About ready for some sawdust action...

[max_in_graham]

(OOOPS... My apologies... this should have probably been posted in the Wood Forum)

Sorry I've been rather absent of late... but building this recording studio has proven to be quite a bit more than I had thought it would be. (When people commit to helping, and then don't, you slow down when doing two man jobs by yourself.) Between that, the day job, and two other part time jobs and the economy... it's been a tad insane around here.

The sawdust generation will be coming to the interior finish stage soon... I've got two layers of 5/8" FR gypsum to go up first. But as soon as that's done, I'll be ready to start the finishing process on the oak I scored from the Raleigh Lumber Run.

At any rate, I'm kinda' green when it comes to finishing this much lumber and from this stage. (rough cut) I've got a bazillion questions, and I hope it ain't too much to ask in one post...

I know I start the finishing process of FEE; Faces, Edge, End. My planer should be up to the task, and so should my jointer... I just hope and pray that I'M up to the task! :wink_smil

For the final planer run, I'll try to run it on the slow feed and medium head speed to get the smoothest pass. But is there a good rule of thumb when working a whole pile of lumber? e.g., It make sense to start out by finding the thickest board and work down to the thinnest board. But, should I run all of them through one face at a time, then flip the stack over to the other side and run them through? :dontknow:

(Probably a stoopid question, but I'll ask it anyway.) Since the floorspace I have is kinda' limited to work the lumber, is it going to undo all of the drying process if I take the boards outside to mill em'? I would take them outside a few at a time and take them right back inside to re-stack em.

The construction of the walls/ceilings is essential to understand for this next question. The walls and ceiling are wood framed with 3/4" OSB attached to the framing with 2" screws to minimize/avoid vibration back-out. Over the OSB is two layers of 5/8" FR Gypsum. Each of the layers are set 90 degrees from the previous layer. The first layer of gypsum will be with 1-5/8" drywall screws. The second layer will be 2" screws.

The oak I'm milling, goes over the 2nd layer of gypsum, by attaching it to 1x2 furring strips. (Between the furring strips is 1" rigid insulation.) So, that means that the screws to attach the furring strips need to be at least 3-1/4" long. My question here is two-part... What should I use for furring strips? Pine or Spruce seem like they would be fine for the walls, but therein lies the rub... the ceiling is finished the same way, and I worry about all of that vertical lumber weight on the furring strips. (To minimize splitting of the furring strips when attaching it to the gypsum/OSB, I was planning on pre-drilling mounting holes.) The 2nd part is how would you recommend attaching the oak to the furring strip?? Should I just screw the oak to the furring strip or should I screw through the furring strip all the way to the OSB? OR... should I use a finish nail gun to attach the oak to the wall furring strips and only use screws for the ceiling?

Assuming I'll get the stack done.... When it comes to finishing (thus the above preface of too many questions for one post) my acoustical engineer has commented that the finish of a polyurethane or lacquer on at least 3 sides is essential, but 4 sides would be fine as well. There is a very precise spacing between the oak boards, so that air (sound) will be able to go between them. If I finish 4 sides, am I introducing more chance of warping/movement or less?

Thanks for any advice... including an application for committal to Dix Hill :rotflm:

Here's a link to the studio build blog if you wanna see some insanity at work...

 

[Bas]

I've never done a project as large as yours, so keep that in mind. I have a small 13" lunchbox planer, so I have to take very shallow cuts.

After I've face jointed the boards, I arrange them in order of thickness. Starting with the thickest board, I plane all of them until they're the same thickness. Note that we're talking very small variations here, it's maybe 1/16th at most. I'm planing one face on all of them, the one opposite of the jointed face. Once that's done, I flip the stack over and plane the jointed face. I try to take off the same amount from both sides, to prevent the board from warping. If the board is well acclimated, it's not as important. That's pretty much it.

Typical scenario: Joint boards. Plane opposing sides until same thickness (1-3 passes). Flip over and make 2-3 passes. Flip again and make 2-3 passes. Repeat until correct thickness. I usually do this in stages, letting the wood reacclimate each time. Again, this is only needed if you take off a lot and the wood hasn't been sitting in the shop for 6 months.

You can take the boards outside for milling. It takes days to absorb any significant amount of moisture. I'd be more concerned about temperature variation than humidity. But as long as the wood doesn't go from 90 degree tropical rain forest inside to freezing dry outside tundra, you're fine.

On finishing - you want to finish all sides. That will help the boards gain/ lose moisture at a more consistent rate, which in turn helps prevent warping, splitting etc. Although in a such a controlled environment, I doubt you'll run into many problems.

On the ceiling load - I think screwing all the way into the OSB makes sense, but those would be some hefty screws to drive! Attaching the oak to pine furring strips may work, but yeah, I'd be concerned about the weight as well. You could make the furring strips out of oak as well of course, that should be more solid. That may be cheaper (and less work) than using really long screws. But just speculating here, other people here on the forum can give you better advice.

 

[Travis Porter]

This is my two cents worth, and it is worth what you paid for it.

First, check your wood out. Find out what your thickest board is and start with it. Run every board through and then start bringing it down whatever thickness you are comfortable with.

For wood that is cut with a bandsaw mill with a fairly narrow board, personally, I prefer to flip the boards every pass. The reason for this is some band saw mills and depending on the operator cause the boards to have waves. These waves if they are there will be on both sides. When you have this, it ends up being a PITA to plane and it becomes easier if you plane both sides instead of one side by smoothing out and eliminating the "valleys".

