Messed up the baffles, Arrghh.

Today I went to my shop to work on the Speaker Cabinets for Amp #2. I started by using a compass to draw a circle for the speaker hole in the baffle. I then drilled a pilot hole to allow the jig saw blade to fit into. Cutting a perfect circle was not easy and, even though I went slow but the cut was not vertical. As a result the hole was less than perfect.

I then devised a better way of making the speaker hole. I grabbed some thin plywood and drew the speaker cutout size on it. I then drilled a pilot hole to the inside edge of the circle. Mounted that thin plywood on top of another piece of plywood that I clamped to my router table. Installed a 1/4" cut out bit into the router. I then put a nail in the center of the thin plywood circle and nailed it to the bottom piece of plywood. This allows the thin plywood to revolve while the 1/4 bit made the cut in the thin plywood. the result was a template with a perfectly round circle cut out of it.

Here's my template. My next step is to make new baffles (using the vacuum bag method). They are curing in the garage right now with the vacuum pump running away keeping a good clamping vacuum on the new set of baffles. Tomorrow I'll cut out the speaker holes using the jig saw again but this time much smaller than the targeted diameter. Then I'll affix my template onto the top of the baffle and use a flush cutting router bit to remove the rest of the wood and create a perfectly round speaker hole in each baffle.

Here is my template, the flush trim bit bearing (not shown) will ride against the inside wall of the circle.