The Armour Archive

For all those of you who armour in an upstairs apartment.....

How do you hammer without pissing off the lower neighbors? do you have some sort of padding or something under your pounding surfaces?

I know some of you armour out of apartments. I'm hoping that some of you live in an upstairs and have some advice for me.

Thanks
Christopher

Picking the hours you pound metal is a good idea. If you only make loud noises at reasonable times of day, like when no one is sleeping/studying beneath you, it goes a long, long way to keeping the peace with your neighbours.

ian wrote:Picking the hours you pound metal is a good idea. If you only make loud noises at reasonable times of day, like when no one is sleeping/studying beneath you, it goes a long, long way to keeping the peace with your neighbours.

try like 3AM or somthing

when you hammer, if your on an anvil, try to have like a sand bag ontop of the anvil to, I know from playing in a metal band for a cople of years now, that when you hit a cymbol it rings if you hold the cymbol with your hand it deadens it or makes it not ring, (jazz cats do it to but they hole the high hat)

if you have a way of holding your stuff so it dosn't ring.

also, (now my recording side) if you mount like a foam on your walls like polystireen, or the styrafoam egg cartons, they eat sound, My bacement used to (when I did home recording) have about 400 egg cartons on the walls, what ever you do, make sure that what you use dosen't have a flat surface cause it will just reflect the sound back at you, it needs to ne grooved.

~Casey

Sorry, I didn't really state what my problem was clearly.

I do leather, so ringing isn't the issue. Its the thud that gets transferred into the floor. I'm tring to find out if anyone has a way to kill the sound from going into the apartment below via the workbench into the legs into the floor, and into the speakerbox that is the apartment below. I'm hoping someone has something. I think a shot bag (assuming its acceptable to use on leather) can help with dishing, but using the stakes...I don't even have an idea -good or bad- about how to handle that.

So, that's what I was lookin for...sorry I didn't explain myself better to start with.

Thanks,
Christopher

Avoid all rigid pathways between the hammer and the floor.

Bad:
Hammer on concrete floor
Hammer on stake on firm bench on concrete floor.

Better:
Thick rubber pads underneath the legs of your bench.

Best:
Invite the neighbours over, have their 12 year old kid become fascinated and help you with the armouring.
Or get a big heavy thing that won't move when you hit it, suspend it on jello, spiral springs, rubber bands, or really wobbly rubber pads, and use that to absorb (and not transmit) the blows.

Try to find an alternative together with your neighbours. What sounds acceptable to you may still be very annoying to the neighbours, the only way to find out is to ask them.

Try the way used with speakers in studio settings.
Fill a box with sand and place the anvil or whatever you use in the sand. it eats vibrations really good!

I will take pics of my shop later this morning to show you how I do it. I live in a second floor apartment. First off, wooden tables. Second rubber floor mats from any hardware store. (Mine are from Home depot) Use rubber mallets where possible. Line your dishing forms with scrap leather.

This will reduce a great deal of the noise. Also, do your armouring during reasonable times of the day. I stop all dishing and cutting (I use a jig saw) by 7 pm After 7 I do my tooling and pattern development if I need to get more work done, (which late I find myself working until after 9ish)

Hope this helps, I will post pics later today.

Also, talk to your neighbor. I've found my next door neighbor works nights, and sleeps during the day. Thus, if I was hamering early, it would cause strife between us. Don't always assume everyone's on a 9-5 schedule.

That's an important aspect that I forgot to mention. My lady works evening's ( 3pm - 11 pm). So I am aware of differing schedules. My two down stairs neighbors are both day shift workers, one runs a day care from mid morning - evening, so loud noises aren't something she really notices. My direct down stairs neighbor has school age children and they are gone the majority of the day.

That's why I start in the shop around 9ish every morning and run until 7ish in the evening so as not to disturb evening television, etc.

Being a concientious neighbor is key, however, this is my livelyhood and my neighbors understand that too.

Hi RenJunkie,

I also live in an upstairs apartment. I do my armouring on the balcony. I limit the day to Saturday afternoon, and I limit the number of hours to something reasonable. I just consider those limitations to be my punishment for living in an apartment:--)

I have a good relationship with my down-stair neighbor, and I give him advance warning about when I'm going to be making noise, and for about how long. I always ask him if that's okay, and mention that if he just can't stand it then please tell me. Then I show him something I've made. That seems to work for me.

Gest

Everything HOFW said, but to add I paneled my walls with corkboard, and played my music, loud, (but not too loud), and since it was an inner city apartment, I usually shut down around 9pm.

