Fit & Fitment Aluminum Grilles - How-To

Touch up the grilles where needed and use acetone to clean up any polish residue and fingerprints.

With the grilles in place, they look more like stainless steel than aluminum and give the install a clean industrial look.

This close-up shows the grilles made for 2-inch Cray LED accent lights.

To save on material, trace the smaller pieces inside of the larger ones.

Next, mark and attach the larger grille bars using metal epoxy and screws. Use thread lock on the screws to make sure they won't work their way out. For the smaller tweeter grilles, epoxy alone works fine. Tip: To remove excess epoxy, wait until the epoxy is firm enough to cut but not fully hardened. Carefully trim away the excess with an X-acto knife.

Before you begin routing, here are some important tips:1) Always wear eye protection!2) On a router table the bit turns counterclockwise, so rotate your work clockwise to cut against the blades. If you cut with the blades they'll catch and launch your work across the shop!3) Use small amounts of WD40 on the blades to cool them and prevent galling. This will give you smooth, clean cuts.4) Keep fingers away from the bit! Mobile Solutions also sells some great router accessories that can save you a hospital visit. Check them out.5) Straight cut bits work best with aluminum (I like the three-bladed laminate flush-cut bits). However, when working with 1/8-inch or thinner aluminum I've found the spiral bits do just fine.

In this case I used the grille rings that came with the speakers, screwed them to MDF, and using a flush-cut bit, copied the shape. Another option is to use circle templates available from Mobile Solutions (mobilesolutions-usa.com) or make your own as I did.

Once the templates are ready, outline the shapes onto an aluminum plate. I prefer 6061 aluminum.

Next, using a jigsaw with a metal cutting blade, such as a Bosch T118, cut close to the lines in order to minimize the amount of material to be routed. To reduce scratching the aluminum, cover the foot of the jigsaw with masking tape. Next, using double-sided adhesive tape, attach the templates to the aluminum pieces.

Repeat the tracing, cutting, and routing until all the parts needed for the grilles are finished.