see how I can do.

Goodnight. Thanks for tuning in!

[dog24fret]

Nice man. Still hate you lol.

Done yet

[scooter99]

So this weekend I went out and got everything finished up with the shop. Actually Friday I got most of it wrapped up, but finished on Saturday. I'm not going to take time to show you all the pics here, but you're welcome to visit my facebook page and view them here. After all that was done, I was able to finally get this build restarted. Once you take a look at what was done to the shop, you'll begin to understand why I had to do what I did with it.

Understand that this is going to make my life so much easier than what I was doing before. I'm very excited about it, and it's already begun to prove itself to me as to how important it was to get it done.

Enough of that, let's get on to the pics.

Now, what are we going to do with this!!

Hung the hose for the new compressor in here for now. Still have to get some pipe ran for air outlets all around the shop as well as outside. I want to run a reel outside for air tools.

Ok let's get to work with some sanding. First I had to cut the wings of the corners here. They were buggin me!

And gone!

Other side gone

Sanded a little bit

These corners are gonna be a biotch!

Just a little knock down.

Found a 12 x 12 ceramic tile in my garage that I thought would be great for doing filler. I used to use cutting boards but the one I had warped and was all scratched up and just wasn't good anymore. I think this will hold up well! Also about to use Rage for the first time ever. We'll see about the Hype on it!

I should've shown the amount of hardener I used for it. I had about a 5" round blob of filler and used about a marble sized or just bigger than a dime sized amount of hardener. So right off the bat I can say the Hype is real! Love this stuff. The way it goes on, the ease of workability. It's awesome! I did this in a couple stages. I mixed enough for the back and one side and ran out. Actually found out I could've used a touch less hardener, cause by the time I was done with this part, it was starting to stiffen up.

Just another view. Also a look at the corner. Filled ok, but gonna take some work!

Mixed a little too much on this one too, so I just went down the middle a bit. I thought about doing the whole rack at this point, but I said nevermind. It's been done, and I just need to level out what I added on.

Just a look at the other side and corner. How it laid down. Nicely!

I was a little rough with this corner. I actually forgot about it when I did the back. So it ended up rougher than I wanted. OOPS! Just means more sanding!

[scooter99]

Speaking of sanding! Here we go! This stuff sands very well also! I think I waited a little longer than I should've, but even still, it sanded nicely.

Alot of this is being done by hand at this point. The corners and edges are being done by hand.

Starting to get there

Pretty flat now. The back is not going to take much to get clean!

I'm pretty happy with it. This again, has all been by hand.

After about a half hour or 45 minutes on the back, by hand, I decided to get out the palm sander and get this thing moving along.

Pretty happy with it at this point, but I know there are some low points. So I'm going to go ahead and prime it and see what's left to deal with and where.

I used a cloth and wet it a little bit, just damp, and wiped it all down.