Making Acoustic Panels

I record the audio for my podcast and all my voice over work in my office. I recently removed a couch from this room and noticed a significant difference in the audio quality. I was getting a lot more reflection from the walls into my microphone so I’m making these acoustic panels to absorb some of the room sound. I purchased some acoustic foam panels from Amazon and decided to class them up a little bit with a nice wood frame and burlap face. The frame uses a simple picture frame construction with mitered corners reinforced with splines. The face consists of a burlap sack glued to a mitered frame and then screwed on to the base. I purposely exposed the screws and chose to use pocket hole screws for the way they look and how they sit on the surface.

In the video I decided to not voice over the steps but instead talk about how I got to be a YouTuber and all the career changes I’ve made. Making YouTube videos and blogging is a combination of many skills including photography, videography, branding, marketing, audio engineering, graphic design and copy writing.

Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have in the comment section below.

Items and Tools Used

acoustic panel frame

Step 1: Cut Boards to Width

I’ll cut all my 3/4″ boards to 2 1/2″ wide on the table saw.

Step 2: Cut Left Miter

Using my picture framing sled I cut the left miter. You can watch a video on how to make and use the picture framing sled.

Step 3: Cut Right Miter

Then cut the right miter on the picture framing sled. You can watch a video on how to make and use the picture framing sled.

Step 4: Cut off Grill Cloth Frame

Next cut 3/8″ off all pieces of the frame. This will be the grill and hold the burlap cloth.

Step 5: Gluing Up The Frame

Glue up the frame with yellow wood good. I don’t have framing clamps and prefer to use painter tape.

Step 6: Gluing Up the Grill Cloth Frame

Glue up the grill cloth frame with yellow wood good. I don’t have framing clamps and prefer to use painter tape.

Step 7: Cutting Spline Slots

To strengthen the miter corners I’ll cut slots for splines. You can view a video on how to make this spline jig here.

Step 8: Cutting the Splines

Next I’ll cut the splines to the proper thickness on the bandsaw.

Step 9: Cutting Splines

Rough cutting the splines on the bandsaw. Be sure to cut them oversize so it can be trimmed down in a later step.

Step 10: Gluing in Splines

Add some glue to the splines and slip them in. If your having trouble getting them to slide in completely use a mallet and some force.

Step 11: Flush Trim Splines

Once the glue dries use a flush trim saw, trim off the excess.

Step 12: Cut Rabbet

Now I’ll cut a shallow rabbet on the underside of the grill cloth frame. This will create a decorative shadow line.

Step 13: Screw on Grill Cloth Cover

Then I’ll pre-drill and screw the grill cloth cover to the frame. I’m using pocket hole screws because I like the way the look and sit on the surface.