Door Sound Deadening on the SAAB 900

Made some good progress on the sound deadening project over the holidays.  Got the doors done.

Here's the passenger door after removing the interior door trim and the factory weather liner.  You can dispose of the liner after you take it off, it won't be needed.

I wrote about removing the window regulators in order to lubricate them in an earlier post.  I didn't take them out this time, but I did spray some lubricant into the mechanism while I had the door panel off.  The driver's side is painfully slow, and I expect I'll have to take it apart (again) in the spring.

In the last post, I detailed the approach for sound deadening: use CLD tiles on sheet metal that resonates when you tap it, and then put a layer of mass loaded vinyl/closed cell foam (MLV/CCF) over the panel.

On most 'modern' cars, there is a side impact beam in the doors.  The are places along the beam where the outside door skin can rattle against the beam.  You can see the gap (green arrow) between the beam and the outside door skin/sheet metal.

We're going to stuff that gap with some Extruded Butyl Rope.  This still is basically a cylindrical rope of sticky synthetic (butyl) rubber.

You can stretch it and it will maintain it's round (in cross-section) shape.

Here's the bottom edge of that same beam.  In some places, I could stuff the rope behind the beam, and in some places I could stuff it right in the gap.

I did this on the top and bottom edges of the beam.  The doors feel really solid after this!

You can also see one of the CLD tiles I put on the outer door skin.  Before I did the tiles, you could tap the door and it would produce a ringing sound.  After the tiles are attached, it just goes "dhunk" - no resonant sound at all.

Now we go down into The Dungeon and treat the inside of the interior door panel.  Here I'm using hot glue to attach some CCF.  There will be places on the panel that contact the MLV we'll be hanging on the door (see below) and the foam will act as a decoupler to stop vibration.

You have to love a car put together by actual people.  Here's a date on the door panel - 11 June, 1991.

This is the inside of the passenger side interior trim panel.  You can see where I glued the foam onto two places where the panel will contact the vinyl I'm about to install.

The white material is 3M Thinsulate.  Don at Sounddeadenershowdown.com recommends stuffing any open gaps in the panel with this stuff.  It absorbs sound and insulates.

I'm going to line the convertible top with it too.

Here's a door panel with CLD tiles installed - see all the green arrows.  The idea is to cover about 25 percent of the surface.

I tapped the exterior and interior panels, listening for resonance (ringing).  Then I put a tile on that panel.  The tiles can be cut to any shape - you can see the different ones I cut to suit the space.

I had done a bunch of tiles and still had a ringing somewhere on the inside panel.  Finally, I found a surface that was the culprit - see the circled area near the bottom.  That slice of metal was like a little cymbal!  Now the whole door is deadened.

Next I made up MLV-and-CCF panels to attach to the inside of the doors.  I made these the same way as I had with the ones for the floor.  These are hung with a few patches of heavy-duty velcro to hold them in place.

You can see there was a lot of hand trimming to make sure the interior panel would fit back into place easily.  It took me a good 45 minutes to get the panel to fit properly.  Once I had the passenger side done, I used it as a pattern for the driver's side, which went very quickly.

The doors now close with a fine thunk and feel super solid.  So the floor and doors are done, and now I need to finish the back panels.

You can see why this level of deadening/insulation isn't done by the manufacturer.  There is some minimal work done for sure, but this extreme level would just be too cost and labor prohibitive. 

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SAAB c900 Convertible Sound Deadening

I have been working on the SAABmarine over the last couple of weeks.  I actually have some vacation time coming up over the holidays and am hoping to make more progress.  Here's what I've been up to.

The idea is to put some sound deadening onto the floors and behind the door panels and even in the top (!) before I put the new stereo in.

You may recall I have the front seats out, as well as the dash pad.  Now I need to get the carpet up so I can put deadening material under it.

The sill plates are easy to remove - just 3 screws.

With the plates off, you can lift the carpet up.  It's just tucked under the sill plates.

The whole carpet is actually one molded piece.  I toyed with the idea of pulling the whole thing out of the car, but I think I can get under it enough to install the new sound deadening material.

The original owner had one of those old cell phone speaker things on the windshield.  I removed it.

There is also some wiring behind the driver's side kick panel behind the carpet which I am also taking out.  Part of the phone installation was this 9v outlet.  Get out of my car, please!

