my first door seal
the corner bass traps in the mix area are such that one of them is going to completely cover the access panel in the wall. this means that before i can get moving with those i first need to complete the panel assembly. this is basically a small door but without hinges and made out of plywood, so it was a good thing for me to practice on in preparation for doing the real doors.
first i had to create the jamb in the opening and seal it with acoustic caulk:
next came the panel. i took 3 pieces of 3/4" plywood and glued them together. i had to make it this thick since plywood isn't as dense as drywall and i wanted to make sure i have a mass in that space comparable to 2 layers of 5/8" drywall.
the rubber seal that goes around the doorway is kind of a weird shape. the longer side of the "V" shape gets recessed in the door stop...
here's the door stop ripped to create a cavity for the seal. note to self: rip fence at 3/8", blade at 22.5 deg.
next i cut the stops for each side and mounted on the jamb:
and finally i glued the seal in. they come all coiled up, so it was a real bitch getting the pieces to stay in place until the glue started to set--they kept curling and popping back out of the stop. i eventually managed to get them to stay put just long enough for me to shove the panel in the opening, prop a concrete block up against it, and call it a night.
overall things came out ok. in the future, i need to do a better job on the carpentry of the stops--one corner came up a hair too shy. i also need to find a better way to get the gaskets to stay in place, as well as doing a better job with the corners--i kind of cut them haphazardly and sort of eyeballed the angle. dumb idea.
my initial tests indicated that the seal could be compressed up to about 3/8" thick, so i set the stop back a distance of the panel thickness + 3/8. after everything was in place, i found that under normal circumstances the seal won't actually compress that much and i should have recessed it another 1/8-1/4" to compensate, as the panel won't go flush with the jamb. this morning i had the bright idea to knock off the inside edges of the panel a bit, just enough to allow the panel to fit all the way in but still fit snugly in the seal. but in my haste i didn't double-check where i had the rip fence set and midway through the cut i realized i was ripping too deep into the panel and now it fits too loosely inside the seal. so it looks like i'll be making me another panel today. fortunately, they're relatively easy to make.