Searched all forums here for the last year and found no references to water putty use, application or support methods or suggestions.
I just finished "doing" a set of large boxes with water putty in all corners in order to seal the boxes tight, acoustically. ... If anyone is interested I will do a little show and tell here about methods and results ...
?? 😕 ??
... = 😎
I just finished "doing" a set of large boxes with water putty in all corners in order to seal the boxes tight, acoustically. ... If anyone is interested I will do a little show and tell here about methods and results ...
?? 😕 ??
... = 😎
fresh water putty exp. / pictures later
OK, here goes the preliminary report ... who what when where & why.
Intention: to rebuild a decent set of speaker boxes with the best drivers and best DIY treatments possible for under US$1000. Drivers and bass woofers and passive radiators cost about US$800 plus shipping, so that leaves some spare change for the box treatments and some other parts. ( Drivers & crossover electronics from: gr-research.com ... the AV-4 kit )
The speaker boxes used here:
Outside Dimenisions: 40" tall, 14" wide, 11" deep. Plywood with maple veneer (sides & top) and particle board (front, rear and bottom). These boxes survived the Great Petaluma Flood of 1986 ... saturated with mud to 18" deep in the bottoms. Naturally the original drivers were trash. These were originally a DIY project from another source, but I liked the size and shape and thought they had potential. (Modern speaker box construction usually excludes particle board in favor of MDF, but this stuff has held up pretty well over the years, dispite the flood.) I had already added an interior chamber for the tweeters and mid range drivers made of exterior plywood (exterior has the voids and gaps filled) ... and pre-cut and drilled the various holes for the new driver and crosover mounts ... and plugged up the old, unneeded ports using particle board scraps from the new holes and pine 1 X 2 bracing, etc.
The Water Putty Treatment:
A given: Water putty application to cracks and interior corners is apparently one of the better ways to seal said cracks, fill any small holes and "brighten" the acoustic interior of speaker boxes.
Materials:
* "Water Putty" ... I used a four pound container of Durham's "rock hard", made in Texas = The large container is about two quarts (~one liter) in volume. (Apparently there are several manufacturers of this and similar products. Durham's is a light yellow powder, fluffy ... and apparently non-poisonous ... my cat didn't like it much.
* Access to a hot and cold water sink.
Location, location, location: Out of doors on a concret slab like a patio or drive way. It is not recommended that this process be done indoors (to messy) or on a grass lawn (to much dirt can get in the mix) or on a wooden surface like a deck as the cleanup will leave quite a mess and might ruin the finish of a wood surface. If you have enough room in your garage ... well, go for it ... I like to spread out and used an area about 10 feet by ten feet.
Tools used:
A coffee cup of the restaurant variety, ceramic, glass or porcelain and a restaurant spoon for same.
A hammer, ball peen type or regular (NOT to be used on the boxes).
A roll of paper towels.
A wooden stick ... like a painter's stir stick or part of a shake shingle.
A vacuum cleaner with hose.
Optional tools:
A push broom.
Drop cloths, old newspapers, etc. in an attempt to keep the mess to a minimum may be a good idea, but if you are working on a concret slab, clean up is actually quite easy without.
A small bottle of sippin' whiskey (Southern Comfort works) ... one of those small "airline bottles" should is plenty.
Something to read like this morning's newspaper.
Time alloted: two, four hour sessions, a total of eight hours should be enough, but this can't all be done at once or in one setting. I started on a Friday afternoon about 4 PM, did a bunch of the smaller corners and now it is Saturday afternoon and I'm done with all the water putty applications and most of the cleanup.
Attitude:
There are two ways to approach this, the proper, fastidious way and the cowboy way. As you will eventually see from the pictures (next week), I chose the impatient cowboy way. It does not really matter unless you want the end result to be museum quality. After the cleanup is accomplished and paint or stain is applied to the speaker boxes, the results will be very close to the same either way.
The corners will be filled by laying the speakers at an angle with the edge & corners under consideration at the bottom, resting on the concret. (pictures later) This is so that gravity works with you in making even fills and soaking into the cracks, etc. The water putty is runny, so it pours and fills the lowest levels ... and runs out through any holes onto the concret. means 12 interior corners and edges to be treated ... ! one edge at a time ! .... 12 operations, 12 mixes, 12 applications of water putty, 12 dry times, etc. ...
