Plexiglass anyone?

[billmcdonald]

Does anyone know of some good places to buy plexiglass online, or in the Nashville TN area?

Or, any suggestions for an alternative to plexiglass?

[apl]

What do you want to do with it?

[Track Rat]

Is this for a submarine?

[thane1200]

raquetball court?

[billmcdonald]

Haha, no. I would put it in my control room so I can see everything.

Is glass a better option?

I dont really need complete sound isolation, and the walls are just normal walls, so as of right now money is pretty much the key factor. However, I may end up soundproofing the room some time down the road.

I was thinking plexiglass because it sure would suck to have some glass shatter everywhere, but my desk is lining the entire wall that the glass would be in, so I dont think thats much of an issue...but hey, you never know

[apl]

A double glazed non-opening window has good isolation and is easy to install. Maybe you can find an old patio slider someone is replacing and use one of those panels.

[Track Rat]

I wouldn't use plexiglass for sure. It's not dense enough to be usefull. I used patio door glass (actually two pieces of glass with a space between them) and it worked VERY well.

[Idgeit]

If you got any friends in the construction industry, ask them can you poke around the building waist. Normally if they are improving old houses, they would always throw away the windows or in this case, sliding doors.

Worked for us, we got a full window, with one small chip missing about the size of a BB pellet. It was by the trade "damaged", but perfectly good and woth over 250 euro.

- Idgeit

[Innovations]

Track Rat is on the right track. What you want for isolation is mass and glass is more massive than plexiglass. A proper studio window has two layers of glass, nonparallel, each having similar mass to their corresponding surface of the wall (glass is about three times as dense as gypsumboard) in frames that are isolated from each other.

[brzilian]

I would stick with glass. Plexiglas (acrylic) is more expensive than glass when looking and simliar thicknesses. Acrylic also scratches very easily and looks terrible in no time. Another option would be Lexan (polycarbonate), but I am pretty sure its not very cheap.

FYI, Plexiglas is a brand - not the material name.

[billmcdonald]

Ah alright, I see. I will go with glass then

Thanks for all of your input.

Is there a "best place" to buy glass? Like, home depot or lowes? (Im having a hard time finding anything usefull on their site though...)

I guess Ill play arround on google for a bit until I find something.

[apl]

Yeah, either of those would have it.

[RICK FITZPATRICK]

Not only is glass the correct material, the thickness should be selected on your walls construction. IF, you have built iso walls with a 2 leaf configuration, the sound transmission loss of the glass leafs should match those of the walls. Otherwise you are either building in a weak link, or wasting money.

For instance, IF you have a typical residential wall with one layer of drywall on each leaf, then it makes NO sense to use one leaf of 1/2" glass and another of 3/8", as the wall doesn't come close to it transmission wise. Or vice versa, if you had double walls with 2 or more layers of drywall, and used 1/4" glass.
fitZ

[casenpoint]

Here are a few threads I used to help me with my construction. A cost effective glass would have to be 1/4". It is widely available and the thickest on hand at most glass shops. To get the best isolation use a hard rubber or neoprene seal at the bottom of each glass. No more than 30% compression. The seal around top and sides does not have to be as hard as the rubber used at the base, however, it has to be air tight.

http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthr...ighlight=Doors
http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthr...ighlight=doors
http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=115599
http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=115496