If you don't see any of these valleys, then I would plane one side until smooth and move on. Most will tell you to joint your boards, etc, but with what you are doing and the quantity, it will eat up a lot of time and you aren't really going to get a lot out of it as you are using it to sheet walls IMO.

As for your furring strips, if they are fastened securely and you have them spaced say every 16" I would think you are going to be ok.

As for planing the wood outside, I don't see that as an issue. Just take it back in when you finish. I figure you are planing it outside to keep all the shavings outside and not have to fight with constantly emptying a dust collector. Been there, done that, and will do it again when the time comes.

I don't think you are going to gain or lose anything by finishing 4 sides. Personally, I would just finish 3, but you haven't really said how you are attaching the boards to the furring strips. Screws, nails? How far is the spacing? Say for an 6" board, will that be 2 or 3 screws or nails or something different all together?

 

[russellellis]

Max, ive worked in and built a few studios and ive never had a problem just using a nailgun on the wall boards. go buy a truckload of liquid nails and use it everywhere. theres a few studio specific sealants and adhesives, but no need to pay 3-4 times more for those when liquid nails works just fine. of course screws will give you less of a chance for those wall boards to ever back up and start to give sympathetic vibrations, but with some adhesive and nails youll have it up faster and it will last as long.
are you glueing your sheetrock as well? to the framing as well as each other? are you using a resilient hanging system for the drywall?
for the ceiling, i would suggest either tongue in groove or screws, assuming one day youll want to add clouds. that way you could attach them directly to the wood and not have to shoot for the studs.
are you using off set 6" walls or single 2x4 walls?
as far as furring strips, we always used pine/fir. no problems. and the one tracking room was 45x66. lots and lots of red oak up there.

 

[max_in_graham]

Travis,

Thanks for the heads up on dealing with the waves issue.

I've got some other red oak that was milled from lumber here on the property that has a bit of wave action to it. Otherwise, it looks fairly wave free of what I got from Scott.

The interior finish design is a rotation of 1x4, 1x6 and 1x8 width boards, with constant spacing between the 1x material. The distance between the boards varies according to the wall in the room, but is a minimum of 3/8" up to a distance of 1-1/4"

The boards are going to be mounted in a herringbone 45' angle on 25 walls in 2 rooms.

There is a microlam ridge beam in the main tracking room. The boards on the ceiling are supposed to parallel the main beam. The one side of the beam has about 7 facets to it, and the other side is more or less just a compound curve.

The section of ceiling with the 7 facets is going to have a lot of furring strips that will actually butt up to each other... I'm not so much worried about that side. What worries me is the side that will have long (8 foot) continuous boards.

I can attach the boards to the furring strip however I want. If I'm going to screw them to the furring strips, I'm going to be needing to find a seriously cheap supply of red oak plugs to cap the screwholes!

 

[max_in_graham]

Russell,

Sorry I didn't catch your post... you were posting as mine went up, and didn't see yours until just now.

Sounds like you need a road trip to NC for some carpentry fun! :rotflm:

As far as sealants go, Liquid nails, unfortunately, eventually gets hard and brittle. I'm primarily using OSI's SC-175 acoustic and draft sealant for most of the caulking. At $3.17/20 oz tube, it's quite a bit cheaper than the liquid nails as well.

The walls are 2x6 or 2x8 stud @24" OC with no Resilient Channel. A typical exterior to interior wall section looks like this;

Outside
Hardie Plank
Tyvek wrap
5/8" OSB (vert sheet)
5/8" OSB (horz sheet)
2x8 Stud with 5/8" FR gypsum screwed and cleated in the bay/R-19 paper out
1" air gap
2x6 stud filled with R19
3/4" OSB (horz sheet)
5/8" FR Gypsum (vert sheet)
Green Glue (70% coverage)
5/8" FR Gypsum (horz sheet)
1x furring strip w/1" OC-703 rigid insulation
IFR or FR fabric
1x finished hardwood
Interior space

The use of "Green Glue" between the interior gypsum layers isn't really a glue. It's a viscoelastic polymer that acts as a damping layer. http://www.greengluesoundproofing.com/

I'm not so much worried about a cloud ever being installed. The ceiling in the control room is OSB, gypsum, gypsum and acoustic tile. The room is designed as hard floor/soft ceiling and with the fornier strip design on the walls, we really shouldn't need a cloud. If we do, a set of 3" screws would get to the OSB with no problem.

I spoke to a friend, who's a finish carpenter, about attaching the slats to the furring strips. He suggested using screws in the ends, and nailgun in between.

I'm thinking about doing it that way, but adding liquid nails between the furring strip and the slats as additional holding power. Any thoughts on that?

Max, ive worked in and built a few studios and ive never had a problem just using a nailgun on the wall boards. go buy a truckload of liquid nails and use it everywhere. theres a few studio specific sealants and adhesives, but no need to pay 3-4 times more for those when liquid nails works just fine. of course screws will give you less of a chance for those wall boards to ever back up and start to give sympathetic vibrations, but with some adhesive and nails youll have it up faster and it will last as long.
are you glueing your sheetrock as well? to the framing as well as each other? are you using a resilient hanging system for the drywall?
for the ceiling, i would suggest either tongue in groove or screws, assuming one day youll want to add clouds. that way you could attach them directly to the wood and not have to shoot for the studs.
are you using off set 6" walls or single 2x4 walls?
as far as furring strips, we always used pine/fir. no problems. and the one tracking room was 45x66. lots and lots of red oak up there.