😕 🙄 😱
Preliminary: vacuum the heck out of the boxes. Any residual saw dust is a pain and could mess up the mess.
Short Version:
1) clear the area.
2) Lean the speakers on edge to fill interior corners and edges.
3) Mix up a batch.
4) Apply it.
5) Wait until that batch has set up. (20 minutes to one hour, depending.)
6) Repeat ... #2 thru #6 ... 11 more times or as required !!
7) When done with all the cracks, holes corners and edges ... then you can clean up.
Long Version with interesting details:
1) Clear the area ... pretty self explainary. I chose summer time, clear weather, warm afternoons. I believe this could be done easily in spring, summer or fall, as long as it is not raining (or snowing) and out door temperatures are above 45 F.
2) Pictures are coming ... a rectangular box has four sides plus top and bottom. If nothing else is inside the box (like my extra, interior middie/tweeter chamber), then that means 12 interior corners and edges to be treated ... ! one edge at a time ! = 12 operations, 12 mixes, 12 applications of water putty, 12 set up times, etc. ...
3) The Mix:
a) Into the coffee cup put about 1/2" of water ... no more, less for smaller batches ... 1.25 centimeters of water in the cup is PLENTY.
b) Mix in two heaping spoons of The Stuff. Stir and stir some more.
c) Add two more heaping spoons of Water Putty ... and stir, stir and stir ... Notice the thickness. This should be about the consistancy of split pea soup. If you get it too thick, no worry mates as it will just take more and more stiring. If it gets really thick, you will waist a lot of The Stuff by putting too much in each crack and edge. This is OK, but setup times get much longer, too. I put in plenty, stired until it hurt, applied big fat runny trails ... and used up almost all of the Water Putty in the four pound bucket.
Cowboy that I am, I figured (incorrectly) that more was better. It wasn't until almost the very end (today) that I tried a runny, soupier batch and discovered that !! it went in much more quickly, filled the cracks better, made much less mess inside and outside ... Now I know better = 1/2 inch of water plus four or five heaping spoons of The Stuff, stir quite a bit until all the chunks are gone, pour it in to all available edges and corners , wait bout 30 minutes, roll the boxes over and apply another batch.
Well, it is now sundown out here in the west, so I'll sign off for now and post the pictures, later ... chemical camera plus scanner takes about three days ... 😉
BTW: The sippin' whickey is for when you get too impatient and want to stick your fingers in there and mess with the mess, messing it up. Take a sip and relax, read the paper, do the dishes, take out the trash ... between batches is not as boring as you might think and you can get a lot of other stuff done ... patience is a virtue and the rewards are a coming ...
Almost forgot = Clean up. Thak the hammer and bust up yesterdays chunks that spilled out on the concret ... wipe down your speaker boxes with the wet paper towels between applications ... throw away everything but the boxes, the partial can of Stuff, the tools and the whikey.
OK, here goes the preliminary report ... who what when where & why.
Intention: to rebuild a decent set of speaker boxes with the best drivers and best DIY treatments possible for under US$1000. Drivers and bass woofers and passive radiators cost about US$800 plus shipping, so that leaves some spare change for the box treatments and some other parts. ( Drivers & crossover electronics from: gr-research.com ... the AV-4 kit )
The speaker boxes used here:
Outside Dimenisions: 40" tall, 14" wide, 11" deep. Plywood with maple veneer (sides & top) and particle board (front, rear and bottom). These boxes survived the Great Petaluma Flood of 1986 ... saturated with mud to 18" deep in the bottoms. Naturally the original drivers were trash. These were originally a DIY project from another source, but I liked the size and shape and thought they had potential. (Modern speaker box construction usually excludes particle board in favor of MDF, but this stuff has held up pretty well over the years, dispite the flood.) I had already added an interior chamber for the tweeters and mid range drivers made of exterior plywood (exterior has the voids and gaps filled) ... and pre-cut and drilled the various holes for the new driver and crosover mounts ... and plugged up the old, unneeded ports using particle board scraps from the new holes and pine 1 X 2 bracing, etc.
The Water Putty Treatment:
A given: Water putty application to cracks and interior corners is apparently one of the better ways to seal said cracks, fill any small holes and "brighten" the acoustic interior of speaker boxes.
