The Stallone Cobra Hole Saw?

If it works anything like his acting, it won't cut mustard, let alone sheetrock!

I tend to agree here. The LSD saw can give you problems if you are not totally perpendicular to the surface... It'll crab walk & F- up the drywall. It takes a little practice... Plus if you DO get one, order a half dozen spare blades as they can break pretty easily.

Rotozips on the other hand create so much dust - maybe there is a vac attachement these days?

Finally decided to go with a router. Worked really well. [Link: wiremunky.com]

About half the speakers had a 4" hole like this one that made it easy to find my center.


My template mounted.


Hole cut with a single pass of the router.


Template removed.


Sonance speaker installed.


Magnetic grille installed.

Mac, its a bummer that you couldn't get that centered on the boards. :)

Blame the electrician. Fans and lights are all mounted right against the joist... as usual. They have nice perfect lines to center everything on all the way down. There is like 200' of porches/decks. 14 fans and about 40 light fixtures and not a single one is lined up with the line in the boards.

With drywall i get it. They are too lazy so they just bang the box in place and let the sheet rock guy go to town. But outside they have romex buried, 1"+ wood to mount their fixtures and fans so they could have put them anywhere.

Mac I hate when sparky just nails to a joist. In new constructionI've shown GC's and homeowners how that can be a problem and they has sparky fix that. A router was the best way to do it in your situation.

They could mount them anywhere, so they did! They put them where they would save themselves thirty seconds per each. Strong General Contracting is required to avoid this.


Jeez, yes! I've never been lucky enough to be there in time to stop that. All I can do is tell the client that I can't put the speaker where I wanted it, OR I have to leave a hole where the box was, AND either way I have to do surgery to cut the metal box away and do as little damage to the ceiling as possible.


Absolutely. That was masterful.

As for centering on the wood, that might have been more difficult than it seems. The lighting, etc was put up in relation to the joists, then the wood was put up in relation to the edge of the space. Again, here's where a strong general contractor could create the correct answer. He'd specify where the wood would start, requesting a ripped piece at the starting edge if necessary, then he'd tell the electrician EXACTLY how far off that edge to put his boxes. Metal supports (not to mention 2x4s) are available to make exact box placement possible.

I've always wondered why T-bar installers always center the tiles instead of just starting at one edge or corner, then cutting the other edge short as needed. However, the very fact that they do this day in and day out means that an installation such as the wood at your job can be placed exactly where it has to be.

Ha ha details details details... Looks good though - a lot of work to install speakers in toungue and groove.


If you'd tried using something like the Labor Saving Device hole cutter, you'd run the risk of messing up with that type of surface (imho)...

The tongue and groove was a piece of cake with the router. My template sandwiched it together with the plywood backing. Would have been nice if the lighting and fans were centered on the wood so i could center my speaker.

My main fear with the LSD product or the other one like it is that the bits/tipsblades would keep breaking in the wood. If i had a pair of speakers to put in i might have gambled but i had a lot to put in. I had the perfect size hole saw but again my fear was that it would get dull quick and possibly burn up my battery drill or break my wrist if it got wedged while cutting.

The router was ridiculously messy, saw dust everywhere and allover me and i had to spent 5-10 minutes prepping each area but cutting was under 30 seconds for every speaker with no mistakes.

doube post

...And they would most likely.


If i had a pair of speakers to put in i might have gambled but i had a lot to put in. I had the perfect size hole saw but again my fear was that it would get dull quick and possibly burn up my battery drill or break my wrist if it got wedged while cutting.


Yep.




Ha ha I did a retro job on a house and had to cut in numerous ceiling speakers with a roto zip, and all of the floors were dark wood & the dining room had a bunch of black laquer furniture... I covered everything and dusted what I could... looked good when I left. Got home and the customer had just got home & was yelling: "WTF did it snow in here or something?"... The remianing dust in the air had settled, after I had left the house and was happily driving home.

This was back in my trunk slamming days

I love LSD...






The hole cutter ;)
It does take some feel and body strength

Nice router job there buddy guy

I only use my sheetrock saw for sheetrock. We tend to hide all our speaker wiring and cut them in after paint. I have learned how to align, mark out the template, cut, and install ceiling speakers without touching the ceiling outside the speaker cutout. It takes mad skills to do this! :) Not bragging...I have just learned the hard way that when you touch a level 4-5 matte finish with ANYTHING, you will leave evidence behind.

For wood, I normally mark out my template (usually it is the square of cardboard with the circle cutout in the middle), tape it on the ceiling, and use it as a guide for the rotozip. Yes it is messy.....but normally it is before final cleaning and before carpet/flooring is installed...or it is outside.

I have thought many times about buying the LSD tool.....but I still have not been able to justify it. I think the router idea is pretty good....other than the mess.

I have used the LSD tool for years.

Like others have said, make sure it is tight and that you are using the proper counterweight for the size hole you are cutting

Putting a fresh layer of blue tape on the rubber gasket keeps the ceiling marks to a minimum. (DO NOT USE HARBOR FREIGHT BLUE TAPE, unless you want a permanent blue hexagon around the speaker that you just cut in.

When I am unsure about what lies beneath the speaker hole I am about to cut, I hold a small bag up to the ceiling and cut out a small square off center of the hole I am about to cut. Take my wet noodle retriever (another LSD tool) and bend it to the diameter of the speaker. Stick it in the hole and make a quick pass around to make sure there are no hidden surprises.

Chuck the LSD cutter in your drill, make a backwards pass under light pressure to score the outer paper on the drywall, set drill to forward, spin it up and ease the cutter in. Once it brakes through, keep the cutter up against the ceiling for a couple of seconds to let the dust in the cup settle down. I then walk the whole mess outside, dump the cut out in a box (empty speaker box usually). Smack the cutter against the inside of the box to clean it out, put new tape on it and on to the next one.

The LSD cutter will do plaster ceilings in a pinch, but you need a pretty powerful cordless (or corded) drill and you better have spare blades because you will only get a couple of holes per blade. Have had to do this in a couple of landmark style houses where clearing out all the furniture and tarping the entire room was simply not practical.