Modeling linear "Superchunks" and other fun stuff.

RICK FITZPATRICK · Sep 29, 2007

Howdy guys. Its been a long time since I posted anything. So here goes.

I recently picked up these panels.
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/insulation5.jpg
Ok guys, the point of this post is to illustrate my latest project. Namely, to utilize the materials I have to their best advantage. Once I had the materals, then I began building a fullscale cardboard "mockup" of one 24"x 72" x 4" thick panel, used across a wall/cieling corner. Trouble was, it was difficult to relocate it, as well as visualize what it is I REALLY wanted this to look like in the studio. Not only that, because of the geometry of my room, there are no wall/wall corners to utilize "superchunks", except at the rear closet, which is the point of my another upcoming thread titled "Rear Wall Options". And I've decided to use the closet for a Skyline diffuser, although there are areas that could be filled with 703, but at this time, I'm more interested in using what I have for the rest of the room. The other problem was DESIGN. Folks, I've been a designer for many years as well as a CAD detailer/draftsman. And for the last two years I tried to visualize what it was I wanted in the way of "treatment", at the front, sidewalls, and cieling. For four years I've been fortunate enough to run across forums such as this one, whereby I've been able to grasp a few concepts for treating a room acoustically. But visualizing something in 3D in Autocad leaves a lot to be desired. I even tried a few 3d programs suich as Sketchup and Rinocerous, but haven't found a way to convert the file format extention to something i can post on the net. Even then, the 3D programs really DIDN'T allow for visualizing a space from INSIDE the space. At least from what I knew I wanted to see. Thats when the idea to build an actual model, instead of a virtual model. Hence this post.

The first thing I had to determine was scale. Since I had about 20 rigid fiberglass cieling tiles, and they were 1/2" thick, I determined I could scale the 1/2" to equal a 4" thick panel of 703. This works out to 1 1/2"=12". Perfect size. Once I had my scale, I gathered a bunch of materials. Since my wife sells on ebay, we have a ton of packing materials to chose from, which is basically cardboard for boxes, as I have to make boxes to fit merchandize all the time. Another material is "foam board", which is used at Picture framing shops for mounting pictures for framing. I get a ton of their cutoffs for free. I used these for various walls and doors and the soffets in the model. One of the tools I use is a glue gun. Works great on cardboard. I buy glue sticks in bulk at Walfart. Another tool is my tablesaw, which works great for cutting the various materials, and especially for COMPOUND MITER cuts, as you will see in the pics.
So, now I started laying out the floor plan to get my scaled floor, walls and cieling pieces cut. But then it dawned on me, how or from what area was I going to be able to see the interior. Since the front wall/soffets, side walls, and cieling, I decided to remove an area in the floor, and an area between the soffets, and part of the back wall where the closet is. This allows for inserting my HEAD ;D, up through the floor of the model to visualize the room. Not only that, but I could insert a camera and get a real "view" of the room at different angles. Worked great. Although my wife laughed her
ass off when she saw me with my head in the model. Looked like some kind of wierd hat.

Ok, now once i had the basic model, I decided to paint the interior in a constrasting color to the 703, so it would stand out. I chose a red PRIMER, as it sealed the cardboard as well as imitated a flat paint in a room. This is NOT the color I'll be using in the real room though. ACK! red primer is not my color of choice. Actually the painted areas that will be seen will be a metalic paint. Very cool.

Anyway, after I painted it, then I started figuring out a basic "superchunk" layout, and figured the materals it would take. Problem was, once I had it built, the standard superchunk layout didn't really fit my idea of the visual concept in my head. This is when I decided to work on the area between the soffets. Man, I have the REAL framing for the soffits built, but laying out a miniture version took some head scrating to get the angles. Took an hour to lay em out, cut and gluing in place. Once I had them, the model really started to take shape. Then I did the rear angled entrance door wall, and the closet, and the opposite storage door wall. Even had doors that opened, by cutting the foam boar on the hinge side, only slightly through, then bent the door outward. Worked great ;D Well, on to the soffet area. Now, I have a CAD drawing of a longitudinal section through the room. From this drawing, I worked out a sloped area from halfway up the wall, to the "cloud". But to put a panel of fiberglass that fit the soffet angles.....man what a brain burner. But I finally got it and now for the superchunks. I put on my thinking cap, and went into "non linea"r thinking mode Thats when it dawned on me. Instead of making the standard superchunk, why not use LINEAR panels to build up a superchunk. One of the problems this solves, is how to die the superchunk into the soffets, and also allow for the doors at the rear of the room to open, while still maintaining a visual concept that I had in mind. VOILA!! It dawned on me again. COMPOUND MITERS!

