Closing an open back cabinet

Thanks in advance for suggestions.

I recently purchased a 4-10 lone star open back from zwish on the board here(a good guy to deal with btw) to use with my MV combo. I currently use the combo speaker also with the 4ohm outputs and it sounds great. I use a channel setup of clean, mid gain and high gain. All three sound great thru the cab but as I would suspect the tight high gain thru a loose cabinet at high volumes sounds unique to say the least. This tone suits my style well but I am curious if I can tailor my tone a little more with this idea.
My idea is to cut several panels for the open back cabinet using the same type wood as the cab itself. 3 different sizes one closing it completetly, one closing it half way, and another maybe at three quarter closure to make the cab more versatile. Kinda like tuning the cab?? Maybe using different panels for different venue/volume sizes. Does this idea have merit?

Thanks again

It certainly has merit. I have seen several cabs that offer removable panels for that sort of tuning.

I recommend removing all existing back panels and making a singe panel that fully closes the cabinet. This should give you the best "closed cab" results, and it should also give you an idea of the MOST that you can change the tonality. I would expect that any other variation in porting will sound somewhere in between what you have now and what the fully-closed back sounds like.

You should also try porting it. A friend of mine experimented with a bass cab using different diameter and length port tubes. It had a HUGE effect on the low-end. Start with a fully-closed back panel. Then add a small-diameter circular cutout. Glue in a long tube. Try it out. Cut the tube. Try it. Cut it, try it. Them move to a larger diameter. OR, you can find cabinet simulators and design guides online to help reduce the number of tries.

I'm curious how it works for you. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my 4x10. Interestingly, I find it to be a lot tighter than my recto 1x12 cabs, even though it's roughly half-open in the back. It also has WAY more low end.

Thanks for the advice Elvis. Sounds like a good idea closing the cab all the way first. I'll let you know how it goes.