BGNeo3 A-Pillar build-up

[ArcL100]

http://www.z2b2.com/pillars.htm

In progress, lol.

I'm stil trying to think of a reasonable way to tie in the shape a little more without being distracting or affecting sound much.

The reason for the vent holes is because the Neos sounded muffled when the backside was covered, and I swept the angle a bit so it'll fire somewhat across dash instead of right against the windshield.

Probably going with beige paint with flat black in the vent ports, and maybe mask off something for a little accent somewhere.

Stil have to figure out a cover for the front side to cover the mounting hardware and make it all look flush and neat. I was thinking of having them velcro on and off, since I'm not sure about using magnets in such close proximity to the planar.

I'm a lazy ass so who knows when it'll be complete - I'd say by the end of July.

Then August I rework the doors :D

-aaron

[Weightless]

Nice work so far!

Can't wait to see the finished results...

[Diru]

Looks nice, giving it a dypol with wave guide kind of thing there.


"Stil have to figure out a cover for the front side to cover the mounting hardware and make it all look flush and neat. I was thinking of having them velcro on and off, since I'm not sure about using magnets in such close proximity to the planar."


Should be able to use a magnet for a mount. Magnetic planars like these are more or less magneticly sheilded.

[Sephiroth619]

Arc, both BG Neos will be facing you (driver)?

[rbenz27]

Thanks for sharing. Nice work so far. :)

We need to see more BG installs.

[joey_kev]

nicely done.
Do you have more detailed in-progress pics on builiding the neo3 pods?
I'm planning to mount my tweeters on the pillars as well but never really done fibreglassing. is there an easier way? the tweeters are seas 27tbfncg

[ArcL100]

Refresh the link, I added a few pics.

Made a cover - stil gotta finish touching everything up - there's some minor surface flaws. Then paint the square and add the speaker fabric to it.

Other side is fucked. I glued it on a weird angle so now I get to redo the whole thing =/

:D

-aaron

[Sephiroth619]

Wow, that turned out noice.

[|Tch0rT|]

Nice! I dig that. What are you going to do to cover up the mounting screws (or is what you did in the first 2 pictures)? I should do something like that for my car.

Ryan

[Cancerkazoo]

looks good, whats the aiming on that? dome light? between drvr/pass headrests?

[ArcL100]

They'll both be on-axis for the driver.

I redid the cover on the driver's side a little - sanded down a lot of material so it's less bulbous looking and contours better. Waiting for the spot putty to dry, sand, prime, paint tomorrow hopefully before the Tiger's game.

The passenger side I just started the redo... =/

Man, this stuff takes forever.

10 seconds on a band-saw cutting foam equates to 30 minutes of dremeling, hacksawing, and sawzalling, haha.

-aaron

[WLDock]

Interested in seeing the results....

Hey, I see you are from the area...I am in Southfield,

[niceguy]

I can't believe the Great Stuff sanded down so smooth....I've used it and shaped it before when dealing w/houses along w/wood filler but that's really nice....

Too much work for me though...I'll have to figure out something else for my van...I'm MUCH lazier :D


Jeremy

[mk1982]

where can i find tutorials on doing this sort of work ? is it fibreglass or body filler ?

[Antnee77]

where can i find tutorials on doing this sort of work ? is it fibreglass or body filler ?

Many installers use both. They staple down fabric tight onto their work and then spread the resin with a paint brush. After it is completely saturated in resin, you let it sit overnight. The next day you can spread bondo over the hardened fiberglass and it can be sanded down to a smooth finish. Obviously this is a very basic overview of the whole procedure .

[solacedagony]

http://www.explorerforum.com/fiberglass/fiberglassing.htm
There's a decent primer on it that I found.

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=46
There's a forum with a bunch of fabrication info!

Have fun.

[ArcL100]

Well, finished the driver's side today :D

http://www.z2b2.com/left1.jpg http://www.z2b2.com/left2.jpg http://www.z2b2.com/left3.jpg http://www.z2b2.com/left4.jpg

And here are the humble beggnings of the new passenger side:
http://www.z2b2.com/right1.jpg http://www.z2b2.com/right2.jpg http://www.z2b2.com/right3.jpg

As you can see, it will protrude out to be a smidge closer and on axis with the driver.

NO fiberglass, lol. I'm too broke and scared to attempt it. I use high density foam from the scrap bin at school, expanding foam to fill in the cracks, a plexi bottom, a scrap laminate fiberboard baffle, and bondo and spot putty. They may not be the best pillars, but I think they're pretty decent considering the budget and materials haha. Not having any sort of tools other the some rasps and my hands makes things interesting...

