The Once and Future Theater - Page 9

Shameless bump for no-pics progress report. Now that the holidays have finally passed, and my wife has mostly recovered from her sprained ankle, I've gotten back into the theater for a few short minutes. Some more OSB went up, but it's not worth looking at.

The good news is that I've pretty well scheduled a recurring gig with a friend or two to help build after work on Thursdays. Thursdays because after nine, my wife wants to go to bed and the bowling league clears out of the local lanes - then it's dollar game night! So hopefully I'll be more consistent moving forward, and I'll work on keeping my hook in the right pocket instead of the left.

Slow and steady wins the race - or at least finishes eventually.

I've been plugging away when I can, and had a couple soundproofing issues come up - hoping for some feedback.

I put up my first layer of wallboard over the plumbing on the screen wall. I've left openings so that I can make removable plugs so that I have access to the water shut-off for the house and for the waste cleanout, should either of those become necessary. I framed around the valves to make a place to screw in a plug, and kept the cut out portion of OSB to make the plug with. What I need is good advice about sealing the plug to the wall. I'll use at least two layers to construct the plug, and the next layer will be larger so that the edge overlaps and leaves a place to put some kind of seal.. But what kind of seal? Will I need to route or rabbet a groove for the seal to lay in? Any links to materials or some already done? I have the Access-Panel SIM from soundproofingcompany, but there's no recommendations for a seal. Does that mean that a seal is overkill?


The other question is about the drain. The drain pipe runs down, parallel to the foundation wall, and then hits an elbow and goes through the wall. I had considered wrapping the elbow in MLV, but didn't buy any and didn't stop the progress we were making the other day to go to the store for it. Would you remove the OSB that blocks the elbow and get some MLV or forget it?

Here it is before the wall:



And the detail of the opening:



Also, this is my 1000th post.

Thanks for the thoughts and link Tim. I'll check out what you did for your subs. This is probably the reality - on the other hand, I would really like to be able to clean up dinner, start the dishwasher, and go downstairs for a movie while the washer does the dirty work. I hope that's successful.

I'm a little too ashamed to post any. There's too much mess and too little progress. I'll see what I can do, mostly to keep the thread from slipping into the abyss again - also because I still haven't really roughed in the door and need to document a decision about it, since I don't know what I'm doing and will forget what I learn if I don't write it down where I can find it (here).

Yeah, mine's the same one that everyone around here uses. It's not "nice" - the reviews on amazon are spotty, complaining of quality and durability. I'm sure if I was using it to make a living I'd have serious complaints, but as it is, it's totally worth the investment. With free prime delivery, the $50 or so net it will cost me by the time I sell it is money well spent.

It sags and wobbles a little, and the sheet still sags over the ends, such that you're still going to use one hand to hold it in position while on the ladder under the lift, but with a little practice it works as well as is required. The casters roll smoothly, especially on my existing hardwood floors. The legs are wide and stable, but still small enough to get the lift into the corners. Loading it requires some muscle, but is "doable" solo. My only serious wish is that you could use it to hang sheets high on the wall, but lifts (at least in this price range, maybe in any - not sure) don't flip all the way vertical for pressing into a wall (plus the legs would be in the way). So it's not a complete substitute for a second set of hands, but it's close.

It will lift 10' sheets (I haven't), but it'll be important that you center them so that the sag is uniform.

This is what I keep telling myself. My problem is I can't use the materials as fast as I can afford them. I haven't bought anything in months, but I still have a pile of lumber left to build something with. ...now where did I put my hammer?

3 weeks ago I said I needed to figure out my door situation. The idea is that I need to make sure my rough in is right, before I hang any OSB or drywall. I've been working from the screen end towards the entrance end, hanging OSB, and I'm starting to get close, so here's the situation:


There's 40 inches between these two studs. My plan when we set them was for them to be king studs. Doing some reading and shopping, it looks like I'll need to adjust a little. This web article: http://www.finehomebuilding.com/how-to/departments/building-skills/framing-a-rough-opening.aspx says king studs should be door width plus 5 inches. Since doors are sold in 30, 32, 34, 36 inch sizes, something needs to move, or at least shim. The first thought that occurs to me is to double each of these studs, so the new opening is 37 inches. 37 minus five is a 32 inch door.

Is that what you would do? Or would it be better to maybe add a 1" strip to one side to get me to 39 (minus 5 leaves a 34 inch door)? Or do I need to back some of this out and try again with a 41 inch king stud spacing to get to a 36 inch door?

All of this assumes that the writer of that article knows what he's talking about and king studs minus 5 = door. Is he leaving too much wiggle room and I can actually squeeze in a 36 inch door? I assume that a wider door would be better for moving things in and out, but maybe 32 is adequate and I should go with the obvious first choice and double the king studs...



So for those of you who can't tolerate my rambling here it is:
[*] What size door do I need?
[*] What distance between king studs is best for that size door?

Also, to appease the photo-whores here comes a better vantage on my current messy situation.