Supercreep · Oct 1, 2007

..Bookmarked.

Great work, Rick. Thanks for the info.

pandamonk · Oct 1, 2007

RICK FITZPATRICK said:
Howdy guys. Its been a long time since I posted anything. So here goes.

I recently picked up these panels.
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/insulation5.jpg
Ok guys, the point of this post is to illustrate my latest project. Namely, to utilize the materials I have to their best advantage. Once I had the materals, then I began building a fullscale cardboard "mockup" of one 24"x 72" x 4" thick panel, used across a wall/cieling corner. Trouble was, it was difficult to relocate it, as well as visualize what it is I REALLY wanted this to look like in the studio. Not only that, because of the geometry of my room, there are no wall/wall corners to utilize "superchunks", except at the rear closet, which is the point of my another upcoming thread titled "Rear Wall Options". And I've decided to use the closet for a Skyline diffuser, although there are areas that could be filled with 703, but at this time, I'm more interested in using what I have for the rest of the room. The other problem was DESIGN. Folks, I've been a designer for many years as well as a CAD detailer/draftsman. And for the last two years I tried to visualize what it was I wanted in the way of "treatment", at the front, sidewalls, and cieling. For four years I've been fortunate enough to run across forums such as this one, whereby I've been able to grasp a few concepts for treating a room acoustically. But visualizing something in 3D in Autocad leaves a lot to be desired. I even tried a few 3d programs suich as Sketchup and Rinocerous, but haven't found a way to convert the file format extention to something i can post on the net. Even then, the 3D programs really DIDN'T allow for visualizing a space from INSIDE the space. At least from what I knew I wanted to see. Thats when the idea to build an actual model, instead of a virtual model. Hence this post.

The first thing I had to determine was scale. Since I had about 20 rigid fiberglass cieling tiles, and they were 1/2" thick, I determined I could scale the 1/2" to equal a 4" thick panel of 703. This works out to 1 1/2"=12". Perfect size. Once I had my scale, I gathered a bunch of materials. Since my wife sells on ebay, we have a ton of packing materials to chose from, which is basically cardboard for boxes, as I have to make boxes to fit merchandize all the time. Another material is "foam board", which is used at Picture framing shops for mounting pictures for framing. I get a ton of their cutoffs for free. I used these for various walls and doors and the soffets in the model. One of the tools I use is a glue gun. Works great on cardboard. I buy glue sticks in bulk at Walfart. Another tool is my tablesaw, which works great for cutting the various materials, and especially for COMPOUND MITER cuts, as you will see in the pics.
So, now I started laying out the floor plan to get my scaled floor, walls and cieling pieces cut. But then it dawned on me, how or from what area was I going to be able to see the interior. Since the front wall/soffets, side walls, and cieling, I decided to remove an area in the floor, and an area between the soffets, and part of the back wall where the closet is. This allows for inserting my HEAD ;D, up through the floor of the model to visualize the room. Not only that, but I could insert a camera and get a real "view" of the room at different angles. Worked great. Although my wife laughed her
ass off when she saw me with my head in the model. Looked like some kind of wierd hat.

Ok, now once i had the basic model, I decided to paint the interior in a constrasting color to the 703, so it would stand out. I chose a red PRIMER, as it sealed the cardboard as well as imitated a flat paint in a room. This is NOT the color I'll be using in the real room though. ACK! red primer is not my color of choice. Actually the painted areas that will be seen will be a metalic paint. Very cool.

