Ok, since John Bridgman has been begging like a little puppy wanting a bone, for me to show the construction steps of my DIY FRZ panels, here we go...
First of all I would like to thank our fellow Axiom member "mrnomas" from audioholics as I used his DIY instructions to get me motivated.
http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/roomacoustics/DIYabsorbersacoustics.phpKeep in mind, these panels below are for FRZ's (first refection zones) not bass trapping. Although, they do absorb some low frequencies, the 2" thick material is more geared towards mid/high absorbtion. Treating FRZ's has dramatically improved the clarity of the music and pretty muched zapped any echo of the same signals reaching your ears at the same time.
OK, before I get started, I want you to realize that my wife noticed I was working on top of my recently re-felted pool table. Since I had many tools, including scissors, she thought I better place something on the pooltable. So that explains the tiger blanket underneath on the pictures.
This first picture shows the owens corning 703 rigid fiberglass board next to the frames I built. I just went to Menards and got the cheapest/straightest 1x4's I could find. Now that they are all finished, next time I might have spent a little more money to get the better quality boards, as a few of mine ended up being slightly warped.
Luckily, I used those on the ceiling locations, which are hanging down a few inches using wires/hooks. You can't really tell they are warped. The wall panels were perfectly straight, so I just hung them using some picture wire/hooks, etc...
I pretty much cut the longer boards exactly 4ft, and one of the end boards exactly 2ft + the thickness of the boards. I then went ahead and pre-drilled and screwed them togethor, around the panel. The final 2ft piece I cut just slightly shorter, to help hold the 703 in place. I then added a board across the back for extra support, but I don't think it was required.
The OC 703 is a great product to work with. For the most part, as long as it is not disturbed, the fiberglass particles will stay in tact. However, most people like to cover it with white batting or muslin cloth. I used white muslin from Walmart. I precut the pieces, and then used a putty knife to tuck the material nicely around the 703.
Once, I had the white muslin on the front/back of the panels, it was time to attach the black material around the front of the panel. I found some black polyester material at Walmart that had some stretch to it, and one side looked almost like speaker grill cloth.
The key here is you don't want a material that will reflect the mid/highs. Bass will pass pretty much through anything, but mids/highs can easily be reflected if you use the wrong material. If you can breath/blow through the material easily then you should be fine. Just don't use something shinny or reflective looking.
Here is a picture of the material that I precut laying under the panel. I made sure that I took the stretch into consideration before cutting the material. Next, I started on one side and stapled 4-6 staples about 2" apart. I also doubled up the edge of the material for extra support.
I then moved to the opposite side and repeated the process, then the ends, etc.. As I moved around the frame and pulled the material to staple, the front side became nice and flat and tight.
Here is a picture of how it looks once all stapled. The hardest part was figuring out how to make the corners look nice. After a few attempts, it was pretty simple. Basically, I had to trim a little excess material off, tuck one side under the other side, then take the outer piece and pull it around the back and staple.
If you scroll above a few posts, you will see some pictures I posted yesterday of the finished products in my HT. My next step is to build some more BASS traps for the ceiling/wall locations and then some rear wall columns.
ps: Bridgman, yes I will have some graphs asap.
