So anyways, I'm not carpenter and building my own acoustical treatments and making them look anywhere near decent was more than a little intimidating for me but I tackled it anyways and figured I'd share my experiences with everyone else here who might be considering the same.
I'll keep this as "leymans terms" as possible.
All total, I spent about 200 dollars on the whole project (thought I got a fantastic deal on the 703). That yielded me a 12 count of 2 x 4 acoustical treatments.
Here's the materials:
Owens Corning 703 fiberglass insulation
I somehow picked up 12 of the 24 inch by 48 inch by 2 inch thick boards for 105 dollars locally, expect to pay about 50 to 80 dollars more than that though.
http://acoustimac.com/products.asp
Roughly 15 2 inch by 2 inch by 8 foot long wooden boards
Find this anywhere for roughly 1.50 per board
Any thin, soft, and porous fabric will work. The broadcloth fabric from Hancock Fabrics would probably work (I picked up something somewhat similar to this stuff).
http://www.hancockfabrics.com/product/iMainCat/3232/iSubCat/3321/iProductID/9101/9101.html
About 3 dollars per yard.
Any thin cotton batting from Hancock Fabrics will also work. I just found the thinnest and airyest batting that I could find at the store and had them cut up sheets of that for me. Just go in and ask for batting, they will know what you are talking about
Have them cut into 50 inch tall and 50 inch wide squares so that you can fully wrap the insulation with it.
This stuff is very cheap.
Next is rubber footings to put on the back of the boards to give them some spacing from the walls. I used 1.5 inch screw-through rubber feet, but anything will work really.
If you go into Home Depot and look on the aisle with the "felt pads for the feet of furniture so they don't scratch up hardwood floors" they will send you directly to the right aisle and section you are looking for. The rubber feet are just mixed in with those.
These are about 2 dollars per pack of 2 or 4.
Finally, go to a hobby lobby, picture framing shop, or other type of store and have them attach "wire hangings" to the back of each of your frames. They are very cheap and easy to install if you wish to do it yourself. Its basically just two screws stringing a wire across the back of your frame just like a picture.
This stuff costed me nothing because we own a framing shop, but it cant cost much.
Screws. Some 3 inch wood screws to build your frame. Some 1.5 inch wood screws to attach your plywood triangles mentioned below.
Once again not expensive.
The last material is just cheap and thin plywood. You'll cut this into triangles and run it across the corners of your frame to make them strong and provide a backing for the fiberglass boards so they will stay in place.
Also very inexpensive.
Construction is simple:
Cutting the wood is cake. You will be building 4 foot tall boards for the sides of the frames so simply cut however many of your 2x2x8's in half you'll need. Next take the same 2x2x8's and cut three 27 inch long pieces out of them.
The 27 inch long pieces are the top and bottom of the frame, the 48 inchers are the sides (note the 27 inches is 3 inches wider than your board because it will overlap the side boards to screw them together). Basically you just "butt joint" all the boards together and make a big retangle out of them. Use the 3 inch wood screws to tack these together.
Next take your plywood and cut triangles out of it. Put a triangle at each corner of the frame and screw it in using the 2 inch wood screws to reinforce the corner and to provide a corner backing for the insulation.
That takes care of the framing.
Next take the Owens Corning 703 and wrap a piece of cotton batting all the way around it. Next slide the batting with the 703 inside of it into your frame, it should be very snug but manageable.
Next take your fabric of choice that you are using to dress up the front and sides and wrap it around the front, top, bottom, and sides and staple gun it to the wood. Be sure to stretch it well to pull out all the wrinkles and whatnot.
Once you are done with that cut off the excess fabric, attach the rubber footings to the bottom corners, and attach the "picture hanging wire" somewhere around the top 1/3rd of the frame.
That's pretty much it.
Now granted these wont be the most beautiful acoustical treatments you have ever seen, especially on the back. But who really looks behind them anyways? These might not have a very high W.A.F. but if you have a dedicated dark HT room, managable wife, or are a bachelor and love ugly **** like myself they'll do just fine.
The quality control on ours was somewhere between **** and horse **** (occasionally lack of fabric made us put a staple somewhere where we didn't want to or whatnot) but I must admit even ours looks pretty damn nice. But I'm not your wife thank god so who knows.
Maybe next I'll post the easiest way to build a forgiving wife. Then I'll be rich!
I will post pics soon, probably tomorrow.
Me and 2 friends cranked out about 12 of these things in under 3 hours. Thats way more than enough to cover my 17 wide by 22 deep room.