Materials:
* "Water Putty" ... I used a four pound container of Durham's "rock hard", made in Texas = The large container is about two quarts (~one liter) in volume. (Apparently there are several manufacturers of this and similar products. Durham's is a light yellow powder, fluffy ... and apparently non-poisonous ... my cat didn't like it much.
* Access to a hot and cold water sink.
Location, location, location: Out of doors on a concret slab like a patio or drive way. It is not recommended that this process be done indoors (to messy) or on a grass lawn (to much dirt can get in the mix) or on a wooden surface like a deck as the cleanup will leave quite a mess and might ruin the finish of a wood surface. If you have enough room in your garage ... well, go for it ... I like to spread out and used an area about 10 feet by ten feet.
Tools used:
A coffee cup of the restaurant variety, ceramic, glass or porcelain and a restaurant spoon for same.
A hammer, ball peen type or regular (NOT to be used on the boxes).
A roll of paper towels.
A wooden stick ... like a painter's stir stick or part of a shake shingle.
A vacuum cleaner with hose.
Optional tools:
A push broom.
Drop cloths, old newspapers, etc. in an attempt to keep the mess to a minimum may be a good idea, but if you are working on a concret slab, clean up is actually quite easy without.
A small bottle of sippin' whiskey (Southern Comfort works) ... one of those small "airline bottles" should is plenty.
Something to read like this morning's newspaper.
Time alloted: two, four hour sessions, a total of eight hours should be enough, but this can't all be done at once or in one setting. I started on a Friday afternoon about 4 PM, did a bunch of the smaller corners and now it is Saturday afternoon and I'm done with all the water putty applications and most of the cleanup.
Attitude:
There are two ways to approach this, the proper, fastidious way and the cowboy way. As you will eventually see from the pictures (next week), I chose the impatient cowboy way. It does not really matter unless you want the end result to be museum quality. After the cleanup is accomplished and paint or stain is applied to the speaker boxes, the results will be very close to the same either way.
The corners will be filled by laying the speakers at an angle with the edge & corners under consideration at the bottom, resting on the concret. (pictures later) This is so that gravity works with you in making even fills and soaking into the cracks, etc. The water putty is runny, so it pours and fills the lowest levels ... and runs out through any holes onto the concret. means 12 interior corners and edges to be treated ... ! one edge at a time ! .... 12 operations, 12 mixes, 12 applications of water putty, 12 dry times, etc. ...
😕 🙄 😱 Preliminary: vacuum the heck out of the boxes. Any residual saw dust is a pain and could mess up the mess.
Short Version:
1) clear the area.
2) Lean the speakers on edge to fill interior corners and edges.
3) Mix up a batch.
4) Apply it.
5) Wait until that batch has set up. (20 minutes to one hour, depending.)
6) Repeat ... #2 thru #6 ... 11 more times or as required !!
7) When done with all the cracks, holes corners and edges ... then you can clean up.
Long Version with interesting details:
1) Clear the area ... pretty self explainary. I chose summer time, clear weather, warm afternoons. I believe this could be done easily in spring, summer or fall, as long as it is not raining (or snowing) and out door temperatures are above 45 F.
2) Pictures are coming ... a rectangular box has four sides plus top and bottom. If nothing else is inside the box (like my extra, interior middie/tweeter chamber), then that means 12 interior corners and edges to be treated ... ! one edge at a time ! = 12 operations, 12 mixes, 12 applications of water putty, 12 set up times, etc. ...
3) The Mix:
a) Into the coffee cup put about 1/2" of water ... no more, less for smaller batches ... 1.25 centimeters of water in the cup is PLENTY.
b) Mix in two heaping spoons of The Stuff. Stir and stir some more.
c) Add two more heaping spoons of Water Putty ... and stir, stir and stir ... Notice the thickness. This should be about the consistancy of split pea soup. If you get it too thick, no worry mates as it will just take more and more stiring. If it gets really thick, you will waist a lot of The Stuff by putting too much in each crack and edge. This is OK, but setup times get much longer, too. I put in plenty, stired until it hurt, applied big fat runny trails ... and used up almost all of the Water Putty in the four pound bucket.
Cowboy that I am, I figured (incorrectly) that more was better. It wasn't until almost the very end (today) that I tried a runny, soupier batch and discovered that !! it went in much more quickly, filled the cracks better, made much less mess inside and outside ... Now I know better = 1/2 inch of water plus four or five heaping spoons of The Stuff, stir quite a bit until all the chunks are gone, pour it in to all available edges and corners , wait bout 30 minutes, roll the boxes over and apply another batch.
