After I was about 98% sure that I figured out the dimensions and angles of the 20 speaker cases correctly, the biggest challenge in this project would be to actually build them. The problem was, that only after I would have build all cases, I could be completely sure that I didn’t miscalculate anything or that I was precise enough in the building process. When one side of the triangle needs to be 36 degrees and another one 34,55 degree, you wanna make sure, you’re as accurate as possible. Worst case scenario: you have 20 awkwardly shaped speaker cases, that do not fit into one icosahedral object.
Thus, if’ve spent a vast amount of time watching youtube videos of woodworkers on many different techniques, like how to build a crosscut-sled and various jigs for the table saw, how to glue up miters, how to use chisels and so on. I have to say it was a lot of fun to slowly gather all the information and resources I needed for building the cases. And I’m still amazed about the effort, a lot of people make to create nice, interesting, instructional videos. Those guys are no influencers, many of them don’t even have 10k followers, but still post beautiful videos, that must take ages to produce! This dedication was very inspiring for me!
Of course I also needed some things for the construction. First of all, I rented a tiny room as a workshop. Then I had to buy some tools like a table saw, an orbital sander, some handsaws and chisels. It took some time to build all the jigs I needed to actually start working on a prototype case. The angle cutting jigs worked like a charm. I had built a few versions till I decided on the final dimensions. The prototype looked really cool, since a pyramid is a quite unusual shape for a speaker. (I’m a little proud about the walnut corner braces).
The production of all cases actually took merely two weeks and of course I was pretty darn excited to try out wether they would fit together and form an icosahedron. After four months of planning, calculating and building, the result was oh so pleasing. It actually looked like an icosahedron. I thought, most work would have been done, but there was still so much detailed work ahead of me.
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fritsch music 