Sealing your speaker enclosures better

[johnieo]

Vern, pehaps I did not explain my point clearly. That is, plumber's putty (which I have never used), rope caulk, electrical duct seal, 3M material, and PE seal are ALL plastically deform; none is elastic. The last three are very pliable and produce little distortion of the driver flange, which is why rope caulk is not recommended.

A coat of varnish or primer paint is still needed to prevent any of these materials from migrating into the plywood under pressure, especially in very old cabinets where the plywood glue has dried and plys have delaminated. Plastic wood filler has been required on some badly delaminated backbores.

Cheers,

[dynaco_dan]

>Vern, pehaps I did not explain my point clearly. That is,

>plumber's putty (which I have never used), rope caulk,

>electrical duct seal, 3M material, and PE seal are ALL

>plastically deform; none is elastic. The last three are very

>pliable and produce little distortion of the driver flange,

>which is why rope caulk is not recommended.

>

>A coat of varnish or primer paint is still needed to prevent

>any of these materials from migrating into the plywood under

>pressure, especially in very old cabinets where the plywood

>glue has dried and plys have delaminated. Plastic wood filler

>has been required on some badly delaminated backbores.

>

>Cheers,

Hi John;

My ending comment regarding this topic is, do not use plumbers putty or window putty aka mastic putty.

The other sealers with the exception of the 3M, will only satisfy us totally in a few decades, as only time will tell on their long term performance.

Thank you to those that commented on this sticky topic.

[Carlspeak]

;( Wow, 3 posts devoted to plumber's putty?

It's evident from subsequent posts that what I wrote in post #23 wasn't clear enough.

I was simply trying to provide a real life experience (i.e. installing a new sink drain) to help illustrate what John was saying in the previous post regarding the plastic nature of some materials (other than plumber's putty) used to seal woofers into cabinets.

I used the word ANALOGY and clearly stated I wasn't advocating the use of plumber's putty!!!

I'm sorry and pledge to be more careful in the future!!

It's all about the music.

Carl

Carl's Custom Loudspeakers

[dynaco_dan]

Hi Carl;

No reason for you to be sorry about anything you write here.

I do maybe go overboard when I stress about what to use and what not to use.

That's my fault but I do not want to read down the road about someone here not being sure and doing the opposite.

Issue one, is to use adequately sized fuses, and I suggest downsized as well.

Issue two, do not use certain, proven to me at least, putties, as they will be a negative sealant in short time, for our puposes at least.

When maybe 10 years go by, we will know more than we do now about their durablity.