:D

-aaron

[ArcL100]

The sides of the baffle are black because I used a dremel to cut it - likewise for the top of the passenger side - I was cutting slices off to take down the foam. Haha g-h-e-t-t-o.

It's amazing how much time I'd save if I did this back across state at school with a full shop - huge like 10ft belt sander, band saws, cylinder sanders, routers, you name it. Ah well.

Can't wait to start the redo of the doors in the next week or two... Have to be back at school by the 28th =/

-aaron

[trike]

you don't give yourself enough credit. thats a very clean design and install. at least from the distance you shot the photos. i'm very impressed, especially just usin scraps and simple tools.

[rbenz27]

Wow, those looks stock. They blended in good, nice and clean.

[mk1982]

sorry i dont understand how you got pic 1 from the last pic ? foam and bondo !? how do you make the foam strong enough to support everything. and how do you cut the foam so smoothly and accurately ? it looks great by the way

[ArcL100]

Thanks for compliments :D Thought I'd share because I know a lot of people are having gripes about figuring out a mounting method for something so awkward (Neo3's). In the end what matters is THEY SOUND GREAT! So do whatever you can to get them imaged properly if you have them. Don't compromise by mounting them off-axis/sideways, etc.

But as to construction - it's high-density foam, and is EXTREMELY easy to shape with rasps/sand paper/chisels. It's somewhere inbetween the density of the pink insulation foam you'd find @HD or Lowes, and wood. It is also quite expensive - luckily my major uses a lot of it for modeling :D If it werent for scrap-bin pieces, I'd probably try to work with the cheap pink insulation foam (we use similar low-density foam for mock-up models), but honestly, the simplest and fastest way has got to be fiberglass. I just chose this route basically because of my familiarity and monetary reasons - fiberglass just doesn't seem that cheap to me (plus cost of respirator ;)), and I have no experience with it.

I only use expanding foam to fill gaps or places where I removed too much foam as a band-aide.

Then I just coat everything in bondo for strength and surface. Once the pod is how I want it, I epoxy it to the pillar with 5 min epoxy (~175 deg F rated) and drive screws through the pillar into the pod, then fill in the gaps with the expanding foam and bondo the pod to the pillar over that.

I'll try to snap some more build pics with explination and post when it's all complete.

-aaron

[ArcL100]

Ok, here's some more "build-up" type pics, from where I left off last post on the passenger side:

Shaped foam more, expoxied wood baffle on, bondoed inside of pod
http://www.z2b2.com/right4.jpg

Bondo layed over whole thing (pre-sand)
http://www.z2b2.com/right5.jpg

Sanded
http://www.z2b2.com/right6.jpg

Glued to A-pillar and test-fit
http://www.z2b2.com/right7.jpg

How everything will be imaged (plus my stupid face in the rear view)
http://www.z2b2.com/right8.jpg

Wedging foam into gaps
http://www.z2b2.com/right9a.jpg

Screws driven through back for support
http://www.z2b2.com/right10.jpg

Bondoed and sanded gaps
http://www.z2b2.com/right11.jpg
http://www.z2b2.com/right12.jpg

Covered the whole thing in spot-putty to sand smooth tomorrow after it dries
http://www.z2b2.com/right13.jpg

Driver's side with cover off
http://www.z2b2.com/left5.jpg

:D

-aaron

[ArcL100]

Ok, back from the dead, I finished her up:

http://www.z2b2.com/pass1.jpg http://www.z2b2.com/pass2.jpg http://www.z2b2.com/pass3.jpg http://www.z2b2.com/pass4.jpg
http://www.z2b2.com/pass5.jpg http://www.z2b2.com/drive1.jpg http://www.z2b2.com/both1.jpg http://www.z2b2.com/outside1.jpg http://www.z2b2.com/driversdoor1.jpg

I cracked the cover on the passenger side pushing the screen down in there - I'll fix that one day...

The doors I redid and made some trim pieces to cover the mounting hardware. Nut rivets rule!!! It's missing the lens piece, I can't remember where I put those in the garage lol. One day I'll get around to glassing them and making them pretty, just ran outta time this summer, ah well - good enough - what is sounds like is all I'm concerned with ;)

I have just under 2 ms t/a on the driver's piece, and just over 1 ms on the driver's Dayton to get the soundstage perfect.

-aaron

[alphakenny1]

boy you got some skills man! looks good!

[alphakenny1]

also is the pillars covered in suede?