Here are some pics of the shop:

<IMG src="http://www.houseofthewolf.com/shop1.jpg">

<IMG src="http://www.houseofthewolf.com/shop2.jpg">

<IMG src="http://www.houseofthewolf.com/shop3.jpg">

<IMG src="http://www.houseofthewolf.com/shop4.jpg">

depending on your set up.

add mass. sand bags store pasta/rice under bench.

mouse pads under a piece of half inch plywood about 6 square inches uncer each leg of your bench.

if you are having sound travel through the walls instead of directly through the floor try draping fabric.

Planks of balsa wood are also reported to do quite a job of decoupling vibrations between bench and floor. You'd want to put plywood feet on the bench legs to keep from digging into the balsa wood. This method was used industrially, once upon a time.

Well, my neighbor downstairs is a bit of an ass. Well, more than a bit. The dude is on local AM radio in the mornings, but I can walk past his door at any hour and hear him or his tv...lol I think I'm just gonna have to use the ideas of rubber and mass. Or maybe I can make it work on the couch...lol Where do I get the rubber pads?

Does anyone havre any ideas for a portable workbench that can spread its weight over a wide area? It has to be portable/takedownable due to space constraints. I'm gonna use a couple layers of 1 inch plywood on top of some 4x4's screwed/glued together. this way I can make a removable top that will still have the strength to not spring when I hit it. Hopefully the overbuilding will give it more mass to compensate for being so small and use specific. I may also be able to take it out on the road with me in my truck. It'll weigh a ton, but that should help some, right?

Thanks for all the advice, and thanks for the pics, Dan. It's all been helpful.

Thanks,
Christopher

Someone mentioned Home Depot for the rubber flooring - also Tandy / Leather Factory sells something I think they call poundo board, that is foot square rubber sheet. Works great if you put it under your marble slab / piece of steel for setting hardware, and under your cutting surface for drive punches and the like.

Does anyone havre any ideas for a portable workbench that can spread its weight over a wide area? It has to be portable/takedownable due to space constraints. I'm gonna use a couple layers of 1 inch plywood on top of some 4x4's screwed/glued together.

Carriage bolts are great for this sort of work. Drill the hole to accept the bolt shank. Carriage bolts have square shoulders up at the head (and where else should shoulders be?) -- pound the head down into place so the shoulders are biting into the wood and then you can conveniently screw a nut and washer to the other end of the bolt, with the shoulders holding the bolt in place and keeping it from turning as you tighten the nut. Very handy. On disassembly, you can knock the bolts loose again with a tap of a hammer if you really need to remove them from the wood.

Tools & Materials list for what follows: circular saw, framing hammer (those big boys pro carpenters use framing houses -- Vaughn brand hammers are really great: I looove the Vaughn 999), square, tape measure, power drill and bits, 50-ft extension cord if desired, 12-penny nails, two dozen carriage bolts if you go for crossbraces in the design. 2x6 and 2x8 lumber, 3/4" plywood, 6-penny common nails and masonite optional.

I built my demountable shop bench's legs of two pieces of 2x6 apiece, nailed together with 12d nails to make an L cross section. I cut rectangles of 3/4" plywood to cap these, both top and bottom. This gave me sturdy, though not monstrously heavy, bench legs which I then carriage-bolted to a rectangular frame made of more 2x6. This frame was nearly as deep as the bench top was -- the top was flush to the frame on the back side that would be set against the shop wall and extended out a few inches as a lip for clamping things, et cetera. The bench top was 2x8s nailed to the box frame with 12d nails. The bench legs are set directly against the bottom of the bench top, but are actually held on by the carriage bolts holding them to the box frame, which also holds the top together.

For convenient packing, it is helpful to have the frame under the top be made large enough to stow all four of the demounted bench legs within it, though this will likely be more relevant for a bigger bench than the one you have in mind. My bench frame isn't quite big enough to accommodate all the legs within the box it describes. Well, maybe three out of four ain't bad.

Since you're trying to maximize the absorbing mass of your smaller bench, you might consider using 2x8 in the frame. I only used 2x8 on the bench top. An option is to use the 2x8 as a kind of subfloor and surface the entire top with a nice smooth rectangle of masonite -- screws and small bits, paints and dyes can't fall through your bench top, and the masonite takes all of the wear and battering of work. When the masonite is all chewed and worn, get a fresh piece and tack it onto the bench -- voilà, new bench, practically.

One end of the bench is where my bench vise lives, held to the bench with three Grade 8 bolts -- very strong bolts. Either end of my bench top overlaps the box frame by a foot and more for just this purpose, bolting stuff on.

