How I built the windows for my vocal booth (with pics)

Hello! I found that pre-made studio windows were prohibitively expensive, so I made my own. You can't find 1/2" thick windows at hardware stores. Houses usually just don't need windows that thick. And regular windows are too thin for good sound isolation, like you'll need in a studio. I used two windows, to increase sound isolation. My windows were 1/2" thick and 1/4" thick. I used different thicknesses so they would not have the same resonant frequencies. This theme of avoiding similar resonant frequencies carries through a lot of acoustic building. This is how I made the windows for my vocal booth, which I outlined in this thread. You can see how it fit into my plan on that thread. My windows were based around a "glass sandwich" type design. Essentially, this was the procedure: A) Make two outer frames, dimensions bigger than the glass. B) Put glass on top of the bottom frame. C) Add stops so the glass doesn't move around. D) Add the other frame on top. These posts about building the window are a guide, but more like a conversation/journal. Hopefully it'll be helpful for you if you are thinking of doing a similar project. Of course, this is not the only way to do this.

Onto the details! You will need to determine your own dimensions for the glass, frame, etc. 1. This is the outer frame. It will form the top and bottom pieces of the "glass sandwich". The frame should be bigger than your piece of glass. You can't see it, but the pieces of oak are connected by a dowel reinforced butt joint. Google "butt joint" and "dowel joint" and view the wikipedia page. Basically, you screw out two little holes (one on each piece), put glue in the holes, and put a wooden dowen into the holes. Anyways, these are pieces of oak I got, secured with the butt joint, and gorilla glue. Gorilla glue is amazingly strong. 2. Gorilla glue foams out and expands as it dries, so I had to shave off the excess glue. 3. Here you can see the glass being put on top of the bottom layer, and the stops I will be using to secure the window in place. The stops must be the SAME height as the glass thickness. So, for one of my windows, the stops were 1/4" thick, and for the other, the stops were 1/2" thick. Measuring throughout this was tricky. You've got to make sure there's enough room on the perimeter of the glass for your stops when planning. You don't want there to be any play with the glass. NOTE: using this method, DO NOT SECURE THE WINDOW UNTIL ALL THE STOPS ARE IN PLACE. 4. This was the first layer of glue for the stops. (In the upper right of the picture, you see some stops I had already secured in place, as well as a little piece hanging off. That piece should have been cut correctly before being secured on. This project was a learning experiment for me; hadn't done much handiwork before.) 5. Here you see the stop after being placed on the glue.

6. Here, I marked with a blue sharpie where I would be screwing down. I wanted to "glue and screw" the stops down. ("glue and screw" is real common among studio building) I knew I would be screwing again later, and I didn't want to screw into other screws. You could do this just as well with a ruler and keeping track, but this was just easier for me. This window was being used for a vocal booth, so this part will be covered. 7. Drilling pilot holes for the stops. Before this project, I had no idea what pilot holes were. Pilot holes, as I found out, are good for preventing screws from splitting wood, and to make them go in easier. It was the right choice here for such a small piece of wood. 8. Screwing in the stops. Note: the window is just sitting there still. It is being used as a guide for placing the stops. Some of the stops stuck out and had to be shaved away (see pic 13). A special note about the screws: make sure your screws are not too long. They should not "poke out" the other side. I recommend drywall screws, because they don't strip easily. 9. I'm not sure if I remember correctly (this was a year and half ago as of this writing), but I'm pretty sure I caulked like this all around, and then lowered the window down in. If you leave the glass while you are positioning all the stops, you should be able to just lower it down after all the stops are secured in place. The window is not secured in any way except by this acoustical sealant silicone stuff in this picture. There might have been a little glue in there somewhere, but I'm pretty sure not. This silicone sealant and the wood keep it from moving around. I would say the main thing keeping it together is the wood framing. 10. This is the window after having been lowered in onto the window silicone stuff. I forget the exact model and all, but it was some silicone gel used for windows. PM me if you have a question about it.

11. The window is in place, and the stops have been glued and screwed in. Now, you see more gorilla glue on the stops. The next step is to add the final frame piece (the top piece of "bread" to use my metaphor from earlier). 12. Another angle of the glass lowered in, and the glue. 13. Another angle, to show the context of the project at this point. Notice in the lower left how the stop did not fit entirely. It had to be shaved off later. We used a circular saw to saw off the extra wood, and we used a plane (woodworking tool) to get the extra oozing glue off. Maybe when you plan, you won't have this problem. 14. Now, I have lowered the top piece down onto the glue. You can see the bottom and top pieces, as well as the stops. 15. Finally, I screwed on the top layer, for more added support. All throughout, I wanted to make sure the window was as secure as possible, using plenty of glue and screws (as you see). The markings from earlier where the prior screws were proved useful. I also used pilot holes here. Now, you'll notice the outer edge of window is a little nasty looking, with all the glue oozing out. For my purposes, this was fine, because it wouldn't be visible. I imagine with more care, you could prevent some of that mess. Also in this picture you see parts of a stop that had to be shaved off.

16. My friend accidently bashed the window while we were tearing down the vocal booth. :? Anyways, this is why there is duct tape all over the next pictures. 17. In order to put the windows in the booth securely, and with the least amount of work, we added two side pieces and a top piece. This helped align the windows into our wall framing. The windows were put right next to each other, and we used 2x6's on the sides and top. This made it fit securely into our framing, with no need for additional alignment. The alignment was done beforehand, and as a unit, the windows were placed in. The other pictures will help illustrate more. 18. This is how we screwed in the side piece. Ten screws into the window framing, five per window (remember, there are two windows in there). Three screws into the top piece, on each side. The top piece was not screwed into the window frames from above. We did not feel it necessary. 19. Here is a view from "below". You can see one of the side pieces, the two windows right next to each other (back to back pretty much), and all the glue that ran over. 20. Another shot that shows how the two windows are back to back.