BTW, you live in a nice neighborhood. haha.

[bobditts]

nice build. How do they sound? they look like they protrude quite a bit. You going to make something to cover the screws for your mids? Also I noticed the drivers side pod looks like it is not attached to the pillar while the passengers side pod does look like its attached. Whats up with that?

[sqkev]

Nice build up!
Did you use SEM to spray?
The left looks a bit wee out of the pillar, otherwise looks real good.

[Beau]

Wow - the work you've done looks beautiful.

[JWSewell]

Beautiful work!! I really like the way it all turned out.


You are due for an oil change in less than a week BTW! :D

[demon2091tb]

Brutiful............Simply brutiful.

Now cover up dem wiriings down in dose dem der kickamadoo's and get er did!

Good looking bro......hope mine looks even 1/2 as good as yours when i'm done......Still considereing doing RS225's though.....:( We'll see though.

[ArcL100]

Thanks for the positive feedback guys!

To address some q's, comments:

The passenger side does jut out a bit for 2 reasons; one, to get it on axis like that, it wouldn't fit wedged under the windshield unless I covered up the side window vent, which I didn't want to do, and also two, it helps bring it a few inches closer to me to help equalize the pathlengths a tad. I suppose it does look a little awkward, but I'm all for sacraficing aesthetics for function :D A pro or competition install could probably easily come up with something nicer, but it's good enough for a backyard install, lol.

They're actually painted with Rustoleum camouflage paint, I think I might have mentioned that in an earlier post. The Accord's panels are a weird mix of beige/brown/grey hues with the tiniest tint of green. Basically, impossible to match in a rattle can, so I found the closest match in a matte finish I could find. I also spot-puttied the hell out of the pillars to remove the oem texture.

I changed my oil that day with some Valvoline Synthetic I bought on sale awhile back - I feel shameful having had a shop change my oil, but I had an oil-change with free tyre rotation coupon. Haha, nice catch though.

The neighborhood ain't too bad - middle class Michigan. It's my mom's house, not mine, heh. I'm back at school now.

I gotta figure out if I'm going to make some elaborate grille or not. I was thinking of making something out of balsa, dunno. If you go to JoAnn Fabrics and buy one of those 9" sewing loop things it fits PEFECTLY over the RS225, but the round, black fabric cover I made looked goofy on there especially since the baffles I free-hand jig-sawwed aren't exactly round, haha.

The wiring by the kick... Eh, that'll probably stay like that until I get unlazy one day, lol. I told you demon, I'm ghetto ;)

Thanks again for the compliments! :D

-aaron

[Lothar34]

OP: Do you still have the in-progress pics somewhere?

[Lothar34]

Bump to remind you to check your other computer.

[ArcL100]

I'm workin' on it right now since Meglomatic is buggin' me too, sorry.

-aaron

[Megalomaniac]

lol that dude is from TX too, how ironic.

[ArcL100]

http://www.z2b2.com/carinstall2.jpg

-aaron

[Lothar34]

Thanks!

[Lothar34]

How are the covers mounted to the pods?

[bassfromspace]

That's pretty sweet. Is that foam the same as what you'd find in a sofa cushions?

[ArcL100]

How are the covers mounted to the pods?

Friction, lol. There was a little lip all the way around for it to catch on. I didn't really document the covers well, sorry.


That's pretty sweet. Is that foam the same as what you'd find in a sofa cushions?

No not at all like that squishy compliant foam. This is like blue/pink insulation foam, only denser so it's easier to shape - but I'm pretty sure its expensive. Not sure exactly where you could get some - it was free to me so I used it, lol. You could do this out of fiberglass probably easier, honestly - I just had never fiberglassed at that point. You can do the same thing using the blue/pink foam from HD/Lowes, it'll just be a little more challenging for surfacing.

-aaron

[bassfromspace]

Friction, lol. There was a little lip all the way around for it to catch on. I didn't really document the covers well, sorry.




No not at all like that squishy compliant foam. This is like blue/pink insulation foam, only denser so it's easier to shape - but I'm pretty sure its expensive. Not sure exactly where you could get some - it was free to me so I used it, lol. You could do this out of fiberglass probably easier, honestly - I just had never fiberglassed at that point. You can do the same thing using the blue/pink foam from HD/Lowes, it'll just be a little more challenging for surfacing.

-aaron

Thanks man.

[req]

all the pictures are down :(

[Megalomaniac]

http://www.z2b2.com/carinstall2.jpg

-aaron

all the pictures are down :(




;)...