It took me a while to figure out how to get the rear seat bottom out.  The Bentley repair manual has a factory picture indicating there are four bolts on a trim strip holding the seat bottom in place.

Not on my car.  I finally figured it out...there are two tabs holding the bottom in place.  Just pry the seat up off them.  Maybe early convertibles have bolts?

I like this mounting a lot better.

With the seat bottom out of the car, you can access the two bolts holding the bottom of the seat back in place.  This is one of them.

I believe these are 13mm bolts, but they could have been 15mm...you'll figure it out!

After you take the two bottom bolts out, you can access and remove the two bolts at the top.

There's a slit sewn into the trim behind the seat back on either side - you can get to the two 10mm bolts holding the top of the seat back in place there.

Yes, that is water, coming from somewhere.  I put a towel there to catch it for now.  It really doesn't go anywhere - it just pools up in the top well in heavy rains.

Here's the seat back after it's unbolted.  That must be Baltic birch plywood?

Now the real fun starts.

I bought supplies from Don at Sound Deadener Showdown for this project.  I did a lot of research about sound deadening and decided his method is the best.

You can read a lot on Don's site.  For most of the sound deadening, we're going to use Mass Loaded Vinyl (MLV) as the main deadener.  MLV is a heavy, dense material that will help keep road noise out.

The MLV is decoupled from the vehicle with Closed Cell Foam (CCF).  The foam keeps the vinyl from making contact with the sheet metal of the car.  In the picture above, you can see the MLV (black) about to be glued to the CCF (grey).

We glue the CCF to the MLV with vinyl glue. 

As it turns out, we need a special glue that will adhere to vinyl.  This is the stuff that's recommended - HH-66 Vinyl Cement.

Wear gloves and a mask when you use it.  It's potent stuff.

You can read about the technique on Don's site.

The other part of the sound deadener equation are these CLD tiles.  They're a metal tile that absorb and deaden vibration.  They are similar to the commercial tiles you may have seen (e.g. Dynamat), but they are more effective.

The tiles have an adhesive on the back which attach to your sheet metal.  Smooth them down with a wooden roller as I am doing here.

If you tap on the sheet metal of your car, you'll hear it make a high-ish frequency "ping" or ringing noise.  The CLD tiles deaden the sheet metal.  No ring, no ping, just...thunk.  I'll be installing tiles on the sheet metal behind the door trim panels too.

I put tiles on the sheet metal behind the rear seat.  That big seat back panel was like a gong when I first tapped it.  With the tiles in place, it doesn't vibrate at all.

You only need to cover 25% of the metal, and only the metal that vibrates.  I put a couple tiles on the floor, but most of the floor is quite solid, so I didn't need to do much there.

Here's the passenger side of the car with the carpet pulled up.  Note the factory insulation there - it's pretty thin.

I'm going to put the vinyl sound deadener right over the factory vinyl.

I made a paper pattern of the floor and then made up a CLV-and-CCF piece to fit.  Here's my test fit before I put it under the carpet.

Then I lifted the carpet and fit the vinyl under it.

On the 900, there are HVAC vents, seat wiring, and the seat mounting holes you'll need to cut slots or holes for.

One of the neat things about the CLV is that it will turn white when it's stretched.  To locate the seat mounting holes, I put the seat bolts in, then pressed the vinyl down over them.

You can now see where you need to cut.

Cut a hole in the vinyl with a utility knife and there you have it.

The carpet fits right back down over the sound deadening material.  The foam can be compressed to a very thin depth, and the vinyl is only a couple of millimeters thick, so it's easy to fit under carpeting or trim.  And note how I cut slots so the HVAC outlets and seat wiring pass up through the carpet as they did originally.

You can see the sound deadener sandwich (mmmm...sandwich) sticking out by the door sill.  The sill plate will go right back over it.

Is that carpet dirty or what?  I'll shampoo it before I put the seats back in.

I also used the same approach for the back seat.  In this case, we use heavy-duty velcro to hold the vinyl in place on the vertical seat back panel.

I almost forgot - there is a horizontal panel behind the seat, under the convertible top well, that I did the same treatment on.  That will help keep trunk noise out of the passenger compartment.

The seat back and bottom will fit right over the deadener material.

Next, I need to do the door panels and back seat trim panels.

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Final Crack Touchup, Polish and Setup on the ca. 1931 Gibson TG-1 Guitar

I finished up the Gibson TG-1 a few days ago.  Thought I should go over the last bits of work I did.

