Big BenD Bass Horn: Throat Bend

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One of the first things I started building was the throat bend. Basically because it was a fairly small part, that was easy to build before the garage got filled up by the large mouth bend and mouth sections. But as you will see in the background on some of the pictures, some of the other sections were also under way during the building of the bends. 

In laying out the bend, I had first drawn everything up in CAD. At the centre of the arc I drew lines every 15 degrees, and measured the inner and outer radii. On the plywood I similarly used ruler and compass to divide the circle into 15 degree segments, and used the dimensions from CAD to draw up the outer curve. The aluminium ruler was (ab)used as a spline ruler to get a smooth curve. 

With the curves drawn, the four side walls were cut and sanded to match each other. As mentioned previously, I decided to go for constant width most of the way around this bend. 

For the part nearest the throat, I changed the profile from constant width in order to make the throat more square. Using a router table, I got the angles right so that everything matched up without gaps. 

The throat bend is built on a sheet that serves as a flange for both ends: one end connects to the spire/middle section, the other end to driver box. This stabilises things and puts less stress on the bend itself. 

The throat end and the bend sides are connected using wooden dowels. 

The sides are then glued to the flange, also using wooden dowels for support. These are drilled and hammered in from the outside, leaving the inner surface untouched.

For the inner curve, three layers of 5mm bendable plywood were used. The curve was too steep to use other types of plywood without steaming.

The inner surfaces are then painted to reduce absorption.

The "ceiling"/outer wall has an innner skinn of aluminiumm. A groove is routed in the side walls. 

Laminating the outer sides was a bit tricky. I Used two layers of 3mm hardwood plywood and 2 layers of 5mm bendable plywood. Getting things properly aligned took some practice, and I found it was easiest to nail each layer using small nails, instead of using clamps. 

A view from the bottom, showing the aluminium "ceiling".

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