21. Here is the framing where our window structure will be going. It is a 2x6 (that was the size of the top and bottom plates on our walls), and there are five 2x4 studs beneath it, to hold the weight. The 2x4's are staggered stud. Come to think of it, if we hadn't done 2x6 top and bottom plate for the walls, maybe the double windows wouldn't have fit. Hmmmm. 22. Here is the window unit put in place, and all of the acoustic caulk. The side and top pieces made these two windows a cohesive structure that fit into our wall framing. The windows were NOT going anywhere - they were built solidly by themselves, and then put into these pieces, and sitting above m 23. Another shot of the window in place. 24. Another shot of the window in place, with us adding drywall. below it. 25. With the drywall in place, you can't see all the nasty runover glue and such! It really worked well. There was actually a little ledge for people to put things on, both in and outside of the booth. Quick funny story: I accidently left my cell phone inside the booth on that ledge. I called it over and over but never heard it ringing, so I assumed it was lost forever. I bought a new cell phone. Months later, I found the phone on the ledge. Overall Comments 1. IMPORTANT! WASH both sides with excellent cleaner before you mount them together. Verify that they are clean. You can never clean the inner two sides of the windows. I had some fingerprints on the inside of the glass, and I couldn't clean them. I thought they were clean, but didn't verify completely enough - you should let the cleaner dry, and shine lights through the windows, to reveal any dirt/smudge marks. Luckily, the fingerprints were only visible when light was shined directly on the windows. 2. Where to buy glass? Local glass suppliers that can sell you thick panes, pre-cut to size for you. I have a friend who works in glass, but I didn't come into contact with him until after this project. I paid a LOT for my glass, because it was able to be handled safely by hand, with no gloves. I believe he works with glass that can CUT you with bare hands, so you need gloves. But, he said if the glass doesn't have to go through the process to make it safer to handle, it would cost less. I believe the process was called beveling or something. PM me if you want me to call my friend about it. Heck, maybe your local glass shop will frame it for you. My glass-working friend says he can frame windows very quickly nowadays. It's worth asking. 3. Read up on the internet about framing windows, making windows, etc. I couldn't find a good guide, or didn't want to use any of the guides I did find, so I decided to just try it out myself. I thought this worked out great. 4. You can probably make the window a little thinner by not having two full windows, and instead one unit. Instead of a "glass sandwich," it would be a glass "double decker sandwich." 5. I threw aside some cosmetic considerations on the outside of the frame, with the nasty runoff glue and such. If you need to have the whole window visible, try doing better than I did with your securing processes (gluing, screwing, etc). 6. MEASURING. Take a little more care in your measurement and planning than I did. The stops must be the same height as the glass. See if you can avoid the problem I had with the stops being too big for the frame, and needing to be cut down. 7. Was it worth it? For my vocal booth, yes, very much so. I think I saved money. These windows probably cost about $300 or so in materials. The glass was obviously the most expensive thing, and I described a possible way to save money above. I hope this is useful! Please post questions in this thread if you have any. Let me know if this was useful to me. Hopefully it will make your planning a little easier. - John Shryock

thank you very much - this helps out alot-- i read in Rod Gervais' book that you should use neoprene pads along the glass's outer edge-- do you think that wouldv'e improved your window? what about the air space between the 2 windows - does it ever get foggy? and should there be a vacuum between the 2 windows? for my project i'll be using a total of 4- 3' x 6' sheets of laminated glass-- 2 will be 1/4" thick and 2 will be 5/8" thick - i'm installing them into a double wall setup so 1 of each thickness will be in each wall opposite each other- the windows will be placed in the wall separating my control room and vocal room-- i also think i want to angle each window downward about 10 degrees to help with lighting and sound reflections-- but anyways- your post definately helps me out with the hard part-- i found a site on the web that sells laminated sheet glass -- i'm still waiting for a quote tho but anyone can check em out--- i had to call and give my dimensions before they could get an estimate for me tho-- www.advanceglass.com

i am going to order rod's book, so i haven't seen his designs and stuff. can't wait to see it. on face value, i don't think neoprene pads would have helped the window any. it was sealed tight, there were two of them, and they were thick. and they didn't move around. maybe the neoprene would decouple it some more, and that'd help.. not sure. at the time, these windows were the best i could do! There was never any fog in between the windows. i had a TON of caulk everywhere, plus the silicone sealant. And i don't think any moisture was in there to begin with, and none could get in. As far as having a vacuum, do you mean sucking all the air out? i didn't do that, and i don't think it's necessary. in fact, it might violate the Mass-Air-Mass principle. I wonder how effective Mass-Vacuum-Mass would be. Sound requires a medium to travel, so maybe vacuum sealing is the way of the future. :D Anyways, it will be effectively airtight, if that's what you were referring to. Tons of acoustic caulk will help that. WOW - those are some huge sheets of glass. exciting! See if you can get the glass local. You will probably pay a ton for shipping. Glad the post helped you out some!

yea- you gotta get Rod's book-- it is the bible of studio construction far as the windows- i tried to look around locally i cant find any sheet glass suppliers-- which sounds awkward considering i live in the the home of PPG-- "Pittsburgh Plate Glass"--