So I tried to match up the finish and touch up the crack-repaired areas.  You can see here that I took a small spruce board and tried a few mixes of brown nitro lacquer.  I got one that was close and used that.

I touched up the worst areas and let the lacquer dry a few days.  As it turns out, a lot of color came off when I polished it out.  Duh.  Should have let it dry longer.

Here I'm doing the finish sanding before rubbing it out.  I wet sanded, using 400 grit up to about 4000.

The cracked areas are nice and smooth now.  I also hit the repaired areas with some blush remover to help blend the repairs in.  The lacquer on the guitar is so old that it really didn't remelt so much - not surprising.

Here's the side repair.  It actually looks better in person - you can see my paint was a little light and some did come off.

The owner is pretty happy with it though.  It carries my limited lifetime warranty, which means if she wants me to take another shot at touching it up, I'll gladly do it.

And wait a month for the lacquer to dry this time.

And the top.  Not too bad, all things considered.  The damaged areas are visible, but they're smooth to the touch.

And neither area affects the tone in any way.

Now to finish it up.

The nut was a plastic replacement.  It cracked on the bass side (see the yellow arrow in the picture), so I needed to make a new bone nut.

You can also see a big gap on the nut 'ledge' between the headstock veneer and the nut (green arrow.)

After I took the nut off, there was a lot of old glue.   I scraped it off with a small chisel and a file.

Naturally, when I was cleaning and leveling the nut slot, I chipped a tiny bit of the ebony headstock veneer.  The yellow arrow shows the gap that opened up, and the red arrow shows one of the two chips that came off.

I used some black CA to put the chips back on.

They fit perfectly.  If this sort of thing happens, I find that the less you handle the chips or broken bits the better.  Even a little handling will change their shape (breaking off more tiny bits) and they won't fit as well.

Here's the repaired area.  Looks like new.

So, I made a new nut, but I forgot to take pictures of it!  I figure there are pictures elsewhere on the blog - you can see how I make nuts on other posts.

Yet another filthy old fingerboard.  I do a pass or two with Simple Green first, then switch to Dunlop fingerboard cleaner.  Brush the board, wipe with a cloth, repeat until you don't see any brown gunk.

I think I did 5 or 6 passes on this one.

The wood is Brazilian rosewood.  Really nice grain.

Lately I've been using Stew Mac fingerboard oil instead of lemon oil.  I like it.  You get a nice finish and supposedly it helps prevent cracks.  This board was so dry that it took two applications of oil - the first just got immediately sucked up by the wood.

This guitar has a truss rod!  I'm so used to working on Martins that it's a pleasant surprise to have a truss rod on a small instrument.

I only had to put about a quarter turn on the rod to get the neck nice and straight.

By the way, you can see the new nut I made if you look carefully.

I polished the frets and also polished the whole guitar with Virtuoso cleaner and finished with Virtuoso polish.  This stuff is simply fantastic.

The finish on the guitar is in excellent shape and the polish enhanced it.

The whole guitar has fantastic gloss.  Remember this is an 85 year old finish!

And the top.  I love these older Gibson sunbursts.  Simply beautiful.

Check out that fingerboard!  And that classy point at the end.

Tonally, the guitar has a fat, deep voice.  Very rounded.  I played it and then played my Martin 0-18T and the Martin sounds like a banjo compared to the Gibson.  This is one amazing guitar.

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Huss & Dalton T-00-14 Guitar Setup

Most of the time I work on older guitars. (I'd say 'vintage' but that's getting so overused.  I am now seeing stuff from the 1980s being referred to as 'vintage'!).  But there are the occasions that I work on things that are recent.  This is a case in point.

This is an amazing, incredible Huss & Dalton Model T-0014 Custom.  It belongs to a good friend of mine, who asked me to do a setup on it.

Wow.  I am privileged to get to do this work.

The guitar was made in early 2014.  It's so nice and shiny and new that I put a new carpet mat on the workbench to make extra sure it didn't get scratched.

Here's the headstock.  Incredible Indian rosewood overlay - just fabulous.

The guitar is from H&D's 'Traditional' line - and this one is based largely on Martin's 00-18.

With one difference.

The difference is that the workmanship on this guitar is just astounding.  Martins are beautifully made, but this guitar's another thing entirely.  As a Martin owner and lover, I thought I would never say such a thing.

On the H&D, everything fits exactly.  There are absolutely no flaws anywhere.  Not a hint of a glue drip to be found.

