definately go with Justin's suggestion of 3/4 birch plywood. It is expensive, but lasts a long, long time and sounds great too. MDF is still just particle board that is glued together and moisture will attack it and deteriate it.

I took out my original deck panel on my trunk, used it as a template, and made cut a wooden frame out of birch plywood. I then covered it with speaker grill cloth. I am using a bandpass cabinet that has the ports facing upright into the passenger cabin.

By Kurt (66.183.135.36) on Tuesday, January 27, 2004 - 06:42 pm:

What do you mean by resonate? I thought MDF would be better as it is more dense?

By mat gorman (202.72.131.230) on Tuesday, January 27, 2004 - 04:00 am:

hi i have a 78 civic that is wiating on me making some pannels for my front doors to level it out so that i can fit my front speaker if u dont know what i mean i have a 3 door hatch and the 2 side doors about 3 1/4 of the way down change from the skin to metal and drop about 1 cm back i could fit my speakers without doing this but they would get muffled by the front seats has anyone had the same problem as me ?

By bruce (68.156.75.48) on Monday, January 26, 2004 - 07:14 am:

I used a door skin and made new side and rear panels, just traced over the originals and then used self tapping screws and screwed them in, I put 6x9's in the side and wires are run into the hatch but no speacckers back there yet, I ran all my wires while it was gutted so when I got them I did not have to take it all apart to run speaker wire.

By Justin (24.69.255.203) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 10:07 pm:

MDF is probably the easiest to use, You can get it in 1/4". Home Depot will sell you 1/4 sheets I would look into a high ply plywood, such as European birch, you can get a 13ply 1/4" super rigid and won't resonate like the thin MDF..

By Jacob (67.170.131.249) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 12:00 pm:

I've come into a lot of MDF free if you happen to know anybody in the construction business, or anybody having a house built etc.. They use it sometimes and will have rather large scraps.

By Shea Laking (Sheaman71) (66.185.85.79) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 11:58 am:

Jared,

I'm sure Justin will probably concur...MDF (medium density fiberboard) or HDF (high density fiberboard) is what you'll want to use. I'm not sure if you'll get it thin enough to actually use as a direct replacement for the stock parcel shelf (I "think" the thinnest you'll find it is about 3/8"). It is sonically "dead" so it won't transmit vibrations, etc. Only bummer part is you'll likely only find it available in 4'x8' sheets at your local Home Depot or Lowe's. Hopefully Justin or others will chime in if they have other (better) ideas.

Regards.
Shea

By jms (66.242.1.52) on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 11:48 am:

dont want to cut up my orig cover over the rear cargo area (trunk model) but want to put some speakers in there maybe, so whats good in the wood industry to use?