"Acoustic" doors made of wood here are selling for a ridiculous price, so I'm wondering what kind of solutions do I have. I thought about buying a cheap solid wood door and beefing it up? Any suggestions?
Have any of you made your own acoustic door? If so. how? what materials have worked best so far?
Cheers
good question.
Consider the door a part of your wall; so it needs MASS as well.
You could make a door by sandwiching MDF/GB/MDF for example. Insert a sheet of lead if you got the budget..
GB and MDF are best mass withing a small budget. Steel, lead and other metals are more expensive, but also heavier.
Doors are funny cuz they make a whole in your wall when they open. Damn, we don't want no holes. Sealing of the door jamb is a must and, since you use multiple sheets of mass, easy to make.
If I find the time this weekend, I'll post a sketch-up drawing.
Check the build diaries (note the "finished builds" sticky) for doors.
Thanks Ro for the comments.
I'll look on making a door with those materials (in theory, if walls are 2 layers of GB, why the door cant be similar tho...)
I'll be waiting for your sketch..
Cheers!
PD: Whats a sheet of lead? Language barrier here....
They can be similar in terms of MASS, that's what I mean. Your door is just a "special" part of a wall.
Lead is a chemical element with atomic number 82 and symbol Pb ;)
(it's heavy that's what it is)
Here's a super-heavy door I designed earlier. The mass should atleast be equal to the wall the door's going to be in. Using a 3x12mm GB wall and hanging this door in looks like overkill. That is, if yer're gonna use 2 doors (make an airlock)
This door is more like a super door when only using 1 door.
You see the front, back and the detail (from above). On the inside of the door I placed an absorbing panel. It uses a pushplate and a doorhandle, both are mounted on the surface of the door (so no holes penetrating the mass). The plywood is where your hinges goin' to be installed on.
As you can see its a very massive door. The 22mm sheets of MDF are heavy! You need atleast 4 strong hinges.
You can adjust the thickness, and mass, ofcourse.
I will see if I can sketchup the doorframing as well, to give a better idea on mounting the darn theng!
Ro. that looks very good! Thanks a lot
Can you upload the skechup file please?
The third drawing looks like there is a gap between layers... i got confused there..
The 3mm final layer is guess is just for looks....
Great work
The third pic is a close-up of the upper part part of the door to show you the layers and construction.
That's not a gap, but the plywood I was talking about (I asume you mean that yellow part at the left corner). Just check the first 2 pix and you'll see the whole picture (pun, yeah)
No, those ar not 3 but 8mm layers. They are also too keep things together (the plywood and mdf sheets). So it's structural and needs some thickness.
I've added the .skp file
Ro. you are the man!!
My bad... actually I started to use glasses this week so my eyes are a little weird. i saw 3mm instead of 8 mm. and a gap where it was no gap lol
Im waiting for the door frame and this should be a sticky!
Cheers for you and thanks a million
god bless ya
Updated the .skp with the frame.
It's an example of how it CAN be done, not how it SHOULD be done ;)
I've added rubber (p-type, black) and magnetic stripping (grey) as an example.
cheers!
Wow!
I really appreciate your time to do this. Its gonna be a big help for my upcoming studio, and it shouldnt be expensive at all.
This should be a stricky!!
I just purchased heavy solid wood doors 36'' wide from home depot for $100 each, prehung with weather strip and threshold, no door knob holes. with the intent of beefing them up like this. special order took a week to get them. 20 percent off plus a 10 percent off coupon. $100 before mdf and trunk rubber, I think is a good starting point. hope it helps someone buying doors.
I just purchased heavy solid wood doors 36'' wide from home depot for $100 each, prehung with weather strip and threshold, no door knob holes. with the intent of beefing them up like this. special order took a week to get them. 20 percent off plus a 10 percent off coupon. $100 before mdf and trunk rubber, I think is a good starting point. hope it helps someone buying doors.
Rod's "Super Door" calls for 4 extra heavy duty sealed ball bearing hinges, due to the weight of the door.
Just curious if you were able to upgrade the hinges and hinge count on your special order door?
If you were, I might take my slabs back and order the pre-hung... if I can get em in a 12" wide casing, that is! :)
Dammit! Wish I would've seen this thread before today.
I actually just picked up a 6 panel "steel" door (that means it's covered with some sort of durable, lightweight steel(?) covering).
I assumed it was going to be much heavier than it is. It looks like it's filled with wood chips.
wtf?
Anyway.......this will not a super-door make. No way.
Can anyone think of a good use for a 6-panel "solid core", "steel" door*? Practice-room wise?
*beefy words for a wimpy door. lesson learned
Can anyone think of a good use for a 6-panel "solid core", "steel" door*? Practice-room wise?
Maybe you could put it on a stand, hang a mic over it, and pretend it is a new type of percussion instrument? :D:roll::oops:
(Sorry! Couldn't resist that.....)
- Stuart -
well - actually it could function as a panel absorber. It has a panel of steel that will have a resonant frequency and it has insulation in the cavity to absorb the resonance.
You could tape a contact mike to it's surface and run a sine wave sweep through a speaker up through the frequencies to determine it's resonant frequency. :)
What do you people do regarding the door hardware knob/ handle call it what you will?
Normal ones require a 54 mm hole drilled through plus a 24mm hole for the barrel. Does this cause plenty of transmission loss?
Yep! (But I think you mean: does it cause REDUCTION in transmission loss! :) )
Rod's suggestion is to not drill any holes in the door, and only use surface mount handles. His door includes a magnetic seal (like a refrigerator) so the door will stay tightly closed anyway, without needing to be latched, but I guess you could still put latches on either side if you wanted, or maybe use some kind of electronic lock that does not need holes in the door.
