Framing walls to existing drywalled ceiling

For anybody who might be following the saga, here is a project update for year-end ’05. The H part of HVAC is working which means so am I! I have included some pix of the flexi duct and the main flexi as well as send and receive plenums (all lined for quiet operation) for your perusal. The experimental “between the joist” ductwork in the CR is work well (maybe too well – it gets warm in there). The CR is just about done. I used 2-inch acoustic foam to line the floors and doors and hide my crappy workmanship. Getting the strike plates just right on the doors is hard (I really want them to seal well) but I am getting there slowly. The office area is coming along but I broke down and bought a drywall hoist because the ceilings are too high for this to be a one-man job. The live room is last on my list – I bumped out an alcove for a drummer (one photo included) and sacrificed some garage space in doing so – oh well – gotta have priorities!! The wall plates for audio listening are all installed and all wires soldered. I have accommodations for stereo (3 sets) as well as rear subs (two), rear right and left (one each) and a front center (one). That is overkill but better now than later. One piece of glass is in – the second will wait until after the live room is drywalled. The electrical is interesting as I tried to provide as many circuits as I could and not put any motors on any other noise generators on the key circuits. I think I have that licked (my heater and garage door opener share a circuit and they are the biggest DC motor devices). I have one circuit exclusive for shop devices and the rest for amps and CR devices. CR lighting is from Lowes – 30 bucks per unit – but they look cool and provide plenty of lighting. I am thinking that 2-3 months remain before I have the project completely done – assuming I get weekends to work on it. But the office and CR will be complete shortly and I can start wiring things up and actually do some recording! Happy New Year! Eric

A few more pix: Lighting Special hinge supports for a door (too accomodate the extra thick wall and give me something soild for longer than normal hinge screws) Audio connectors in wall Office drywall begins Foam trim on doors

Looking great!! :D Keep up the great work and the great pictures!

Hi Well, the office is finished - lots of custom trim and that takes time! The final phase is the live room which is coming along well - with lots of "anger management moments" required as I exercise the dyslexic sheetrock cutting skills :lol: Anyway, two layers of rock (1/2 and 5/eights) on the ceiling and walls - and just today (pix soon) I completed the drum alcove and the iso room sheetrock. I ran cat5 and audio to each section of the live room and kept AC as far away as possible in all cases. I am on my second case of acoustic caulk - great product! I might :? have cut through some AC in one wall while using the zip to frame out a 2 gang box - man that will bite if it proves to be true!! :cry: Anyway...here are some pix and more to come soon. Oh yeah - the control room actually WORKS :D I have not mixed anything nor have I tuned the room, but I have the patch bays wired (anger management again) and music flowing out of the system - man that feels good!! And did I mention the drywall hoist - I have virtually no physical help so I bought this for about 200 bucks to make ceilings easier (even do-able) - made in China - works ok but kind of flimsy...that is until we bolted a power winch to it - a little scary but man does this baby rock the rock!! E

Long time, no post, scalp! Glad to see you're moving along. Tell us more about the possible electrical wire issue... :?

OK - the wire problem arises from my laziness. I usually measure and pre-cut all the holes in the sheetrock for electrical boxes - but my pals just put up the rock then find the edge of the box and rotozip around (or through if they are using plastic!) them. I used all metal boxes and mud rings so that when the 1 1/8 inches of sheet rock is up there everything should be flush. So.... I have a wall with 4, 2-gang boxes (expecting lots of amplifiers on this side of the room) and they are wired in series (ok - limited by the amperage of the amps, I know). So , while rotozipping around the first box I felt the tool hit something and buzz through it - now I have had that experience when I hit wood or a dense place in the sheetrock - but this was a little different.. :wink: So, it turns out that the wires enter the metal box through a plastic fitting on the top and I think what I felt was the tool buzzing through the plastic fitting - and the wire it encapsulates... :x CRAP!! I'll find out soon if this is indeed the case - mudding done today - some sanding and texturing then I put in the sockets and and hit the switch! Conclusion: Set the rotozup depth carefully so it penetrates both layers of rock but NOT any further. I also have a new technique - since I am babbling anyway. 1. precut the hole for the first layer - install around the metal square box. Caulk gaps. 2. Now add the mud ring (this is a little extension with threaded holes for holding switches and sockets). 3. Now - if you measured right, the mud ring will end up flush with the surface of the second layer when you are done (i.e., it only protrudes a little bit - in my case 1/2 inch since the second layer is 1/2 inch rock) - so you mount the sheetrock without cutting any holes - it hits the mud ring with a little pressure (do not try to insert too many screws very near the box) then you carefully rotozip all around the mud ring and you get a nice little "pop" as the rock fall into place and the hole is a perfect fit. Maybe everybody knew this already - but I am always reinventing the wheel (badly!) :lol:

scalpshifter wrote:

. . . while rotozipping around the first box I felt the tool hit something and buzz through it - now I have had that experience when I hit wood or a dense place in the sheetrock - but this was a little different.. :wink: So, it turns out that the wires enter the metal box through a plastic fitting on the top and I think what I felt was the tool buzzing through the plastic fitting - and the wire it encapsulates... :x CRAP!! I'll find out soon if this is indeed the case - mudding done today - some sanding and texturing then I put in the sockets and and hit the switch![

I was afraid it was something like that. I would strongly suggest that you not proceed with that test plan, because you could end up with a false negative -- meaning, you may get power there, and it may seem OK at first. However, you may have severely compromised the wire, such that a fire may occur under load. I realize you're trying not to turn around and go backwards in your progress, but you don't want this hanging over your head all the time. Please, make sure that wire is OK. Otherwise, it could be a fuse........... :shock:

Thanks Sharward (not "wood") That is an excellent suggestion and I may just do local surgery on the wall to be safe - but man that hurts! e

...and how come nobody yelled at me about putting that 427 cubic inch winch on that cheap hoist :D !!! I guess I have a high risk threshold or something... :!:

I choose my battles. ;-) Let's just say that I'm not going to buy the cheap-o Chinese knockoff of The Real McCoy... :twisted: I intend to buy the quality-made Telpro model, used if possible on eBay, then sell it on eBay when I'm done. --Keith :mrgreen:

OK - that yellow one looks a lot like my red one...especially the hand crank - but the HYDROLIC version looks awesome! BTW - I detailed the suspect wire last night and it is good !!! the damage is about 4 inches from the entry point to the box - but on the end (i.e., on the piece inside the box, not in the wall) so I think it is good to go! :) I pick my battles also - and there is a large number to from which to choose....ha ha ha

That be the one, alright! That's the mold and you've got the copycat. ;-) Glad your damage to the wire is not as bad as we thought it could be. Is any of the copper wire exposed? Or was it just superficial damage to the jacket?

Well, as it turns out the copper IS showing but not above the box, only on a section that I can remove inside the box and have just enough left to put in the sockets - lucky me :P Re: that hoist - this is why we don't file patents in china - it does no good (impossible to enforce - but I hear it is getting better...). Ah well - I still like my rip off hoist - it saved my lower back! e

Well I have some pictures of the studio in its current condition URL here. I have been very busy lately and have only had a chance to do basic tests of the place but so far it is AWESOME :lol: :D the "Drum Alcove" is currently an amplifier alcove and I really like the sound though I have not recorded anything in this configuration yet. The CR is set up in a traditional "live end - dead end" format and there are no obnoxious standing waves in the few mixes I have done so far. I will eventually do a systematic frequency analysis but for now I am very happy with the way it sounds - dead ceiling and all! I wish I had put light switches for the live room in the control room! The alcove lit up by itself looks sweeeeet... No bad buzzes yet or any obvious electrical problems - thanks to the many pieces of good advice I received from this forum. also the floating floor has not revealed any really terrible resonances yet - many more tests to go however. I still have some detail work to do and lots of soldering to make custom cables for ethernet (headphone distribution) and audio (mogami cables for the most important channels - I am using premade snakes for generic channels and they test out pretty well with one snafu - maybe a broken wire or something). So far I have recorded some hip hop in the iso room - very nice - and some of my own stuff (I really get to do music again :?: :?: :?: ) in the CR. The little sound lock between the cr and live room was a challenge and I used cedar siding on the ceiling and pine on the walls with slats to avoid creating that blasted extra leaf! It looks great and it is damn quiet in the CR with the doors shut (though I still have some insulation to install around the door edges). all in all I'd say this was a couple of years well spent in planning and construction. I have a million little projects I want to do but I am forcing myself to focus on music and use what I have for now so I can put out a few more albums before I croak :wink: Eric ps please check out bumblefunk.com if you get really bored...

Wow! Congratulations! Looks great! Interesting color choices... It seems each of your rooms has a gender! ;-) ;-) Thanks for sharing the pics. Any other "I wish Idas" you'd like to share? --Keith :mrgreen:

thanks! The colors are blue for when I need tranquility cranberry for when I need energy foam because it is what I had available as much wood as possible I am going to make a list of the "I wish Idas" shortly and post it - there are a lot but my brain is so old that I can only think of them a few at a time... e