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These tree speakers were handmade from +14" thick sections of what was once a towering elm tree, that have now been transformed into a completely unique piece of hi-fi art. The speaker enclosure is made from one solid piece of elm, sectioned only at the rear of the speaker in order to hollow out enough material to create the speakers internal volume of air.
Aside from being aesthetically pleasing and unique, using actual tree rounds as speaker enclosures is beneficial to the overall speaker design because it results in an almost seam-free cabinet, thick and acoustically dead enclosure material, and non-parallel internal sides which help to reduce unwanted frequency amplification and reverberation.
This Instructable describes the unique process of how I built these specific tree speakers, and is not meant to be a complete and comprehensive guide to speaker building. For that, please see my Instructable on How to Build Custom Speakers, which the DIY speaker builder working on his or her own project will find much more helpful.
I think that the appropriate question to ask here is not "why build speakers out of a tree", but rather, "why not"?
Aside from being aesthetically pleasing and unique, using actual tree rounds as speaker enclosures is beneficial to the overall speaker design because it results in an almost seam-free cabinet, thick and acoustically dead enclosure material, and non-parallel internal sides which help to reduce unwanted frequency amplification and reverberation.
This Instructable describes the unique process of how I built these specific tree speakers, and is not meant to be a complete and comprehensive guide to speaker building. For that, please see my Instructable on How to Build Custom Speakers, which the DIY speaker builder working on his or her own project will find much more helpful.
I think that the appropriate question to ask here is not "why build speakers out of a tree", but rather, "why not"?
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In 2004 while I was attending Brown University, a massive and historic elm tree located on the east side of Providence sadly succumb to Dutch Elm Disease. After years of trying to save the tree, it eventually had to be removed by chainsaws operated by the hands of skilled arborists and towering cranes with slings to lower the towering branches onto flatbeds and out of the city piece by giant piece.
The giant tree's death was unfortunate and sad, but the loss of the tree ultimately led to the birth of something else: The Elm Tree Project. The joint venture between Brown University and The Rhode Island School of Design produced a set of classes, exhibitions and specially designed studios, all built specifically to explore and produce various forms of art that could be made from the deceased tree.
I was lucky enough to be a part of this unique program during my time at school, and have finally gotten around to documenting some of the work that I produced during my involvement with The Elm Tree Project on Instructables.
The giant tree's death was unfortunate and sad, but the loss of the tree ultimately led to the birth of something else: The Elm Tree Project. The joint venture between Brown University and The Rhode Island School of Design produced a set of classes, exhibitions and specially designed studios, all built specifically to explore and produce various forms of art that could be made from the deceased tree.
I was lucky enough to be a part of this unique program during my time at school, and have finally gotten around to documenting some of the work that I produced during my involvement with The Elm Tree Project on Instructables.
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If you would like to see another recovery and use project for a dead tree, go to the Kauri Project at the Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney.
http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/friends/events_activities/kauri_project
This beautiful old Kauri tree was killed by fruit bats (truly). The gardens recovered it and the items made from it are very beautiful.
While you're at it, design into the routed out area for the frame, countersink 4 anchors aligned perfectly to receive high tech looking machine threaded fasteners, for both the woofer and the tweeter.
And really, don't stop there. Find a decent self amplified - properly cross-over-ed sub drive amplifier that's piggy backed off your pictured receiver / amplifier, made the same way, same proportioned dimensions, with a larger tree trunk section. Design it to allow the room to be part of the speaker.
Lastly, choose the right driver. A really friendly vendor for this might be Parts Express out in Ohio. I live in Montana and have done a lot of business with these folks. Good people. They sell a type of product for every taste. See:
http://www.parts-express.com/home.cfm
One might consider thinly sawing a much larger section of tree for the very high frequency driver, like a nice soft dome tweeter for those really sweet highs.. Mount the tweeter as close to center as possible for best dispersion, on the same wall (plane). Cool idea!
I am a wood turner and often use driftwood with lots of worm holes the more the merrier. I love it check out my web site click link www.scorpionwoodcraft.co.uk
And it seems to me that the vibration from the sound would aggravate that.
I didn't read the whole instructable. Maybe I missed that part.
I have a similar idea which I've not yet implemented, which is to cut the trunk vertically - giving two D-profiles and using the flat surface as the baffle - scooping out the pith and leaving a strong outer shell of the xylem.
Planters in tree rounds - nice.
Or take a cutoff piece and trim it up and trace it on the hollowed piece letting it in with a chisel. Using a lathe like someone else mentioned would work beautifully. But I don't have a lathe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZUIxGJ-ykI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DP89iMe0BY&feature=channel
Mount a faceplate on the speaker end, chuck into the lathe, and hog out the back with some gouges? You would have to go slow, but it would be easier I think....
I wonder if there is a way to stealth the speaker cones so music comes out of an unaltered log...
If you were really interested in hiding the speaker cones somehow, you might want to shield them behind a very thin layer of wood...since it would be hard to cut out exactly enough material to produce this effect in the log itself, I could see it being done more easily with a very thin slice of veneer.
The company below produces paper backed veneers as thin as .2mm! I imagine that the relatively minimal negative effect that t his would have on sound fidelity would easily be outweighed by the awesome factor.
www.nissiwood.com/nissiwoodmicrothinwoodveneerrolls.htm
Personally, I like the way speaker cones look.
The only thing that I can think of that would make these any better and at the same time cooler would have to be wooden cone drivers, and yes they make them. Truely awesome speakers though.