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My New Studio Build (perhaps overly detailed)
- Thread starter silky smoove
- Start date
Not until I see how GIK chooses to deal with the situation.You could also give us the juicy details.
A. Respond to Silky Positively
B. Respond to Silky Negatively
C. Both A and B
D. No response at all
Such timing... Okay, the issue has been “resolved.” I put that last word in quotes because it’s not entirely to my satisfaction, but I can’t afford further delays, nor am I willing to continue the battle with GIK.
When I unpacked the 28 products I received from GIK I noticed that there was consistent damage to almost every piece of the shipment. The damages were principally from screws being placed too close to the edges of ege product, or having been driven out of flush to the veneer. This resulted in some broken corner tips as well as some chipped veneers.
GIK was insistent that these were shipping damages. That’s an impossibility. Shipping damages can’t change the placement of screws. Additionally, of the 28 items only 7 of them had no issues. That’s a success rate of only 25%, which even the worst shipper in the world would have a hard time managing, if the issues were even possible to be caused during shipment... which they’re not... at all...
Not wanting to go through the arduous task of repacking everything (it took me several hours just to carefully unpack everything, and I expect it would be even more to re-pack), and not wanting to wait for GIK to receive these (I’m in Seattle, they’re in Atlanta), build and ship me new ones all while they’re getting ready for Winter NAMM, I requested that they refund me a portion of the order.
My refund logic. The shipping charge to me was $630. GIK would have to pay shipping twice (Seattle back to Atlanta, and then replacement products from Atlanta to Seattle) if I did a return. Since 75% of the order would be going back I suggested that 75% of the shipping charges each way (i.e. $630 x 75% x 2 = $945) would be both logical and fair to them since it would basically be a cost neutral exchange minus the replacement of the panels themselves. After some prodding they offered me a refund of $870 this morning. That’s not totally fair, but it’s as good as I’m going to get, so I took it.
I’ll be reinstalling some screws and choosing my panel placement carefully. Nothing will be noticeable unless some looks at things with a high level of scrutiny. Back to progressing tomorrow!
When I unpacked the 28 products I received from GIK I noticed that there was consistent damage to almost every piece of the shipment. The damages were principally from screws being placed too close to the edges of ege product, or having been driven out of flush to the veneer. This resulted in some broken corner tips as well as some chipped veneers.
GIK was insistent that these were shipping damages. That’s an impossibility. Shipping damages can’t change the placement of screws. Additionally, of the 28 items only 7 of them had no issues. That’s a success rate of only 25%, which even the worst shipper in the world would have a hard time managing, if the issues were even possible to be caused during shipment... which they’re not... at all...
Not wanting to go through the arduous task of repacking everything (it took me several hours just to carefully unpack everything, and I expect it would be even more to re-pack), and not wanting to wait for GIK to receive these (I’m in Seattle, they’re in Atlanta), build and ship me new ones all while they’re getting ready for Winter NAMM, I requested that they refund me a portion of the order.
My refund logic. The shipping charge to me was $630. GIK would have to pay shipping twice (Seattle back to Atlanta, and then replacement products from Atlanta to Seattle) if I did a return. Since 75% of the order would be going back I suggested that 75% of the shipping charges each way (i.e. $630 x 75% x 2 = $945) would be both logical and fair to them since it would basically be a cost neutral exchange minus the replacement of the panels themselves. After some prodding they offered me a refund of $870 this morning. That’s not totally fair, but it’s as good as I’m going to get, so I took it.
I’ll be reinstalling some screws and choosing my panel placement carefully. Nothing will be noticeable unless some looks at things with a high level of scrutiny. Back to progressing tomorrow!
Wow...that's bad.
Do they have trained chimps assembling their products?
Do they have trained chimps assembling their products?
Yes, agreed that is bad. Aside from the likely assembly issue, there's a materials/design issue. Particle board/veneer is going to be that much more susceptible to that kind of damage than solid wood. Might have avoided that type of damage if they had included sort of additional veneer strip on the exposed edges of the product.
I agree, particle board without edge banding veneer. Seems cheaply made for what I assume you paid. Fail on there end.
$4,350 for the products, and another $631.40 in shipping. I've now received $870 back on that total.
Believe it or not, this is the affordable route to go for this type of product. Had I went with a higher tier product from RealTraps, for instance, I would have been north of $10,000 quite easily.
A decorative edge molding could be applied easily. More labor. More cost. An aesthetic change. But it’ll hide the BS.
That looks like foil (thin plastic laminate) over MDF, not veneer over PB. Not the most robust combination, and the edges appear to be left as raw cuts which are liable to chipping. That and the not-so-well-trained chimp assembly crew sure is disappointing for what should be a really good finished looking product.
Not trying to be contrarian but the real affordable version is DIY and it would have cost you a quarter of what you spent or less. 2x4, mineral wool or Owens Corning, fabric, staple gun.
