This blog documents my studio build started back in 2009. I'm keeping this live for reference as it may help others who are thinking of taking on such a project.
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Having Been in Düsseldorf for the best part of a week (my regular trip to the Medica exhibition during November) I had three days off to make up for the time spent away from home. some of this time was spent with the family of course but I was also able to get some jobs done on the studio.
The first job was to finish the link for the multi-core between the two buildings. I'm running the multi-core through a 22mm diameter conduit but the largest size drill I could get was 20mm but I figured I'd be able to make this work with a bit of wiggle in the hole. This drill is only long enough to get through a single brick skin so not much use for the double skin of the garage, so its going to have to be a few holes using my long 10mm drill from the inside of the garage.
You'd think it would be easy wouldn't you...drill pilot hole through both skins with the long 10mm drill then open out the hole first from the inside of the garage then from the outside!! Well not quite as there is not enough space between the two buildings to get the drill and the drill bit to access from the outside. Besides, I didn't have the 20mm drill bit at the time so I had already drilled a few 10mm diameter holes from the inside of the garage. It looked a bit of a mess but with a bit of filling it would look OK. It took a little while and I had to use a chisel for the last bit to complete the hole inside the garage. The main problem was that because I could not gain access between the two buildings - how do I ensure that the two holes lined up? well with a bit of measuring and counting of bricks I managed to determine which brick to drill through from the inside of the studio. I had already fed the length of conduit through to get the position and you can imagine how tense a moment it was to drill this last hole...but thankfully I was within 1cm of the conduit, easily enough to push through the holes in each wall with the aid of my mallet!! On paper an easy job but its these ones that catch you by surprise - quite a relief to get this job done, especially considering that the cable may never actually be used!!!
All that was then required was to feed to cable through and clip it into position along the stud-work. All-in-all a good job done and another step closer to mineral wool/drywall!! >>photos<<
Because I intend to build a couple of silencer boxes for the ventilation system, effectively enclosed inside the super chunks in the back corners, I need to ensure that I have sufficient means of securing them into place. I figured that some support from the ceiling would be ideal so I fixed two lengths of timber between the two joists in that space either side. The back right doubles as the feed for the two ducts so they were spaced to allow for the ducts to pass inside. I also added a cross member to help position the 100mm ducts when fed down. I attached some soft material to the top surface of this cross member to provide a soft edge where the duct turns down and into the super chunk area. As always the images will probably explain this better.
OK, as the mineral wool time is edging ever closer I decided to cut a pack open and see how best to cut this stuff. I have read several builds using this material and from using the electric bread knife to using a chainsaw...not really but you know what I'm getting at! I remember reading that a serrated hand bread knife works well and I have an old set of knives around somewhere. I picked the bread knife out of that set and did the first cut using it against a straight edge. I have the tool for the job :-) - it worked wonders and to celebrate I cut a piece to size and pressed it neatly into place and here's the photo to prove it!
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OK I got the splitter finished and in place this weekend.
Didn't get a huge amount of time in the end but I had most of Sunday to get on with the job. One thing I wanted to sort out was a method to keep the flexible ducting in place. With a bit of thinking I came up with an idea. Soil stack pipes are 110mm diameter and are attached to the side of houses with large pipe clips. I figured that with a bit of tweaking they would work for the 100mm flexible duct. I bought a pack from ScrewFix and I came up with a method. I actually didn't use the holes at the base of the clip. Instead I drilled clearance holes from the side of the clips. This allowed me to screw them directly from the side directly into a couple of joists and allowed me to secure them so the ducting would be flush with the top. It also made it easier to close the diameter down to fit the duct. All in all this worked really well: >>photos<<
Before that I unscrewed both joists in between which the splitter box is to sit. This allowed much better access to the area. I then cleaned up all of the plastic duct and fittings before attaching everything. Using the same clamping method I positioned the box in situ held up by the quick clamps. I used adhesive to join the rectangular duct together along with self tapping screws in the sides. I then used duct tape over all the joints - better to be safe!! To attach the flexible duct to the box inlet I ran a bead of clear silicone round the two connectors and pushed the duct in place. A couple of cable ties back to back were then wrapped round to keep it in place and to top it off, lashings of duct tape...I don't think these are going to come off! As mentioned earlier the pipe clips were hooked over the ducts and screwed against the joists. This worked extremely well and ensures that the ducts stay put when I'm stuffing mineral wool around them.