And the best part might be the finish.  It's just impeccable.

The gorgeous koa binding was an option.  I can't find words to describe how beautiful it is.

It's so glossy I had a hard time getting good pictures of it.

The rosewood on the back is simply stunning.

We are really in a golden age of lutherie.  There are so many fine makers, small and larg(er) that quality is at an incredible peak.   Makers are taking classic designs and elevating them to new heights.

The tuners are 1930s Martin-style made by Waverly.  Fantastic quality.

And they look great. I love those small tuning knobs.  And the brass gear.

Did I say the finish is amazing?

So, enough drooling and get to work!

I measured the low E action at a crazy 9/64ths of an inch.  My friend called the guitar "the cheese grater" because the action was so high.

This need-for-a-setup is not uncommon on new guitars, even such a fine one as this one.  The guitar is still settling after it's built, and most builders figure that the dealer will do a setup to the individual's preference.

In this case, for whatever reason, the dealer did not set it up.   But fortunately for me, I get to do it!

I measured a tad over .020 inches relief at the 9th fret.  The neck dips like a bowl.

I'll adjust the truss rod, set the nut action, and set the action at the saddle if needed.  Huss and Dalton provided a nice tall saddle for just that reason.

The truss rod adjustment nut is a 1/8 inch hex located at the top of the neck block.   I have a regular hex wrench in there for this picture, but I'll use a longer wrench for the actual adjustment.

You can't get enough leverage on the nut with a short wrench to turn it much.

Here's another shot of the neck block along with the ID plate.  The workmanship inside is simply astounding.  And look at that rosewood!

It also smells wonderful.  I wish I could shrink myself (like Paul McCartney in Help! ) and crawl inside the guitar and spend some there.  It's that inviting.

I'm not sure this guitar has a bolt-on neck, but if it does, I'm betting the screws holding the plate on cover the bolts for the neck.  I need to look that up. 

Ironically, there is a "use light strings" label there.  The guitar shipped with .012s.  I suppose they are light, but I'd call them more like medium-light.

At any rate, I'll be putting .012s on it.  They're a good compromise between .011 or lighter (too light, thin and rattly-sounding) and .013s.   I was an .013 adherent for decades, but now I think .012s work just as well.

I really dig these Stew-Mac u-shaped truss rod wrenches.  At less than 10 smackers a pop, I can afford to have a full set of different sizes.

After a couple twists of the wrench, we have the relief down to maybe .004 of an inch.  Hard to capture it under the mediocre lighting in The Dungeon, but if you look closely, you'll see a sliver of the green background between the straightedge and the tops of the frets.

I probably could have gone a tad straighter, but the neck may further settle, and the thing is pretty much perfect as is anyway.

I save 'absolutely straight' for Rickenbackers!

Now a couple of strokes with the trusty nut files.  I like to get the nut action as low as possible - meaning a few thousandths of an inch over the first fret.

If you haven't played a guitar with proper nut action, you are missing out.  Playing in the first position is effortless when the action is correct.

The action at the 14th fret (I set action height measuring at the body joint on acoustic and electric guitars) is  ok at this point, but it's a tad high.

So I popped out the saddle and am going to take a bit off the bottom.

Check out the nice compensated bone saddle.  It's marked for the bass ("B") and treble ("T") sides at H&D.

With some 100 grit paper on my trusty fret leveling block, we take a few passes on the bottom of the saddle.

Be sure to watch the bottom as you go to ensure it stays square!  I sometimes use a second block as a fence to keep the saddle upright.

And sometimes I carefully just wing it.

Almost there.  I like to make a short mark for depth across the saddle, sand some, put the saddle on and tune it back up and test.

If it's still high, I'll repeat the whole process.

Taking off a small amount at a time (say a 64th of an inch or less) ensures you won't go too low.

In the end, I took about 1/32 off the bottom on the bass side and just about 3/64 off the treble.

The action at the 14th fret is now just below 5/64ths on the bass and exactly 4/64s on the treble.  The guitar plays very well and the owner is happy!

I forgot to say how it sounds.  It's very balanced and incredibly loud, especially for the smallish body size.  I can only imagine how it will sound 10 years from now...it should be fantastic.  It's not cheap, but you get what you pay for in workmanship and tone.

Oh I almost forgot!

Check this out.  It's on the inside of the guitar's top just below the soundhole.

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