# Unique DIY Absorber Guide + Mounting in front of windows and under drop ceiling



## BangkokMatt (Jun 21, 2015)

Here is a ten step guide for making cheap 2" thick fiberglass broadband absorbers with a 2" air gap from materials easily available in Thailand. At the bottom of the post are guidelines for using panels as ceiling clouds and for installation in front of windows or other obstructions that can't be drilled into. 

I'm from the US but I live in Thailand. Hopefully you guys can get some of this glass cloth over there. try googling it. it's amazing stuff. And I think if you google spindle pins you'll find those over there too. Here is the absorption coeficients of the fiberglass wrapped in glass cloth sold in Thailand. 










If you have any questions please ask me. 

*Materials needed:*



[li]Cyclene Zoftone (glasscloth wrapped 48kg/m3 rigid fiberglass OC703 equivalent) W050M Plain. (http://www.topinsulation.com/cylence3.htm). [/li]
This is quality stuff, the edges are nice and the glass cloth is amazing. Way better than any other kind of cloth. 

[li]Glass cloth (to close the backs of the panels which have exposed fiberglass) – Available through Top Insulation. It is about 1.4 meters wide. I bought 8 meters from which I backed 11 panels and have enough left over for one more.[/li]
This stuff is great. It cuts just by sliding open scissors over it. (Be careful the edges of this cloth can cut your hands). It's a nice hard cloth that doesn't attract dust and seems like it would never grow mold or fray. A bird pooped on one of my zoftone panels and I wiped it off with a wet cloth and it was as easy as cleaning plastic. I highly recommend this over any other cloth covering. 

[li]Wooden Frames[/li]
[li]Spindle Pin and Plastic Cap 8 sets per Panel – Top Insulation (6 baht / set). Recommend ordering some extra as I had one plastic cap that didn’t work and one was missing or lost.[/li]
[li]Picture Hanging wire and hardware [/li]
[li]2” Screws – 4 per panel[/li]
[li]3M Spray Adhesive (Home Pro)[/li]
[li]Silicone Sealant (To fill any holes on the back you might make by mistake)[/li]
[li]Scotch Floor Care Pads (Home Pro) – 4 per panel[/li]
[li]Hooks with screws (if you're making a ceiling cloud) see bottom of post[/li]
[li]Steel angle bar (if you're installing in front of windows or other obstructions (like a whiteboard) see bottom of post[/li]
*
INSTRUCTIONS*

*1. Close the backs of your Zoftone with glass cloth.*

Tape a plastic drop cloth onto the floor to keep glue off the floor. Roll your glass cloth out over the plastic dropcloth. Spray the back of your Zoftone with spray adhesive around the edges and corners. You don’t have to coat the middle or use a lot of adhesive. I suggest holding a piece of plastic or future board up as a shield while spraying to prevent spray adhesive from getting messy on the sides of your panels. Carefully place the panel down on the cloth floor avoiding any wrinkles (the glass cloth is very wrinkle resistant). Let dry and then trim the edges of the glasscloth backing by sliding an open pair of scissors along the edges to trim the cloth) The glasscloth is very easy to work with and trims right off). Use a silicone sealant to fill any holes, wrinkles or mistakes that you made. You might want to just use silicone instead of spray adhesive as it’s easy to work with and doesn’t set right away so may be harder to make mistakes.
*
2. Make a template for marking the location of spindle pins on your wood frames.*
I was making 11 frames so didn’t want to measure each time. The template is a time saver. I made mine from the Zoftone box. Space out your pins as shown in my 3d model.










Here is the completed template. 










*3. Mark the locations for spindle pin on your frames. 8 pins are used for one panel.*










*4. Nail or glue with construction adhesive spindle pins onto frame.*


















*5. Make a cardboard template to mark the locations of the spindle pins on you’re the back of your Zoftone.*










Your template should be the same size as the Zoftone and have holes in the location for each pin as shown in this installation diagram. 