Rather than have the box sitting directly on top of the ceiling drywall timbers I decided to have it sit on silicone. So before screwing the joists back in place I ran large beads of silicone sealant into the corners where the box would sit and gradually ease the joists back into position. This worked really well and you can clearly see that the box is a good 1-2mm off of the timber:>>photo<<
The only other job I did was to mark the position for the multicore feed into the garage. I bit tricky because the two buildings have a foot or so between them and the front walls are staggered by 50". So this involves deducting wall thicknesses etc. before I finally committed to drilling anything. Oh well, I ran the long series drill through the garage wall (double skin breeze block/brick) and that was that, I'll need to complete the job next time as it was too dark to work outside on the roof of the outbuilding to complete the drilling. >>photos<<
That's it for the time being anyway. I'm off to Germany on Tuesday until Sunday so there'll be no building for a while.
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Only really Sunday available as we are out Saturday afternoon/evening (another firework display, believe it or not!).
The task for the weekend was to make the splitter box connector for the ventilation system. I had decided to split the outlet to the fan into two 100mm flexible PVC ducts to hopefully help reduce fan noise inside the room as well as reduce noise getting out. The idea is that by slowing the airflow down whilst retaining the volume the noise transmission is reduced. I'm not entirely sure how effective this will be but I'm sure it would not make things worse.
Anyway, this is basically an MDF box located between a couple of joists above the ceiling where the air exits the room. The rectangular duct attaches straight into the box and there are two 100mm round duct connectors at 90 degrees where my flexible duct will attach. First thing was to make the basic box shape and glue and screw this together leaving the top open. This was then put in situ to mark the location of the hole for rectangular duct. I had to unscrew and slide a joist out of the way as the box would not fit between the joists - I want it to rest above the recessed ceiling timber attached to the joists (see earlier post regarding recessing the first two layers of ceiling drywall). I had to clamp a small piece of timber to the roof support and use another quick clamp to hold the silencer box in position while marking. I then marked where the top edge of the joist was along the side of the box - this tells me the absolute minimum height I can cut in the 100mm round connectors.
The box was then taken down and the three holes were cut using the jigsaw. The rectangular duct feeds straight in so I just had to make sure that it fitted snug into the hole and protruded enough inside the box. For the round duct I used a couple of round straight connectors. I cut two round holes to allow a snug fit for the connectors. These were then glued into place using no nails.
All that was needed then was to line the box with something. I had a few acoustic foam tiles that I had bought a few years ago that would fit the bill nicely. I cut pieces of foam to size and glued and pinned them in place. Once fully lined I glued and screwed the top in place. One splitter box made:>>photo<<All that is needed now is to secure and seal joints in position above the ceiling - perhaps a job for the week. >>photos<<
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No work this weekend! we had friends over on Saturday for dinner before going off to a fireworks display in the evening and it was my birthday on Sunday so a relaxing day with the family and lunch out. Guess what...I got tools for my birthday: a pair of sawhorses, a new set of chisels and a Thor Rubber/Nylon headed hammer - what more could I want!!
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As I've said before I am constantly thinking of ways improving the design of the room and any additions that may be useful so I came up with another idea. If you remember I have have a double garage next to the outbuilding but disconnected, where my electrics are drawn from and the fan is located. I figured that maybe in the future I might want to use that room as a live room so some audio feeds from the outbuilding into the garage might come in useful. With this in mind I did a bit of searching and found a supplier of multicore cable (Connectronics). They had listed some off-cuts of various types and there was a 5m length of 16 pair installation type multicore. This has all the required wires for mic/instrument applications but without the individual jackets, so you can't simply solder directly to a XLR/Jack but is perfect to wire into a stage box or panel (ideal here). I did some checking to see if 5m is long enough and it will work perfectly and at only £10 + £5 delivery! I phoned them first to check it was in stock and yes - so I ordered it.