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Thread: Noise Absorption - best approach?

  1. #1
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    Noise Absorption - best approach?

    I'm looking for ideas on how to cut down on the noise I experience in my workshop. Luckily the workshop does not permit much sound to escape, but it does have an echo that I would like to cut down in the most reasonable way possible.
    The shop has concrete floors, a high ceiling, wooden garage door and drywall on wall and ceiling surfaces. There isnt much in the room aside from the machines (not anything really).
    I placed hard rubber under the machinery and that helped eliminate any vibratory type noises.
    Most noise comes from the bandsaw, dust collector and jointer/planer, not necessarily from actually planing wood (though I love that sound), but from running. They're not so much worrisome noises as I expect just normal noises being amplified by an echo
    I've researched various ways of doing this, but being especially broke after recent purchases I'm curious to find an effective solution at a minimum of cost. Any thoughts are appreciated.
    Last edited by Lee Schierer; 12-16-2017 at 9:04 AM. Reason: fixed wonky text
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  2. #2
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    Carpet; with a heavy foamed polymer backing, perhaps even new commercial carpet remnants often available for the asking. You need acoustic energy absorptive materials; think of an anechoic chamber... Anything you can do to move toward that ideal; any vacant wall or ceiling space, joist cavities; fill them with absorptive materials such as hanging fabric tapestry, acoustic panels, multiple hung carpet banners, staple sections of commercial carpet to ceiling joists or rafters, etc. Might even consider adhesive or interlocking vinyl flooring panels atop any bare concrete floor surfaces. You need plenty of exposed and overhead surfaces that reflect acoustic energy well below the density of bare softwood panels. Cover those concrete and drywall surfaces with considerably softer and textured materials. To maintain any particular sense of aesthetic décor, there are cork surfaced or woven grass wallpapers and cork bulletin boards worth consideration. Drink wine or whiskey to fuel your better efforts?.. Hotmelt glue, resaw and recycle those corks and natural bottle stoppers; also egg carton packaging until you can readily sense the improvement and perhaps afford something more commercial and uniformly "stylized"; though I personally prefer wall-to-wall quarter-century+ vintage wine corks, applied by halves.
    Last edited by Morey St. Denis; 12-14-2017 at 5:35 PM.

  3. #3
    For echo problems, acoustic panels are a cheap solution. Here's a video that shows how you can make some for just a few dollars.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pABvTWSxOes

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    Thanks gents!
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  5. #5
    I installed a suspended ceiling in my shop, not for accustic reasons, but because it was FREE, did not even think about the added benefits till reading this thread.

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  7. #7
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    The Wood Whisperer has a video showing what he did in his shop to do just what you want.

  8. #8
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    Thanks I will look into that.
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  9. #9
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    Brian,

    The problem is that you're working in an echo chamber. Take care of the walls first, put up some shelving and fill it up with whatever's lying around the house that needs a home, you're looking for irregular surfaces. Tools, sleeping bags, canned goods, paint cans, whatever, it doesn't matter. Irregular shapes will scatter the reflections. Plus it gets all that stuff out of the house and into the garage where it belongs(in your way while you're trying to work).

    That'll take care of reflections from the walls. You may find that's good enough, if not add some absorption panels to the ceiling. You don't need to cover the entire ceiling, a few panels scattered around will be good enough.

    You can buy fancy panels with clips like Marc in his video or you can make them yourself. A trip to Home Depot for a bag of Roxul and two sheets of 1/8" hardboard along with 6 yards of cheap grill cloth from Parts Express is all you need. Plus some time and a stapler. You'll end up with 12 panels that cost you about $10 each. Scatter them around the ceiling attaching them with 2 drywall screws/panel into the joists and don't drive the screws tight. If you don't like looking up and seeing screw holes in the cloth then buy clips or whatever mounting you can come up with. But you did say you were especially broke, right? Sometimes cheap, quick and dirty is the way to go.

    HTH, let us know how it goes.

  10. #10
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    Yes, very broke

    I've been enjoying the fact that I am in a clean shop, but sounds like it is doing me a disservice. I moved all of the junk out of the way so that I could install the J/P and noticed that my shop got a bit louder. Putting up shelves is a good idea and will give me a good place to store additional raw material.
    Excellent, I will do exactly that with the panels and roxul and report back.
    This may be unnecessary but I had been thinking to put up a curtain rod at the garage door and run a heavy noise curtain across the room when I'm working. This will be one place where I feel I might need to spend a few bucks and get the right item, since any old curtain is going to be something that hangs onto dust but an industrial setup will likely be made of material that can release that dust with ease.
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  11. #11
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    Brian,

    I'd leave the garage doors for last and only if you really think you need it after all the above. Your only real option for an effective sound curtain is mass-loaded vinyl(MLV), it's heavy and quite expensive, like around $2.00+/sft for the 1 lb/sft density material. We auto audio guys like it for door panels but we're only buying maybe 16-20 sft for a typical installation. It's the cat's ass when it comes to dampening, second only to lead sheeting(and you don't even want to think about going down that road).

    Best,
    Bill
    Last edited by Bill Graham; 12-15-2017 at 10:16 PM.

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    Bill, Thanks for your advice! Very much appreciated, I will put it to good use.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

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    You may want to start with simple bass traps in the corners and go from there. Another option is to make heavy use of your wall space for storage and fixtures. Things like clamp racks and wall hanging tool cabinets create an unintentional (and unscientific) acoustic diffuser. If you want your walls cleaner and maybe a bit artistic, use up some scraps and make your own wall hung diffuser; see the 4 minute mark here. All these things only improve the sound quality in the room (removing echo and hot spots) and are not containment methods.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  14. #14
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    Great video, gives me some ideas. Thanks for posting.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  15. #15
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    Brian, Bill has hit the nail on the head (re: reflections). While his solutions are are viable for a small interior volume of a car they aren't economically practical for a shop, assuming your shop is larger than a car interior and doesn't have sheet metal walls.
    The easiest place to damp these reflections is at the intersection of two planes, ie. wall-ceiling and such. The biggest bang for the buck takes place at the wall-wall-ceiling intersection.
    The diy home theater guys have a great many inexpensive solutions.
    Google is your friend.
    Rollie

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