*6. Mark with pencil where the pins will skewer your Zoftone ON THE BACK. *









Pencil writes on the glass cloth perfectly. I love this glass cloth material









*7. Push the spindle pins through your Zoftone.*

Place the panel front side down on a table and align the spindle pins to the marks you’ve made on the back.









Push down. 









Turn the panel over and lightly press around the location of each pin so it sticks through the front of the glass cloth










*8. Push the plastic caps onto the spindle pins*

Push your plastic caps down onto the spindle pins.








The pins are a bit long and The plastic caps will not hold the fiberglass securely so you have to press hard so the pin bends inside the cap and it presses tightly against the fiberglass.
Before pushing hard to bend the pin








After pushing hard and bending the pin








*

Now you have a beautiful panel firmly attached to a frame that looks like this. 

In the front









In the back. 









9. Install your 2” screw spacers.*

Pilot holes in the 4 corners of your wood. 








Screw the 2” screws in so it just pokes through the other side of the wood but not into the fiberglass. This will give you exactly a 2” air gap (Just what you want for the 5CM Zoftone.) Measure to make sure the exposed length of each screw is equal.









Put a Scotch Floor Care Pad on the end of each screw (the glue on these is very good and worked fine even though the head of my screws was much smaller than the floor care pad).
*
10. Install your picture hanging hardware.*
For my frames I use 79CM slings. (I think) Thread your picture hanging wire through the ends of the eyehole and smash flat with a hammer to lock them in place. 









Screw the slings onto your frames. After much testing I found that the most balanced place to attach them to the frame was 27.5 CM down from the top of the wood.










*Your panel is now ready for installation. Below is a guide to hanging your panels*

*Hang your panels.*

Put a tape measure into your picture hanging sling and pull it tight to the top of your frame. Measure the distance (small) from the tight wire to the top of your frame. Measure on your wall where you want the top of your Zoftone to be. Measure down from here the difference between the top of the zoftone and the top of your sling and mark it on the wall. Drill a screw into the wall and hang here.

Here are two panels hanging side by side. 









* For Ceiling Clouds.*

For ceiling clouds make the panels the same as above following steps 1 - 8 ( the spindle pin caps are strong and bite onto the spindle pin so they will hold the Zoftone even when upside down).


*Screw a hook by hand into each corner of the wooden frame.*
















I hung mine on a classroom suspended ceiling using two plastic scissor hooks that attach to the ceiling grid and 38” military strength cable ties as the hanger. You could use string, wire, or cable instead.








The plastic ceiling hooks look like this








and these are 38" military strength cable ties I used to hang them (175 lb strength and total overkill but AWESOME muahahaha :yoyo(63)









*
To install panels in front of windows or sliding doors.*
I had a glass window and a whiteboard I wanted to install absorption in front of. For this I used steel angle bars which I screwed into the wall in front of the whiteboard and the window. I attached two 35cm pieces of angle bar to each frame and then attached them to two long angle bars the length of the whiteboard or window. The whole apparatus can be assembled on the floor and then lifted with a friend’s help and screwed into the wall. *You need two bars going across. I tried it with one and it wasn’t strong enough. 
*In front of the whiteboard*
















*in front of the window*









Here are some pics of my classroom studio after installing 11 panels. I recorded a track in there last night and it sounds great. I used some angle bar around the whiteboard to make a frame for clamping the colored backgrounds to so I don't have to worry about wrinkles. I had some extra acoustic foam lying around so I hot glued that onto the whiteboard on the sides.


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## BangkokMatt (Jun 21, 2015)

Looks like my pictures won't show up. Here's the same guide on Thai Audio Club. I highly recommend you guys try fiberglass cloth for your panels. http://thaiaudioclub.net/board/index.php?topic=27516.0


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## NBPk402 (Feb 21, 2012)

I fixed it for you.


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## BangkokMatt (Jun 21, 2015)

Thank you Ron. Looks good. I like that the pictures were resized too.


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