SkyLine Diffusor Calculator Question ??

[Matthew Seed]

Hi Guys

I want to make a custom size Skyline style diffusor from wood for my studio. I can't seem to find a straight answer on the design i.e how to lay out the wood blocks and what length ?

Would anybody know a good calculator for this please ?

Thanks
Matthew

[Hugh Robjohns]

A good place to start is probably here: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1995-01.pdf

[Martin Walker]

blindrew of these forums has built a couple for his studio (and very nice they look too), so will probably be along in a minute with helpful DIY advice.

Martin

[Drew Stephenson]

Ha! I think the only advice I can add is to work out how much wood you need, double check, double check again. Be prepared to be slightly mind-boggled at how much is actually required for a reasonably modestly sized diffuser.
If you take the example in the paper Hugh linked to, of a 2' by 2' (or 60cm in new money) with a maximum depth/protrusion of 20cm. You're looking at 12x12 grid of 2" timber with an average length of 10cm. So one panel will be 14.4m of 5cm x 5cm timber.
Which brings me to my second point - that will be pretty heavy, make sure you use an appropriate wall fixing.

[Eddy Deegan]

Ha! I think the only advice I can add is to work out how much wood you need, double check, double check again. Be prepared to be slightly mind-boggled at how much is actually required for a reasonably modestly sized diffuser.
If you take the example in the paper Hugh linked to, of a 2' by 2' (or 60cm in new money) with a maximum depth/protrusion of 20cm. You're looking at 12x12 grid of 2" timber with an average length of 10cm. So one panel will be 14.4m of 5cm x 5cm timber.
Which brings me to my second point - that will be pretty heavy, make sure you use an appropriate wall fixing.

According to this lumber weight calculator, 47.25 feet (14.4m) of 2x2 Scots Pine weighs just under 19Kg (42lb). Of course there are a number of variables with regards to how dry and what sort of wood it is (these can be plugged into the calculator linked above) but that seems a reasonable ballpark to me.

[Matthew Seed]

Thanks guys for your input. Blind drew what calculator did you use to make yours or did you just go for random lengths. Thanks.

[Drew Stephenson]

Hi Matthew, I just went with a random approach. Given the long list of compromises that my studio is built on it seemed an acceptable trade off.
Mine are a bit smaller than the model in Hugh's link but basically I marked off the timber at increasing sizes (1 cm, 2cm, upwards), lobbed them all in a bag and pulled them out randomly to attach to the backboard.
About halfway down this page there are some photos: https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/view ... &start=270