# Tweeter Pod: an adventure in bondo



## lunchmoney (Dec 27, 2007)

So before this little adventure, the tweeters of my PG RSD's were mounted in the stock locations, in the sail panels... They were off-axis from the driver in these locations, particularly the left tweeter (WAY off-axis), so I always wondered how they would sound on-axis. In researching how they might sound, the conclusion I reached was "depends on the tweeter, depends on the location, depends on the car"... so in true DIYMA spirit I decided to just try it and see what happened.

So it occured to me that I could simply frankenstein together the sail panels and the surface mount cups that came with the tweeters... the great thing about these surface mount cups is that they allow you to adjust the angle of the tweeter 15 degrees in any direction AFTER it is installed... so I ordered new sail panels ($40, not too bad)... and since I wasn't using the surface mount cups for anything else, this was a low-risk move... if I ended up not liking it, I could always put it back to how it was with the stock sail panels... I started off with just the left tweeter, as it was far more off-axis than the right tweeter... the plan being that if I like how it came out, I would then do the left... so here we go...

Here's a pic of the stock sail panel, the tweeter's surface mount cup, and the bracket that holds the tweeter into the surface mount cup... the tweeter is not shown, as it is still in the car at this point...











Hack and slash, baby. Here I hogged out a bunch of the sail panel with a dremel, and positioned the surface mount cup in place with a few drops of super glue... sanded the paint off the surface mount cup so that it would have a good surface for the bondo to grab onto...











These next two pix show bits of wooden dowel glued into place to fill the gaps... essentially they act as a lattice framework onto which the bondo will go... the wooden dowels worked well, because they have a similar density to bondo, which made it much easier to get a consistent surface when sanding it all down... the reason why you're seeing some primer on it at this point is because I had gotten to a point where I was almost done, then realized I didn't like the angle it was at. DOH!... so I cut it up again and started over...




















BONDO! Bondo is your friend. It's easy to work with. It cures in 5 minutes. It's creamy and delicious...











Carved / dremeled / sanded down the bondo until it was nice and and smooth, and to the shape I wanted... the green stuff you're seeing is called automotive glaze... it fills little holes and imperfections... this stuff is also your friend...




















Next came the primer. What you're missing here is the 97 steps of primer, spot fill with automotive glaze, sand .... primer, spot fill with automotive glaze, sand... primer, spot fill with automotive glaze, sand... rinse and repeat... finally once the surface was looking all nice and paintable, I hit it with a couple more coats of primer, sanded with 320 grit, then hit it with fine steel wool...











Here it is with the final coat of paint and the tweeter installed... I played around quite a bit with semi-gloss black and clear coats until I got it right... first the semi gloss was too glossy... so I hit it with a matte finish clear coat... then it was too matte... so I hit it was a "texture coat" of gloss clear coat... a "texture coat" is when you hold the spray can a few feet away, so that paint/clear coat/ whatever dries slightly before it hits the surface... I think I nailed it... looks virtually identical to the finish on the stock sail panels...











And here it is installed in the car...





























Impressions: Definitely made a big difference in how the left tweeter sounds... much more detailed, a little bit brighter, less harsh. Certainly this improvement is partially due to it being on-axis... I can tell simply by moving my head around... but I also wonder if not having it behind the stock grill is helping as well.

Very happy with the results... on to the right tweeter...


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## edwelly (Mar 29, 2006)

VERY nice job!!!


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## lunchmoney (Dec 27, 2007)

edwelly said:


> VERY nice job!!!


Thanks. I really took my time with it. There was no urgency to it, since the system was running just fine without it... so for once I didn't rush through the job... and as a result it came out pretty nice... go figure


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## jonesy (May 23, 2008)

That turned out verry well


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## Ge0 (Jul 23, 2007)

Smashing job lad. Smashing...

Want to do my kicks for me .

Ge0


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## lunchmoney (Dec 27, 2007)

jonesy said:


> That turned out verry well


Started out lookin' like a lumpa **** though didn't it?