I’ve built DIY traps before. I wanted a combination absorption and diffusion product since my room is both the control room and the live room. DIY’ing something like this isn’t terribly feasible without a CNC machine.
Emptied out the main room. Now I’m just waiting for my wife to get home and help me snap some chalk lines so I can start hanging treatments. There’s a Tom Petty song about this...
Today was an absolute comedy of errors. I worked from 9am until 4pm and didn’t hang a single panel. Not one. 
I emptied out the main room and took all of the cardboard from the treatments down to the transfer station to be recycled. On my way home I stopped at Home Depot to grab some toggle bolts for hanging the treatments.
I get home and realize that I don’t have the correct bit (3/8”) to drill a hole in the drywall for the toggle bolts. I head back to Home Depot and pick one up.
I get home once again and notice that the manufacturer’s recommended bit size for the pilot hole in the drywall is larger than the diameter of the bolt head. This isn’t a big deal if you’re going through a piece of material, but since I’m just using these as posts with a spacer to give the sawtooth hangers on the back of the panels something to grab onto, this won’t work.
I return to Home Depot once again and get some washers with a 1/8” hole and a 1” outer diameter. This will allow the toggle bolt to tighten up to the wall without cracking the drywall. I also get some clear sealant to put behind the washer to seal up the pilot hole and not compromise my sound isolation.
I get home and the real fun begins. Here’s the basic assembly of what I put together:
There are a couple of problems here. The first is that I didn’t factor in the size of the teeth in the sawtooth and the fact that they won’t fit over a 1” OD washer. The second is this:
Looks great right? ...WRONG!!!
Here’s the problem:
The bolt is long enough to get through, but not long enough to allow the head to open when it goes through the wall.
A longer bolt is the obvious solution, but remember that you can’t allow anything to touch the studs behind the drywall or it short circuits the isolation assembly. The space from the face of the studs to the back of the drywall is 1 3/4”. Two layers of 5/8” drywall is 1 1/4” thick.
1 3/4” + 1 1/2” = 3”
The next size up for bolt length is 3”...
My solution is use some smaller washers sandwiched between two larger washers. This will stand the bolt off a bit, keep it from touching a stud, and will leave a gap for the sawtooth hangers to sit in.
I head back to Home Depot for the FOURTH TIME TODAY. I get there and find that they only have 12 of the 1/8” x 3” toggle bolts in-stock. Fine... Screw it... I buy what they have, check online, see that store near my office has more in-stock and vow to pick them up next week. At the rate I’m going there’s no way I’ll be done tomorrow anyway, so no harm no foul. I also grab the smaller washers to use as spacers.
This is the resultant assembly:
It works perfectly and there’s 1/8” of clearance from any studs that might find their way into my drilling location. Winner winner chicken dinner.
...Until I forgot to take the hat channel placement into consideration when I drilled my first hole in the wall. I clanged into the upper flange of a piece of hat channel. The toggle bolt won’t fit in that location, nor will any of them fit along the chalk line that my wife and I snapped. It’s an easy fix (patch the hole, then snap a new line about an inch higher), but after working all day to accomplish nothing I decided to throw in the towel and try again tomorrow.
What a day.
I emptied out the main room and took all of the cardboard from the treatments down to the transfer station to be recycled. On my way home I stopped at Home Depot to grab some toggle bolts for hanging the treatments.
I get home and realize that I don’t have the correct bit (3/8”) to drill a hole in the drywall for the toggle bolts. I head back to Home Depot and pick one up.
I get home once again and notice that the manufacturer’s recommended bit size for the pilot hole in the drywall is larger than the diameter of the bolt head. This isn’t a big deal if you’re going through a piece of material, but since I’m just using these as posts with a spacer to give the sawtooth hangers on the back of the panels something to grab onto, this won’t work.
I return to Home Depot once again and get some washers with a 1/8” hole and a 1” outer diameter. This will allow the toggle bolt to tighten up to the wall without cracking the drywall. I also get some clear sealant to put behind the washer to seal up the pilot hole and not compromise my sound isolation.
I get home and the real fun begins. Here’s the basic assembly of what I put together:
There are a couple of problems here. The first is that I didn’t factor in the size of the teeth in the sawtooth and the fact that they won’t fit over a 1” OD washer. The second is this:
Looks great right? ...WRONG!!!
Here’s the problem:
The bolt is long enough to get through, but not long enough to allow the head to open when it goes through the wall.
A longer bolt is the obvious solution, but remember that you can’t allow anything to touch the studs behind the drywall or it short circuits the isolation assembly. The space from the face of the studs to the back of the drywall is 1 3/4”. Two layers of 5/8” drywall is 1 1/4” thick.
1 3/4” + 1 1/2” = 3”
The next size up for bolt length is 3”...
