Sealed 15" Dayton DVC385-88 build

I'm sorry that I did not take more assembly photos. I always worry that I am going into too much detail and boring everybody.

I took a grill out to the garage to get a couple of photos.

Here is the grill. Obviously, I was not concerned with the appearance of the grill's backside, but you can see the Grill Guides that I used.




Tip: Here is the trick that will make grill installation quick and painless (again, I apologize for not getting step-by-step photos)--Drill the correct size holes in your grill for your grill guide peg or "ball". Then slip a set of Dowel Centers into the holes. They are the shiny silver objects you see in the photo. I wrap some tape around them to make the fit more snug, so they won't fall out when I use them.

Align your grill on your cabinet, then press down to make little dents which will mark where you want to drill the mating holes to install the "socket" half of the grill guides. Do this step without the grill fabric installed, to make it easy to align the inner edge of your grill frame with the driver recess. Then, you just drill the holes for the grill guide sockets and you have NO alignment issues with your ball and socket guides.

Tip: Paint the grill fabric ring a color similar to your grill cloth and don't forget to paint the inner edge of the fabric ring. This will make the fabric ring nearly invisible after the fabric is stretched across it.

Tip: Installing the fabric ring is easy. Just drive the screw in sideways and let the screw head hold the fabric ring in place. But be careful about placing too much tension on the screw head, or you might split your grill ring. In this photo, you can see that I used black screws. The color does not matter, because you can't see them once the grills are on the cabinet. I just used what I had on hand that was the size I wanted.

I don't know if it is helpful to anyone or not, but I'll post a few photos of a previous project which I made grills for. It maybe shows a little more step-by-step detail.

Grill front design.

It may be a little hard to see, but the final top ring on the grill, which is actually at the bottom in this picture, is an inch smaller along the entire inner edge. The fabric ring will press against this on the inside. Well, in this case another ring will be between the fabric ring and the outer grill ring. You'll see what I mean in a moment.




A pair of Fabric Rings and a pair of Design Element rings for the grills.




Round over the front outer edge.

Again, these grills were used on another project. I'm including photos here in this thread to show more assembly detail, since I didn't take many assembly photos this time around.

Ready for a finish.




I applied two shellac seal coats, then several coats of Minwax Oil Modified Waterbased Polyurethane--Gloss. In this photo, I am not done yet, but it is coming along.




Design Element ring. The grill and the little tree were made from African Mahogany.




Here, the grill is not assembled yet. I just propped something underneath to check the look.




Sorry to pollute this thread with the grill from another project. I hope the added detail helps someone to see how to make a grill in this manner.

The project for the Tree Grill is on another forum. If you want to see more of that project, do an internet search for Bunker Buster PassingInterest and it should be easy to find.

Okay, someone is going to want to see how the grill looks on the cabinet, so here is a shot of that. I actually made two, but the second one is not done yet. The two trees are mirror imaged with respect to each other. But again, I haven't finished the second cabinet yet.