Anyway, after I painted it, then I started figuring out a basic "superchunk" layout, and figured the materals it would take. Problem was, once I had it built, the standard superchunk layout didn't really fit my idea of the visual concept in my head. This is when I decided to work on the area between the soffets. Man, I have the REAL framing for the soffits built, but laying out a miniture version took some head scrating to get the angles. Took an hour to lay em out, cut and gluing in place. Once I had them, the model really started to take shape. Then I did the rear angled entrance door wall, and the closet, and the opposite storage door wall. Even had doors that opened, by cutting the foam boar on the hinge side, only slightly through, then bent the door outward. Worked great ;D Well, on to the soffet area. Now, I have a CAD drawing of a longitudinal section through the room. From this drawing, I worked out a sloped area from halfway up the wall, to the "cloud". But to put a panel of fiberglass that fit the soffet angles.....man what a brain burner. But I finally got it and now for the superchunks. I put on my thinking cap, and went into "non linea"r thinking mode Thats when it dawned on me. Instead of making the standard superchunk, why not use LINEAR panels to build up a superchunk. One of the problems this solves, is how to die the superchunk into the soffets, and also allow for the doors at the rear of the room to open, while still maintaining a visual concept that I had in mind. VOILA!! It dawned on me again. COMPOUND MITERS! 8) What a pain in the ass though. Each cut took cranking the blade on the table saw to 45 degrees and back. More or less like the compound miters when installing CROWN MOULDINGS. Which is where this idea came from. The superchunks are nothing more than Crown mouldings in layers, just like you build up a large crown moulding.

Well, folks I'm outa time. I don't know how many links I can post in one post, but I'll start with all of them and see if it works. If not, I'll have to post the rest of what won't tonight. Ok, later guys

Here is the scaled version of the full panels in my truck.
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/insulation3.jpg
Here is the plain model.
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/form.jpg

And heres the rest.

http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/form2.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/form3.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/form4.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/form5.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/form6.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/form8.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/insulation.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/insulation2.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/insulation3.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/insulation4.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/superchunkmodel1.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/superchunkmodel2.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/superchunkmodel3.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/superchunkmodel4.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/superchunkmodel5.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/superchunkmodel6.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/model1.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/model2.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/model3.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/model5.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/model6.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/model8.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/model9.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/model10.jpg
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/model11.jpg

Hope this works.
fitZ

Looks like some futuristic spacecraft thing. Looks good though. It's great to be able to see how it's going to look. Can't wait to see the real thing now.

ez_willis · Oct 1, 2007

RICK FITZPATRICK said:
I recently picked up these panels.
http://Stingrayproductions.net/GIFs/RMFstudio/Modelpics/insulation5.jpg

Looks good, Rick! How much were those panels, including tax?

Reggie · Oct 2, 2007

Wow, you are clearly insane!

What are you planning on doing to cover the fiberglass and hold it in place?

Mo-Kay · Oct 3, 2007

Reggie said:
Wow, you are clearly insane!

What are you planning on doing to cover the fiberglass and hold it in place?

that's what I wanna know.

btw there's something really funny about that picture of your truck completely crammed with panels

mrhotapples · Oct 4, 2007

Mo-Kay said:
that's what I wanna know.

btw there's something really funny about that picture of your truck completely crammed with panels

I don't see what's funny about having fibgerglass panels crammed up your ass.

I'm having a really hard time figuring out which way the floor is in your model. Help! Maybe I should go back to sleep...

Oh! wall-ceiling...I get it...D'oh.

VSpaceBoy · Oct 9, 2007

Wow that looks great. Looks like a good layout and use for the insulation.

Are you going to do any prior testing to make sure this is the best overall use of the materials? I'd also be interested in the before and after results using it in the layout of the model.

RICK FITZPATRICK · Oct 10, 2007

Hi guys. Sorry for not getting back to you right away. Been busy building the soffit fronts and monitor decoupling units...plus "honey do's", trips, work, cars..fixing toilets, packing ebay, and a ton of regular lifes crap. :rolleyes:

I have a ton of stuff to show ya, but it takes time to load it etc. No time right at the moment but I WILL do it soon. My studio building takes precedence and it is ALMOST done.

As to your questions, I'll try to post some answers tonight. Right now I have things to do and I'm late as usual. :rolleyes:

So, talk to you soon. Later guys.

Oh, btw, as to mounting and covering the fiberglass....think FIXTURES. This is easy stuff. Build a fixture as fabric FRAME, stuff the fiberglass INTO the fixture, and hang it by cleats. No big deal.

fitZ

RICK FITZPATRICK · Dec 18, 2007

Update ..real frame construction

Howdy guys. Well, I finally got some time to start building the ceiling/wall superchunk frames. Here are some pictures of the lower left unit. Unfortunately, my host server is down at the moment so I have to attach these one at a time over a few posts. Sorry. Anyway, this frame is NOT finished by any means, These pics are to illustrate my strategy in framing a complex geometry. I HATE just covering a panel of 703 for a bass trap. To me, the acoustic treatment should be part of an overall design goal. My design is illustrated in the models.

