studioporn

after what seems like an eternity, the end of mudding in the main room is finally drawing near. mudding is a long, drawn-out process to begin with, but given various details of soundproofing considerations, this process was even more drawn out and the corners are even more of a pain than they are in standard drywalling. once the current coat finishes drying, all i have to do is put down one final coat on one side of each of the corners, do some touch-up work where needed, and sand everything down.

well, i lied. there is one more thing i have to do. the one outside corner in the room has proven to be a bit tricky, owing to a combination of there being 2 layers of 5/8" drywall, a 1/4" gap at the corner filled with caulk, lack of full framing support running the whole length of the corner, and the splayed angle mean that the standard metal corner beads just don't work here. i had to order a flexible corner bead today with paper facing and wide corner legs in order to handle this space. rather than using nails or other fasteners, this stuff is attached to the corner using regular ol' mud. which leaves me a little bit concerned as to the strength of the corner, but it's not like there are any alternatives. if i had to do this all over, i would have approached that corner a bit differently to avoid all these complications. but in the grand scheme of things it's really not that big of a deal.

in other news, i'm still waiting for the rubber door gaskets to be delivered. given the funky way in which the door stops need to be cut in order to make the gaskets fit, i need to waiit until the gaskets are delivered before doing any door framing so that i can size up the cutting angle and all that fun stuff. i'm also searching for a suitable magnetic weatherstrip product to run along the sides and top of the door to provide another seal.

i'm beginning to plan out the window for the vox booth as well. this will be a dual-window assembly, one on the booth side and one of the main room side (i'll put up a drawing at some point). whenever one puts a hole through a wall for a door or window, it's important to fill that hole with a material at least as heavy as the drywall which would otherwise be there; that way, the only weak point you have to address in terms of soundproofing is along the perimeter of the opening. when it comes to windows, it's also important to use different thicknesses for each piece of glass so that each side has a different resonant frequency. i'll probably do 1/2" for one side and 3/4" for the other. both will be laminated glass, as that is the best in terms of both safety and sound transmission. since laminated glass requires special equipment and stuff for cutting, i'm in the process of tracking down some local glass companies that can do this for me.