So today I did mainly plaining and sanding but also cut a few of the battens. The baffle board was the main issue because when I put all the pieces together and lent them up there was a gap between them and the side panels. I needed to 1.get them straight and 2. cut a few mm off because the baffle was too wide and causing the side boards to not fit on the bottom board.
The rear panels were too long too because the measurement in the diagram was wrong (583mm instead of 590mm). This meant I had to shave a few mm off the ends of both. The baffle board was also wrong but I couldn’t shave it all off one end otherwise the speaker port would be off centre (although probably not noticeable. I cut it down to about 582mm eventually because the side boards were still not fitting (they still struggle).
The side boards were also poking off the ends of the bottom board because they weren’t completely straight so I sanded them down with a block of wood covered in grain60 sandpaper (the grain doesn’t matter too much). There were a few problems such as rounded wood from sanding it down and frayed corners from plaining. To solve the rounded wood I had to carefully sand down keeping my arm as straight as possible which is really tough-a sanding machine would be beneficial but not necessary. The frayed edges I experimented with. I found the best way to prevent them was to plane inwards at the corners rather than follow a whole stroke down until the end of the wood. You’ll probably find that it catches the wood but persevere and possibly adjust the plane if you experience problems.
A few of the battens were cut-one of them done wrongly because I marked it out wrong but it’s not a problem because I can cut it down for one of the smaller battens. I used a handsaw which leaves frayed material because of the nature of the softwood but nothing a bit of sanding didn’t resolve-you wont see them anyway.
Creating A Speaker Cabinet 