Ohm Walsh Micro Talls: who's actually heard 'em?

Greetings from a very rainy and windy SoCal... :(

Yesterday was incredible here, warm, sunny, and blue skies, perfect for working on speakers...lol
The speakers were cleaned from old  hotmelt, staples and assorted old crap, but it's amazing that 40 year old particleboard is still staying together and doesn't crumble.

I made a test patch of a mixed materials including non drying clay, butyl, cement board, neoprene drenched in a glue that dries but stays gummy and a commercial vinyl tile that is very dense  and non resonant. To top of the sandwich I added a 1" layer of felt. The size of the sandwich is 7"x 12" and the final weight was about 4 lbs
.
The mix of materials makes for a non-reasonance composite.
 But  I am considering adding a thin layer of lead on the speaker walls before the the cement board to make it even less resonant. The final weight of the wall material will be in the 75lbs😜 range including the lead layer.

These measurements will change as it doesn't include cross bracing, final top and bottom caps.
I do hope to keep the final weight of the speaker below 150lbs without the base that weighs somewhere north of 65lbs.

The cabinets were never torn down as far as I can tell, so I re-glued
all the corners with gorilla urethane glue, interesting stuff that gets activated with a damp surface or a spray of water.

The first layers of metal plates making up the speaker attachment 
where glued and clamped in yesterday. Basically I took one steel plate attached it on the surface below the original attachment surface. The other layer above the that plate is  a 1/4" cork layer a 3/4" layer of particle board, butyl and another 1/4" steel plate. All the layers where bonded together with Gorrila glue. To top of the cabinet / Walsh attachment two more layers of 1/8" aluminum plates will be bonded with more high viscosity glue and then bolted together with counter sunk bolts at each corner. The baffle for the Walsh driver will be about 2 3/4" thick when done.....wow

I have questioned the switches in previous posts, so yesterday I removed the the back plate of the switch so I could get to the guts of the part...!! Yes my concerns were all found true, the switching armature is so thin so it's a wonder that they don't blow up all the time,  plus it looks like they're made from steel (I will check with a magnet next time I'm out in the shop).

Thats today's post.......🇸🇪

Another sucky day in SoCal, cold but no rain here in Lakewood....

Woke up up with another palm tree broken at the root, this is the second one in less than
two weeks.
Figure a few hours in cold shop would do me good, and by the end of the day I had basically installed all the metal plates in the upper part of the cabinet.
All plates have either a layer of butyl or a mix of butyl and neoprene rubber and to hold it all together I'm using Gorilla glue. This glue is pretty amazing stuff wet it and it slowly filling any voids and giving the layer a cushion to float on. 
After the layers were glued together I figured I would do a knock test to see how the cabinet
respond to being shored up in a proper way. 
Check out the before and after sound and vibration test...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/147883144@N08/shares/0L3pb1

I should have some more stuff tomorrow..........🇸🇪

Back again...

Some more thoughts on the build.
This morning after a nice cup of joe (or two) the thought of materials and
the cost associated with said purchases crossed my mind.
I was looking in to plate Aluminum and each plate would cost me a minimum 
of $300 ( 12"x 12" ) before machining and anodizing/powder coating...Its doable but incredibly expensive in the whole scheme of things. So what can I do to make this a project that someone else could do without breaking the bank? 
It could also be more fun to figure out a better but cheaper way around the problems.
I will have more in a few hours.....🇸🇪

The top plate is growing in complexity and thickness, more layers, more damping
and by this point I would call it bullet proof...
As you can see in the image I made a layer of clay ( yes yes I know it's colorful ) but my 
supply company had a super deal on the colored ones and it's free of sulfur so I can add silicone in the mix later. To lock in the clay I used some carbon fiber sheeting I had sitting around and to dampen the sheet I'm using the checkered neoprene which allows glue to saturate both sides and dampen the interface with the steel and aluminum layers.

Tomorrow will be the first day for bracing.....yeehaa
I was going to use some CF material I have left from another project, but it would take some 
extra time and money as the plates needs to be cut with a water jet. The idea would be some material that can be bored with a forstener bit and possibly jigsawed making it easy and fast. 
So Im stoked and excited as my ideas are coming to fruition, and who knows it might sound
fantastic when all is said and done...

check the images out, before I install the Walsh driver I'll add a layer 
of foam over the CF to quell any reflections.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/147883144@N08/shares/996oGG

Now I'm going for some Tylenols........🇸🇪

Peter, that is a lot of work!
I hope it all turns out well.
After all this effort, I will be interested to hear the result.
Thanks for the photo links; that helps with the visualization.