Well, it is now sundown out here in the west, so I'll sign off for now and post the pictures, later ... chemical camera plus scanner takes about three days ... 😉
BTW: The sippin' whickey is for when you get too impatient and want to stick your fingers in there and mess with the mess, messing it up. Take a sip and relax, read the paper, do the dishes, take out the trash ... between batches is not as boring as you might think and you can get a lot of other stuff done ... patience is a virtue and the rewards are a coming ...
Almost forgot = Clean up. Thak the hammer and bust up yesterdays chunks that spilled out on the concret ... wipe down your speaker boxes with the wet paper towels between applications ... throw away everything but the boxes, the partial can of Stuff, the tools and the whikey.
Matbe the product doesn't fit the description, but when I see "rock hard water putty" I think shrinkage, and brittle and bound to crack.
We used it to fill in mouse holes at an old rooming house I lived in almost 20 years ago now. I don't recall it shrinking much, but in our use it was obviously non-critical.
I forgot about it until recently when some people advocated its use for filling in the grooves in the curved sides of the inexpensive Insignia speakers from Best Buy.
Using it to fill in bad woodworking seems like a waste of time. If you spent all that time making nice cuts, you wouldn't need the putty.
Off-topic, I wonder if it would work well for making telescope mirrors - with a tile tool.
I forgot about it until recently when some people advocated its use for filling in the grooves in the curved sides of the inexpensive Insignia speakers from Best Buy.
Using it to fill in bad woodworking seems like a waste of time. If you spent all that time making nice cuts, you wouldn't need the putty.
Off-topic, I wonder if it would work well for making telescope mirrors - with a tile tool.
shrinkage?
... shrinkage?? ... none yet ... and it looks pretty good, sands quite easy ... time will tell
... shrinkage?? ... none yet ... and it looks pretty good, sands quite easy ... time will tell
I've used it to patch up my bad woodwork. Works OK.
As Noah says, a bit brittle and prone to crack. SHould make a great seal, though. Never used it for sealing cabs, as liberal application of white glue seems to do a good enough job.
I think it would be really nice for rounding out corners and sealing at the same time. Easy to sand and shape.
Thanks for the post!
(works well in screw holes, too)
As Noah says, a bit brittle and prone to crack. SHould make a great seal, though. Never used it for sealing cabs, as liberal application of white glue seems to do a good enough job.
I think it would be really nice for rounding out corners and sealing at the same time. Easy to sand and shape.
Thanks for the post!
(works well in screw holes, too)
there is a Marine "water putty" -- it's actually a 2 component epoxy -- you can get it to cure underwater!
I use Bondo -- or get yourself a gallon container of polyester resin and hardener -- make sure you wear a mask for VOC's (you can get one which will work at Sears -- for organics).
I use Bondo -- or get yourself a gallon container of polyester resin and hardener -- make sure you wear a mask for VOC's (you can get one which will work at Sears -- for organics).
Tenson said:
It's a product that has been popular with painters in the USA for decades. Brand is " Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty". Has a image of a strong man on the can.
Looks like a mix of plaster and some fiber. Don't know if you have a similar product in the UK. Used for filling holes, then sanding and painting. Cheap, too.
cheap, yse
... I paid full retail for a four pound can (about the size of a half gallon of milk = US$8.99 + tax.
... I paid full retail for a four pound can (about the size of a half gallon of milk = US$8.99 + tax.
I belive it might be the same as "Fixall"
Fixall is cheap and dries VERY hard with little cracking. Its used a lot to repair damaged area in houses. One has to be careful, as when it hardens it is difficult to sand down! In critivcal applications better to build it up....
Fixall is cheap and dries VERY hard with little cracking. Its used a lot to repair damaged area in houses. One has to be careful, as when it hardens it is difficult to sand down! In critivcal applications better to build it up....
!! OK We have Pictures !!
See http://3dotaudio.com/waterputtyexperiment.html
I used our own web site for the posts. ... all images are 256 color and "web ready" for fast loading.
See http://3dotaudio.com/waterputtyexperiment.html
I used our own web site for the posts. ... all images are 256 color and "web ready" for fast loading.
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