Overall, my bench top comes up to just about my beltline, so it's neither too high nor (even worse) too low. Custom-tailor this to you: the length of leg plus an inch and a half for the two 3/4" leg cap pieces, and the 1 1/2" thickness of the bench top -- it all adds up to match the height of your beltline to the floor. As you see, the variable is the length of the bench legs. I also bolted some 2x4 cross braces around the back and sides of the legs and frame. I numbered all the legs and all their locations so all the legs go in their original spots and the hand-drilled bolt holes match up. The crossbraces got the same treatment, each brace end being numbered according to which leg it bolted to.

I don't know the overall weight; I just know I can pick up and move the bench top and box frame easily enough.

With a bit of ingenuity, you can probably come up with folding legs, say of the collapsing trestle type like a picnic table's, so you can stand your bench flat against the wall when not in use. These will be held together with bolts also, and have washers between all members so they swivel easily. I recommend pins to lock the thing in place in use.

Thanks for detailed plans, Konstantin. I'm gonna have to have all my wood pre-cut at Lowes, tho, except for that which I can do with a hand saw. Accurate angle cuts won't be possible. I can mark it accurately, just not cut it accurately....lol. I was thinking about an enormously heavy pedastal in the center, about 16x16 inches. I might could rig up something on the underside of my work surface to hold the tops of those angled legs you were talking about, and build a frame for the bottom deep enough to put sandbags, and have the legs angle outward and butt against the frame trying to distribute over a wider surface area. It's just that the legs would be socketed into place rather than pivoted and bolted. You think that may work? I know it seems a very complicated solution, but it needs to be able to go between the apartment to the sleeper berth on my truck, and it has to go together and come apart with each use.

You kow, just using plywood on the couch is looking better...lol

Thanks,
Christopher

Hummm...
I solved my problem working at the parking lot of my building. As it is an underground facility, most of the noise is absorved by the walls

Alberdi's got the right idea. If you're hammering for leather, you need a solid surface (that's why so many leatherworkers have big pieces of granite as their strike anvil -- but get a surface so you don't ruin your tools!), and as hard a connection to the ground as possible.

I'd take it out front on the balcony if he's that much of a pissant. He can't biatch about outdoor noise, and hammering doesn't take all that long, so you shouldn't freeze to death.

Make the bench with a flat underside (plywood strengtened with 2x2 or similar) weigh it down with sandbags and place it on a inflated rubber hose from a bicycle tire. It will absorb about 99,9% of the vibrations and if you use sandbags heavy enough, you´ll still get the feel of a solid table.

We used this method some years ago at school when we made holograms as a science projekt since the tables needed to be abslutely free from vibrations... Now it´s the other way around, but I think it´ll work...

/Patrik

Accurate angle cuts? That's what a miter box is for -- either purchased or made, using a square (usually a speed square) and cutting its slots meticulously. A homemade miter box can be readily set up to handle any needed angle if you need to cut more than one piece -- which is what miter boxes are all about, really.

Your scheme does sound workable, as long as you can get the sockets to fit closely. Don't be afraid to use shims.

Before I moved into my house, I also lived in an upstairs apartment.

Rivets, shaping scales and other noisy activities were a concern. One good solution I came up with was to place a 3" thick sheet of couch foam (the kind you can get from fabric stores) then place a small board on that (had some leftover shelving I was able to cut down) and a small foam pad under that. (I am in a LARP that uses foam padded weapons, so spare foam is not an issue for me)

With that setup I was able to hammer on the thing well past bedtime on a school night - the downstairs neighbours never even knew I was hammering on things. I was also able to get a good solid feel when shaping scales and setting rivets. Course the anvil is a 15lb central forge, so YMMV depending on anvil/hammering setup.

Attached is a pic of the setup:

To reduce the ringing while hammering sheet metal, would it help to stick big wads of plasticene or silly putty here and there around the rim?

Thanks for all the ideas. I woulda never thought about using tire innertube.

I can't work outside. At least in the winter which is when I have most of my hometime. It was sub zero last week. Aside from the discomfort, I'm not sure frozen leather counts as cuirbouli...lol Our lot is outside, and usually badly plowed and salted.

I got my kit from Hal on the way, so the experimenting with silent armouring will commence soon...lol

i'll keep you posted.

thanks,
Christopher

I neglected to mention that circular saws aren't just fast -- they are accurate, too. They keep their blades at right angles. The rather large kerf they cut isn't too much of a problem most of the time. You can do depth control also to cut grooves, lap joints, and such.