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## 1970Cutlass (Feb 21, 2008)

Very nice job, and gives me an idea for the sails in the Grand Prix


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## capnxtreme (Feb 5, 2008)

That's awesome! And really cool that you can adjust them from there.


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## NeverEnuffBass (Oct 25, 2007)

Nice job next time use some Rage Gold body filler by Evercoat. 1,000 times better than bondo and sands mush easier with less pinholes.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

Hey, man, that looks really good. Great job. I'll send you my dash & cd player so you can fill it in for me, too.


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## captainobvious (Mar 11, 2006)

lunchmoney said:


> Started out lookin' like a lumpa **** though didn't it?


lol, yeah but you did a terrific job. Painting, especially without texture underneath, will reveal imperfections. I dont see any of note, so well done


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## lunchmoney (Dec 27, 2007)

NeverEnuffBass said:


> Nice job next time use some Rage Gold body filler by Evercoat. 1,000 times better than bondo and sands mush easier with less pinholes.


I think I'm guilty of some trademark infringement ... I'm using the term "Bondo" as one might use the words "Xerox", "Band-Aid", or "Rollerblades"...

The stuff I used is not actually "Bondo" brand body filler, but another brand... don't even know exatly what brand... whatever we use at the shop at work... probably very similar to the brand you're describing (might even be the exact brand)... It is quite easy to work with, and had virtually zero voids or pinholes... 

The reason I went back and forth with the "primer, glaze, and sand" step so many times is not because of pinholes, but because I was determined to get the thing as perfect as possible.


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## lunchmoney (Dec 27, 2007)

captainobvious said:


> lol, yeah but you did a terrific job. Painting, especially without texture underneath, will reveal imperfections. I dont see any of note, so well done


The key to a good paint job is patience... both in the surface preparation and in the application of the paint itself.

For the surface prep, be prepared to go thru the "primer, spot fill, sand" step 4 or five times.

For painting, the key is to have that discipline to do multiple light coats, and walk away between them, even if it doesn't look completely covered after 2 coats! It's so easy to get the paint to get too thick and drip in places, because you over did it in order to get complete coverage on that first or second coat. I ended up doing 4 coats of paint, with a 5th texture coat, and then 2 coats of clear.

I learned all this through my job... I'm a 13-year veteran Industrial Designer, which has involved countless hours of model making... making models that look like real products...

"Patience, young Skywalker"


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## lunchmoney (Dec 27, 2007)

bikinpunk said:


> Hey, man, that looks really good. Great job. I'll send you my dash & cd player so you can fill it in for me, too.


All joking aside, I'd be happy to help out if it makes sense (for a modest price of course :blush

This goes for anyone else too... I've got a kick-ass shop at my disposal, and a lot of experience doing this stuff.

PM me if you're interested.


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## gijoe (Mar 25, 2008)

Those look good! I'm was planning on doing the same thing with my tweets, but I have to get my pods for the mids done first. So velcro it is, for now.

I agree with you 100% on the paint process. I build a lot of model cars, and several light coats will beat a heavy coat every time.


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## lunchmoney (Dec 27, 2007)

Finally got around to doing the right tweeter...


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## bobditts (Jul 19, 2006)

very nice job. People say a lot of bad things about bondo. While most of them are true, that doesnt mean that nice things cant come from using it. It just takes a LOT more work, as you have noticed. Looks great!


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## lunchmoney (Dec 27, 2007)

bobditts said:


> very nice job. People say a lot of bad things about bondo. While most of them are true, that doesnt mean that nice things cant come from using it. It just takes a LOT more work, as you have noticed. Looks great!


Thanks. I'd definitely stay away from bondo for larger jobs... but for small jobs like this, it works great... and it really wasn't that much work... I think all the pictures make it seem like more of an ordeal than it actually was.


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## smellygas (Feb 21, 2008)

this looks awesome. thanks for posting the step-by-step. i'm gonna try to follow it!

SG


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