Hardwood floor area piece for studio

[Joji]

In the picture below they have a hard wood floor piece that looks like an area rug. does anyone know where you can buy this. It looks like you can just place it over carpet.
thanks

[Ethan Winer]

I don't see a photo, but Home Depot sells pieces of plywood pre-cut to 2 by 4 feet. You could use those, or glue on parquet floor squares to look nicer. And so forth.

--Ethan

[Joji]

Yeah I was trying to get the picture to show up. It won't upload. something wrong with Gearslutz manage attachments. The hardwood floor was all one big 8x8 piece with some type of edging. I have scene it in other studios. There must be a company that sells these. It looks like a area rug.

[Marty J]

What's wrong with your other thread?

Try putting a link to the picture.

[Joji]

Sorry did not realize the otherpost went through. My computer froze. Anyway I will try to get the picture up again
thanks

[Marty J]

Can see your picture now....looks like laminated flooring or something placed over the carpet. I'm sure you can find a sheet of wood at a DIY store.

[Joji]

How would you glue the wood 2x4 together so they don't separate when the chair rolls over it. It would like to make it my self for fun

[Marty J]

I guess you could try gluing them together running east-west, and then one at each end running north-south. Might be enough to hold it together.

[lowfreq33]

That looks like something you could get at an office supply store.

[travisbrown]

Call a flooring company or cabinet shop and ask them to make you something. Lots of companies have modular flooring for tradeshow booths, etc. so I'm sure there are prebuilt components out there too.

If you want to DIY...

Go to Home Depot.

Then get some laminate flooring - the stuff that snap-locks tight together. You may want to find some edging strip to finish off the edges if they have it.

Get a 4'x8' sheet of 1/8"- 3/8" hardboard depending on how soft your carpet is and how thick the flooring is - 1/8" might be a bit floppy for deep-pile carpet. You need to consider the total thickness of the laminate and hardboard.

Take it over to the panel saw area and get HD to cut it to the size you want. Also pick up a can of contact cement and a roller and tray suitable for solvents.

Find a large, flat hard floor for a working area, the flatter the better. Snap the floor together upside down. If you found you found edging strip, make the flooring with the edging a tiny bt smaller than your hardboard. If you aren't using edging, make it a couple inches bigger than what you cut the hardboard to. When done, coat the back with contact cement. Then coat the shiny side of the hardboard with the contact cement. Let the contact cement dry according to the instructions on the can.

If you have a helper, align one edge of the hardboard to a long edge of your laminate and gently lay the hardboard down. If you are just by yourself, lay strips of wax paper over the flooring, lay the hardboard down and align it, then slip the wax paper out.

Once contact cement contacts other contact cement, there's no going back, so align carefully.

Then carefully walk all over it to make sure every part of the hardboard gets good contact with the laminate and the contact cement bonds.

Get a laminate trimmer. It's a small router. Home Depot will probably rent one.

If you used edging:

After the specified curing time (shoudln't be long), flip the flooring over. If it's big, get someone to help you.

Get a flush trim bit - and trim the hardboard back to the lip of the edging.

If you didn't use edging:

Use the flush trim bit to trim back the laminate to the edge of the hardboard.

Get a roundover bit for the laminate trimmer. The radius should depend on the thickness of the laminate flooring. 1/4" might be good. Round over the edge so you don't get a sharp lip and the edge doesn't get destroyed when a chair gets rolled off it.

Glue up some laminate to hardboard and test your laminate-trimming skills on scrap first of you haven't used one before. It's not hard, but you want to get the depth set correctly for the roundover bit.

[Joji]

Thank you very much for the help. I appreciate it

[DannyDiggs]

i think it looks flush with the floor,which means the carpet was cut to fit it in or it was done before hand.
anyway.. we have done a job like this before for a sound studio, you can get nice and cheap laminate flooring that you just click together,to hold it in place run a bead of wood glue along the female part of the board before you click them together.. i would make the floor section in place,glue the joints and when you have it to size i would then fix a boarder piece around the flooring to hold it in place.

or a cheap cheap method would be using thin MDF..looks shit thou.

[travisbrown]

Originally Posted by DannyDiggs

i think it looks flush with the floor,which means the carpet was cut to fit it in or it was done before hand.
anyway.. we have done a job like this before for a sound studio, you can get nice and cheap laminate flooring that you just click together,to hold it in place run a bead of wood glue along the female part of the board before you click them together.. i would make the floor section in place,glue the joints and when you have it to size i would then fix a boarder piece around the flooring to hold it in place.

or a cheap cheap method would be using thin MDF..looks shit thou.

That's the other method, and a good suggestion. You could cut the carpet out and inset some laminate. Or get a quality piece of hardwood veneer plywood, finish it with epoxy sealer and polyurethane, and inset it. You'd have to ge a carpet company to finish off the carpet edges.

You don't have to manually glue clicklock flooring; you can get flooring with contact glue already in the joints.

MDF doesn't have to look like shit. It just won't look like wood. I've done some really nice MDF floors stained and finished with border trim and inlay. A friend of mine, a commercial contractor, installed OSB chipboard in his living room, sanded, polished and finished it. Looks excellent.

Unique takes more work, though.

[reinvention.of.man]

This was a custom made floor.. The central area is hardwood, surrounded by carpet..

[Bounce]

Originally Posted by Joji

Sorry did not realize the otherpost went through. My computer froze. Anyway I will try to get the picture up again
thanks

Dunno 'bout the floor but they're stylin' with Truth Audio nearfileds like mine :-) I don't see them too often in photos of other joints.

[NuSkoolTone]

You know, this would be ideal for a project studio I want to build.

Is there a REAL acoustic benefit to these? I've read in other threads where the idea of laminates and pergo was poo-pooed saying it wouldn't compare to real hardwood.

[travisbrown]

Originally Posted by NuSkoolTone

You know, this would be ideal for a project studio I want to build.

Is there a REAL acoustic benefit to these? I've read in other threads where the idea of laminates and pergo was poo-pooed saying it wouldn't compare to real hardwood.

It sure makes your chair roll around more easily.

Tonal quality of wood compared to pergo would make a difference if there was a resonant chamber under your floor. I bet the reflective differences between the two are immeasurable, and moreso in the small area tucked under a desk at the edge of the sound trajectory of your monitors with fat asses rolling all over it.

[joeq]

there are portable modular dance floors that screw together. often they use those cam screws like Ikea furniture.

google 'modular dance floor' or 'portable dance floor'.

this would save you the hassle of gluing stuff that is meant for permanent installation

most of them are wood, but you can get ones that are plastic and light up!

[PheelTheMusic]

I'm looking for something like this too.

I found this site that sells chair mats that have a wood laminate finish...

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by NuSkoolTone

Is there a REAL acoustic benefit to these? I've read in other threads where the idea of laminates and pergo was poo-pooed saying it wouldn't compare to real hardwood.

That's BS. All that matters is the surface reflectivity.

--Ethan

[ssaudio]

Originally Posted by NuSkoolTone

Is there a REAL acoustic benefit to these? I've read in other threads where the idea of laminates and pergo was poo-pooed saying it wouldn't compare to real hardwood.

To the former, not in that position, no, but it sure lets your chair move easier
As to the latter, no, that's total nonsense