As to my strategy, these frames are based on standard cabinet FACEFRAME construction, utilizing whats known as "Pocket boring", and fastening technique. This allows for fastening two pieces with a standard butt joint so each piece is flush at the front surface. The "pocket bores" were done on a PorterCable pocket boring machine. Alll 380 of em! :eek:

Did the boring in one tedious exercise. Got a blister on my hand from pulling the handle twice for each manuver. Fuck. Took an hour and a half to bore these pieces, which are the spacer stiles.

This will take about 4 posts to upload the attachments. So bear with me on this one. Heres the first set of 4, but they are NOT in the correct assembly sequence. Sorry.

Anyway, enjoy.
fitZ

RICK FITZPATRICK · Dec 18, 2007

Here is the second set. Maybe some similar pics, but what the hell

RICK FITZPATRICK · Dec 18, 2007

Here are some more. The difficult part is fastening the beveled returns. Thank god for compound miter saws and Air staplers.

RICK FITZPATRICK · Dec 18, 2007

Here is the last few. Before i can finish the left and right lower frames, I have to build the upper frames and install them, to fit the lower frames against the soffets, and custom cut each compound mitered rail to the face of the soffet. Then its on to the beveled FRONT frames, and the Cloud. Can't wait to install the rigid fiberglass and cover these in fabric. Anyway, its a start.
fitZ

pandamonk · Dec 18, 2007

RICK FITZPATRICK said:
Here are some more. The difficult part is fastening the beveled returns. Thank god for compound miter saws and Air staplers.

The spaceship's coming together Rick!

. I just got myself a compound mitre saw(just a cheapie, £25) a few weeks back, and completely agree with you.

RICK FITZPATRICK · Dec 18, 2007

The spaceship's coming together Rick! .

Thanks pandamonk.
Wait till you see the "overhead rackmounts" at the edge of the cloud. :eek:

Thats what will really make it look like a "cockpit"

(just a cheapie, £25) a few weeks back, and completely agree with you.

Good for you. Sometimes woodworking gear has to come ahead of studio gear just so the studio gear gets a good home.

pandamonk · Dec 18, 2007

RICK FITZPATRICK said:
Thanks pandamonk.
Wait till you see the "overhead rackmounts" at the edge of the cloud. Thats what will really make it look like a "cockpit"

Good for you. Sometimes woodworking gear has to come ahead of studio gear just so the studio gear gets a good home.

I always look forward to seeing your studio/work Rick. I think mainly 'cause it's been so rare, and 'cause you give good advice, and have done since well before i joined. Infact, could you check my answers to the soundproofing existing rooms thread?

Cheers

Lee

RICK FITZPATRICK · Dec 18, 2007

I think mainly 'cause it's been so rare,

Thats because time/money is rare for ME.

Fortunately, I've been off work for a few weeks and its given me some "rare" time to do this. Even posting pics takes time, not to mention answering other posts. Besides, old fart syndrome seems to have invade my replys sometimes. :rolleyes:

Don't mean to be that way, but I'm working on it. A slap to the head from my wife enfluences it a bit too.

Don't have anymore time today, but i'll check your replys as soon as I can.
fitZ

Reggie · Dec 19, 2007

And....you lost me.

You are into some stuff that I have no idea, but it all looks very interesting! I'm always jealous of people who are good with woodworking. I am happy when I can make something resembling a rectangle to frame a panel.

The only semi-interesting thing I have built (aside from the panels hanging by heavy fishing line in my living room

) is my "superchunk on wheels." Since my breaker box is right in the corner, I decided to put my super chunks on casters so I can roll them out of the way. Since I also wanted them as lightweight as possible, they didn't end up being too stable; but they do work!
I think your philosophy on acoustic design is great; why not make it be useful AND look cool?

chugheshc · Dec 21, 2007

wow Rick, just, wow.
Thats beautiful stuff. Makes me ashamed at the amount of effort i put into my space. rock on!
Chris

RICK FITZPATRICK · Dec 21, 2007

wow Rick, just, wow.

Thank you kindly. Lots more work to do though. Just to illustrate what part this is, it is the LOWER Unit. Here is a Vertical Section through one whole assembly. The reason for seperate sections is the upper section is longer than the lower section, and since they are both covered in fabric, I had to seperate them to facilitate wraping them in the fabric. Anyway, here is the section
fitZ

Modeling linear "Superchunks" and other fun stuff.

RICK FITZPATRICK

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..loading

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