Evening Grain

As some of you might know, we got MARRIED. And also bought a house. In that house, there is a big empty wall that tends to produce a lot of echo. With many people in the living area, it can get very annoying.

I saw a wood sound panel in a music video and I thought, “I can do that.” So I did.

I got a stack of premium pine 2x2s and got to cross cutting. I varied the angle around 50 degrees while alternating between my cross cut sled for the right angle on the opposite side. It was tedious work. I reflected on my childhood and breaking fluorescent light bulbs in alleyways.

As the pieces were cut, I began laying them out. This gave me time to consider the pattern. I liked the way it flows when seemingly random, but was lacking order. I ended up doing an up, right, down, left pattern for each 4 squares. This is ultimately how I did the final assembly.

The assembly was kind of boring and also tedious. In fact, the whole project was tedious. I clamped systematically.

The final clamping and pre-finish.

I used a walnut finish and the pine drank it up. One coat was all I needed. If I do another sound panel like this, I’ll probably try a lighter finish. Anyway, people seem to like it and it reflects the lamp light in interesting ways. It looks pretty good in sunlight too.

Now the question is: does it diffuse the echoes? Kind of. I’m no audio engineer.

Onward.