Introduction: Denim Speakers

Denim and Burlap are great composite materials for my cannon speaker project. It produces rich base and clear high tones, and also has a nice surface finish. It's both light weight and strong.

I designed my speakers so you can use it laying flat or pointing up using the stand like a cannon or to save desk space.

I designed the inner audio air channel based on the iPad Pro and other speakers in the market. How the audio travel inside of a speaker plays an important rule in reproducing the sound.

I used aluminum for many parts of the project, but you can cut them out using laser cut acrylic or band saw wood.

Step 1: Denim & Burlap Composite

I use shopbot to cnc my shape with the foam, but you can use simple PVC pipe for the speaker body.

I used entropy resin, because it's mostly natural. I used nylon film (the pink stuff) as mold release.

Here is layer by layer layout, from inside out

  • Foam shape
  • Release film
  • 4 layers of Burlap & Resin
  • 1 Layer of Denim & Resin
  • Optional: Tape on the edges to hole in shape

You want to make sure you wrap them real tight, like sushi roll. the resin should whole the layers in place, even without compression from the outside.

Once the resin is cured (24-48 hours), you can pop the foam out from the inside.

I included the files to cut out the burlaps.

Step 2: Assembling the Speakers

You will need to use the attached file to cut out a few more parts. There are two acrylic inner plates that has teeth around, use the outer acrylic plate as spacer and hot glue the most inner disks (the one with teeth) from the inside. You can then align all outer plates and install audio jack to the back acrylic plate. I used aluminum as face disks for front and back, then cover them up again with acrylics to have that nice clear metal finishing.

The cut file also includes the aluminum stands, you can also cut this out of a thick layer of acrylics.