First is the left wall. I took the advice given earlier to measure 48 inches down from the ceiling and cut my OSB to fill the bottom, then come behind and hang the top sheets. If my walls were plumb and square that would be easy, but even not easy, this has been a good approach.


Next is the right wall. You can see the same general pattern but less progress. There is some light coming through the open portion, so I was leaving it to later so that I can keep the light as long as possible.

Thanks guys. That helps a lot.

The specifications at lowes and homedepot websites sometimes gives rough opening dimensions. I think I'll go for a 32" door and special order if need be.

Fred

Here's a long-overdue response to J_P_A.

First, thanks for the compliment. Though as you and I have discussed, often what passes for informed internet conversation is just wild speculation by someone only partially informed - at least that is how I often feel about my own posts.

I wish I had a specific list of great resources. I only have a few, and there not necessarily great or unique - my general approach has been to read everything that comes up. I spend a lot of time chasing weird stuff. Generally, if I'm interested in theory and best practices, there are two websites that come to mind - the what's best forum, and gearslutz. The what's best forum is great as a resource because you hear directly from industry professionals, and often there are meaningful exchanges among trustworthy sources, so you can really get a feel for what the strengths and weaknesses of a particular idea or technology are. I actually haven't been following ongoing threads there, but I get the feeling that as a community forum, it's a little slow, and may not be long-lived. On the other hand, gearslutz is populated by DIYers, so the conversation are generally more practical (less theoretical) and generally well-documented. The caveats with gearslutz include the sometimes novice posters (both a blessing and curse, as you may have to wade through meaningless misunderstanding, but you may see our own misunderstanding corrected) and the stated bias toward mixing facilities instead of casual listening or home theater.

Of course, the print resources are nice as well. I haven't read more than what are probably recognized as the two most oft-cited around here. Floyd Toole's Sound Reproduction, and Cox and D'Antonio's Acoustic Absorbers and Diffusers. I borrowed these two books, one at a time, from local university libraries - thankfully, I have a close friend who is a university librarian and able to work out the inter-library loans for me. I read both of them cover to cover, except for the math that was not comprehensible to me and seemed irrelevant anyway, in many cases. Toole's book is very readable. It's the best starting point for a novice, IMO. It's complete in its approach, very practical, and well documented. If I had time and easy access to original research, the footnotes would lead to years of great reading. Cox and D'Antonio's book is thorough and important, but less practical. The text is described as practical, in that it refers to real applications and not just mathematical theory, but it has very little direct implications for small room acoustics. If you can wade through the calculus (there is a lot - and I still can't tell you what a wave number is!), you can develop a working understanding of the principles and a good feeling for when and how they might be applied to small spaces - though I usually go to gearslutz to see what a successful implementation looks like.

Other resources include a few blogs and webforums, like (in no particular order) redspadeaudio, the articles Earl Geddes has written and published to his website, and the forums at diysoundgroup.com (see especially Bill Waslo's article about setting up controlled directivity speakers in the articles section). Of course there is also the white paper that Nyal Mellor and Jeff Hedback wrote recently - it is thoughtful and provides a lot of reading and opportunities for more searching. I've been reading more and more about loudspeaker design in the last few weeks. I'm coming around to the idea that thorough understanding of the way speakers make sound will let me see more clearly the way that sound will interact with me and my room. I'll be able to make better decisions about placement and selection once I've read more. Along those lines, I think I'm going to try to get a friend of mine to build me some speakers instead of buying them commercially - probably a SEOS design from diysoundgroup.

I expect that most of this is stuff you have seen already, which is one reason I didn't respond to this earlier, but maybe I'm wrong and this is new and useful to you. Hopefully it's useful to others as well.

As part of my new regimen, I'm in the theater more often. I've been treating it like a hobby - doing it a few minutes here and there, as is convenient. I need to be treating it more seriously. I would have liked to all along, but I was trying not to let it change my normal day-to-day home-life schedule. Well that's about to change.

So here's a new picture for reference. Axel came downstairs while I was packing up and taking a couple pictures, so that he could find out what all the noise was about.


You can see in this picture of the right wall that I have gotten OSB hung all the way around the corner, almost to the door (which I still haven't changed for rough in).

I this next picture, you can see the way I worked around the plumbing in the front wall. I did it this way figuring that it was the easiest way that came close to leaving no major holes. I knew I'd do it differently for the second layer, so there wouldn't be holes ultimately. I knew it was a weak compromise, but I didn't see the better way.



Here's the better way.

Thanks for noticing. I've tried to get the corners nice and even. There are a few areas that I'm less happy with, and some other gaps in the middle that will need some attention, but mostly it's pretty tight. Just a few more hours with the OSB and I'll be breaking out the silenseal.

I'm hoping that I can limit this hobby to between two and two-and-a-half years. Right now I'm about 15 months in and hoping I don't have more than 15 months to go. Obviously, I'll need to pick up the pace.

Two days in a row! (okay this is not a picture of my progress - you'll just have to take my word for it this time.)