My solution is use some smaller washers sandwiched between two larger washers. This will stand the bolt off a bit, keep it from touching a stud, and will leave a gap for the sawtooth hangers to sit in.
I head back to Home Depot for the FOURTH TIME TODAY. I get there and find that they only have 12 of the 1/8” x 3” toggle bolts in-stock. Fine... Screw it... I buy what they have, check online, see that store near my office has more in-stock and vow to pick them up next week. At the rate I’m going there’s no way I’ll be done tomorrow anyway, so no harm no foul. I also grab the smaller washers to use as spacers.
This is the resultant assembly:
It works perfectly and there’s 1/8” of clearance from any studs that might find their way into my drilling location. Winner winner chicken dinner.
...Until I forgot to take the hat channel placement into consideration when I drilled my first hole in the wall. I clanged into the upper flange of a piece of hat channel. The toggle bolt won’t fit in that location, nor will any of them fit along the chalk line that my wife and I snapped. It’s an easy fix (patch the hole, then snap a new line about an inch higher), but after working all day to accomplish nothing I decided to throw in the towel and try again tomorrow.
What a day.
Attachments
Toggle bolts; they seem so simple, and yet every time at least one finds a way to be a total PITA.
Today was an absolute comedy of errors. I worked from 9am until 4pm and didn’t hang a single panel. Not one.
I emptied out the main room and took all of the cardboard from the treatments down to the transfer station to be recycled. On my way home I stopped at Home Depot to grab some toggle bolts for hanging the treatments.
I get home and realize that I don’t have the correct bit (3/8”) to drill a hole in the drywall for the toggle bolts. I head back to Home Depot and pick one up.
I get home once again and notice that the manufacturer’s recommended bit size for the pilot hole in the drywall is larger than the diameter of the bolt head. This isn’t a big deal if you’re going through a piece of material, but since I’m just using these as posts with a spacer to give the sawtooth hangers on the back of the panels something to grab onto, this won’t work.
I return to Home Depot once again and get some washers with a 1/8” hole and a 1” outer diameter. This will allow the toggle bolt to tighten up to the wall without cracking the drywall. I also get some clear sealant to put behind the washer to seal up the pilot hole and not compromise my sound isolation.
I get home and the real fun begins. Here’s the basic assembly of what I put together:
View attachment 3273037
There are a couple of problems here. The first is that I didn’t factor in the size of the teeth in the sawtooth and the fact that they won’t fit over a 1” OD washer. The second is this:View attachment 3273039
View attachment 3273038
Looks great right? ...WRONG!!!
Here’s the problem:
View attachment 3273040
The bolt is long enough to get through, but not long enough to allow the head to open when it goes through the wall.
A longer bolt is the obvious solution, but remember that you can’t allow anything to touch the studs behind the drywall or it short circuits the isolation assembly. The space from the face of the studs to the back of the drywall is 1 3/4”. Two layers of 5/8” drywall is 1 1/4” thick.
1 3/4” + 1 1/2” = 3”
The next size up for bolt length is 3”...
My solution is use some smaller washers sandwiched between two larger washers. This will stand the bolt off a bit, keep it from touching a stud, and will leave a gap for the sawtooth hangers to sit in.
I head back to Home Depot for the FOURTH TIME TODAY. I get there and find that they only have 12 of the 1/8” x 3” toggle bolts in-stock. Fine... Screw it... I buy what they have, check online, see that store near my office has more in-stock and vow to pick them up next week. At the rate I’m going there’s no way I’ll be done tomorrow anyway, so no harm no foul. I also grab the smaller washers to use as spacers.
This is the resultant assembly:
View attachment 3273042
View attachment 3273041
It works perfectly and there’s 1/8” of clearance from any studs that might find their way into my drilling location. Winner winner chicken dinner.
...Until I forgot to take the hat channel placement into consideration when I drilled my first hole in the wall. I clanged into the upper flange of a piece of hat channel. The toggle bolt won’t fit in that location, nor will any of them fit along the chalk line that my wife and I snapped. It’s an easy fix (patch the hole, then snap a new line about an inch higher), but after working all day to accomplish nothing I decided to throw in the towel and try again tomorrow.
What a day.
This is exactly why you’d have to pay a contractor tons of money and hope he doesn’t skip these little important steps. Nothing lost you’ve got a great solution. Start it on a fresh day.
Ate some tacos with my wife, which motivated me enough to do a little more work.
Got new lines snapped 2” above the original ones. I’m using a speed square to transfer the placement marks up, but since I have to stand between the light source and the marks I had to get creative. I dug into our backpacking supplies and...
Got new lines snapped 2” above the original ones. I’m using a speed square to transfer the placement marks up, but since I have to stand between the light source and the marks I had to get creative. I dug into our backpacking supplies and...
