If an eight-year-old can do it....

then I don't want any lip about making small horns!

This one is for the experimenters on a Friday afternoon.

I often listen to things in the shop just to get a feel for them... to see if they are worth spending the time to fine tune. I guess it is really just listening for "potential." On one afternoon JP was out of school, and I was needing to setup a smaller horn for some some JBL Beryllium diaphragm compression drivers to mate them to these 15" woofers I had been listening to. I wanted to see if the woofers would cross higher if the horn was small enough and close enough. I made a template of the basic petal. JP then traced and cut out petals from poster board thick paper. We scotch taped the pieces together starting at the throat and working down to the mouth. Sitting the horn face down on a table helps. one we shot with black spray paint just because spray paint is fun.



I made a mounting face from some foam from the shipping and receiving department (compartment?) I just hot glued it in place. One trick here to get the throat a bit rounded is to put a dowel or even a forstner bit that is the same size as the throat down into the throat to force the paper to go round. It is paper, totally malleable. Make sure you either get the throat flat or seal it up with thin gasketing to keep a tight seal.



If you want to stiffen it up, 3M makes this really cool preset fiberglass gauze. They use it to make casts (14 year old has broken four bones). Just open the package, dip in water for a second or two, and wrap your horn. Wear gloves! On an earlier one I used strips of an old towel dipped in shellac. It really had a nice tone when struck - a quick ring down.

so if an eight-year-old can do this....