Athletic wear vs Speaker Fabric

J

jaimech

New member
Hello,

I am building some acoustic panels using Roxul (mineral wool). I am going to buy fabric to cover them and today I was at the fabric store. The girl showed me speaker fabric but when doing the blow test I didn't think it allows a lot of air through. She also showed me Athletic wear and that actually allows way more air when you blow. My only concern is that having little holes (athletic wear does of course) may not be good because with time fibers from the insulation materials will pass through. As you imagine I spend most of my life in the recording/mixing room so I am worried about the health hazards of this. The question is: Do you know about Roxul use in long term? and also should choose Speaker fabric instead? Athletic wear is not only cheaper but allows more air. Any insights are appreciated. Thanks.
 
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Why you'd be worried about rock-wool is a bit of of a stretch for me. If it's troubling, switch to a denim based insulation.

Otherwise, you could look up the MSDS on Roxul easy enough (Google). It's required to be available and free.

And more importantly, you could just run a vacuum from time to time. Use the upholstery brush to sweep the walls. That'll pull any loose fibers out through the cloth. After all, if it passes air better, it'll pass sweeper air better, too.

Good tip on the athletic wear. About to stretch a few panels, myself. Was going to look for a coarse weave burlap but the athletic wear material makes more sense and it probably the way to go.


Ponder5
 
Personally, I wouldn't use athletic fabric and probably "Speaker" fabric is expensive. Go to your local Walmart (or equivalent) and buy some light weight polyester. Do the blow through test. You can probably find the best fabric for the job in the clearance bin and pay $1.50/linear yard.
 
What Chili said ^^^

Stretchy fabric can be a real PITA - you pull and pull and pull, staple it in place ... and it sags. I used burlap for my first batch of traps, then went to Wallyworld and bought the cheapest sheets they had for the second batch.
 
mjbphotos said:
I used burlap for my first batch of traps, then went to Wallyworld and bought the cheapest sheets they had for the second batch.
Click to expand...

^^^^This^^^^^

I used burlap, not a great material to work with. I think the sheets idea would probably work the best. Get some white ones and die them to the color you want.
 
DM60 said:
^^^^This^^^^^

I used burlap, not a great material to work with. I think the sheets idea would probably work the best. Get some white ones and die them to the color you want.
Click to expand...

That's one of the good things about Wallyworld - you can get the sheets in almost any color you want for the same price! Twin-size unfitted are the easiest to use - they'll wrap completely around a 2'x4' trap, just cut away the extra material. I tried to figure out if I could do 2 with a double-size sheet (don't think so), and a queen size was more than 2X a twin.
 
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