Ron's Speaker, Turntable, Power and Room Treatment Upgrades

[Ron Resnick]

wow Ron - that is a huge shrinkage - likely not at all related to heat but loss of moisture - was the timber properly kiln dried prior to installation. It is hard to imagine the relative humidity in the external air being that much lower than conditioning ( normally exposing conditioned spaces to exterior causes expansion in timber but you have pretty low humidity there)

Are you sure this did not slowly happen over a long period, air conditioned or not.
It is good practice to stack timber in conditioned space for a while prior to installation to stabilise moisture content - not sure if that happened in this case

It is a real shame - good luck with repairs

Phil

Frustratingly, the wood planks did sit in the listening room for many weeks before they were installed.

 

[microstrip]

Frustratingly, the wood planks did sit in the listening room for many weeks before they were installed.

Ron,

Bad luck, but fortunately the seams showed before your system was installed, it would be much worst to repair with the equipment in the room. Some natural woods needs years to stabilize completely, it is why usually builders prefer processed wood.

My listening room has wood planks flooring and some years after they were put in place seams between 1 to 2 mm showed in the floor - just at the time I owned the ARC REF750's, close to the zone where they stayed . In this case they added to the patina, it is an old house rebuilt keeping the 50's style.

 

[Folsom]

It’s sorta funny that wood likes to narrow, because it also tends to lengthen a bit too. Studs are cut slightly short because they grow over a bit of time!

 

[pjwd]

Frustratingly, the wood planks did sit in the listening room for many weeks before they were installed.

with that much shrinkage they would most likely have shrunk anyway regardless of AC or not - the old fashioned way to do solid timber is shiplap or V joint tongue and groove to allow for shrinkage - butt joint is best used with engineered timber as micro noted - or bond them all together and allow for expansion in corners - a tricky problem to resolve now

I feel for you

 

[Tango]

Frustratingly, the wood planks did sit in the listening room for many weeks before they were installed.

When things dont go as plan we just need to improvise. There is no way to guarantee that if you even change all wood planks this kind of thing would not happen again over time. A metal strip at your choice of metal can be made an intentionally decorative item. Just insert it to fill the gap. It could even give you an interesting contrast to the wall.

 

[BruceD]

After finishing the grey-stained three-quarter inch thick walnut planks wall-papering the listening room walls, contraction from heat (I thought heat caused expansion) caused the seams between the planks to crack open by as much as 3/16”!


View attachment 59950

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How about something like this?
Transition T strips

BD

 

[Ron Resnick]

with that much shrinkage they would most likely have shrunk anyway regardless of AC or not - the old fashioned way to do solid timber is shiplap or V joint tongue and groove to allow for shrinkage - butt joint is best used with engineered timber as micro noted - or bond them all together and allow for expansion in corners - a tricky problem to resolve now

I feel for you

Thank you. In an effort to avoid precisely the problem which developed a paid a big premium for “biscuiting” which is supposed to hard-join the edges of the planks, kind of like tongue and groove. Well the middle of the edges did stay together — the exposed end of the edges cracked open.

 

[Ron Resnick]

How about something like this?
Transition T strips

BD

Thank you for the kind suggestion, but I don’t want metal strips on the walls, and the aesthetic objective was a continuous, uninterrupted plane of hardwood.

 

[Folsom]

There’s a few ways to do it that aren’t just butting ends. You can have over lap that is glued but invisible, as the wood planks are wider than the surface but over lap and are glued. You can also butt join them with strips that run the length instead of biscuits. IMO biscuits are decades past their due, we’ve got better stuff now, even if that was your route.

These are somewhat basic things to be honest... But we aren’t intimately following so we just don’t know till afterward.

 

[PeterA]

Ron, aren’t these engineered planks with walnut veneer? What is the latest recommendation from the contractor to fix the problem?

 

[thedudeabides]

Ron,

When is all this going to be done? Seems like the project has gone on for years. You must be a very patient man.

I assume you have access to competent contractors that can complete the project in an efficient, timely manner.

 

[Folsom]

Beyond patient. Years.

 

[NorthStar]

One of the best virtues today, patience.
Meanwhile enjoy the good life, travelling, Christmas Holidays surrounded by the best families & friends.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Thanks to the members who kindly responded to my thread about vinyl record storage shelves and my thread about reel-to-reel tape storage shelves I have decided to engage our closet/cabinet company to custom build attached-to-the-wall shelves. I realize now that this is the only way to go, because I want on the ceiling of each of the boxes a ribbon light to illuminate record jacket spines. I am sick of crawling around on the floor with a flashlight squinting to identify LPs, so illuminated record and tape shelves are definitely the way to go! (The nice thing about house renovations is that you can solve virtually every annoying thing you have ever experienced in a home.)

The left part of the structure will be five boxes wide and five boxes tall. Each of these boxes will have inside dimensions of 14 inches tall and 10 inches wide and 14 inches deep.

The right part of the structure will be two boxes wide and four boxes tall. Each of these boxes will have inside dimensions of 16 inches tall and 14 inches wide and 16 inches deep.

 

[Folsom]

I don’t look at spines period. Just don’t over fill cubbies so you can flip through enough to see what they are. I’d even consider drawers on heavy duty slides so I could flip through them. And don’t make cubbies too large so you have to fill them. Kallax is about right in size.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I don’t look at spines period. Just don’t over fill cubbies so you can flip through enough to see what they are. I’d even consider drawers on heavy duty slides so I could flip through them. And don’t make cubbies too large so you have to fill them. Kallax is about right in size.

I find dealing with drawers makes it too difficult to find what I’m looking for.

 

[Folsom]

I have a decent idea where all my stuff is at. But there is something sorta annoying about drawers. Just overbuild, not overstuff, and you’ll be happy.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I just realized that with 25 LP boxes every letter but one can have its own box. Or maybe my favorite 25 artists can have their own boxes.

I like the custom wood dividers from Koeppel Design.

https://koeppeldesign.com/pages/custom

I can have the last name of each of my favorite artists printed on its own wood divider. Why have merely alphabetical (A - Z) dividers when I can have a wood divider labeled “Springsteen”?

 

[Folsom]

Ron, I just had a thought. Your walls of wood that separated, did they treat all sides of the wood? And were they using an oil based stain?

 

[Ron Resnick]

yes, all sides

yes, Rubio Monocoat