"Beginner's Delight" DIY Screen Paint

[quote=tiddler;16968942]"BD OTS Matte"

Note: I do not recommend the Behr Interior Flat Enamel #1850 as an OTS Matte Neutral Gray. In my experience it does not level out very well and therefore results in excessive roller texture.

I thought 1850 was one of the recommended bases. I've had roller texture issues as well, but figured it was doing something to cause it.

[quote=kbgl;16970451]
Ahhhhh...but when you spray....all your worries go away as far as Roller marks, leaving you to judge the paint on a different set of standards and potential. Really, do you think limiting someone to a specific paint because another might be too difficult to roll doesn't point out the slings and arrows Rolling can present?

Since Flat Enamel seems to be universally acclaimed as a superior medium for almost ever DIY paint that requires such...either the Behr or Valspar paints will be used in my own upcoming tests, with specific choices limited only to Mixes whose Designers require such to be used. I'll relate further on the appropriate thread.

I can vouch for this. I applied a couple of coats of Behr Silvescreen, and sanded each coat. Then finished it off with a top coat of Silverscreen and Minwax satin at 4:1. It produces a remarkably smooth coat -- much smoother than the paint on its own.

I am going to have a large screen - approx 52"x124". It will be in a darkly painted room that opens up in the back to a lighter room. There are no windows, but I would like to be able to watch with some ambient light for football, parties, etc.

Is there a good high gain paint that also works well with ambient light?

Silver Fire 1.5

Start a new Thread or PM me for help. It's OT on this thread.

I'll give it a shot when mixing up the NGs for what's upcoming. But it will most likely be sprayed...not rolled so I do suppose you'll still need someone who wants to go that route to provide the definitive info your looking for.

Thanks - I was afraid of that. I'm not really a scientist, so I was hoping a one or two ingredient beginner solution may work.

I will probably just start with one of the recomended matte white base paints with a little poly added and just adjust as needed later.

Yes Todd. It's been the "white base" for the last few Screens I've done, and it works well. Of course it wasn't part of what your suggesting in this thread.....so I guess you have to keep asking.

....and asking.

....and asking.

In the begginer's guide you suggested the use of the BEhr Polyurethane 780.. Is this the similar/same to the satin polycrylic mentioned here. I also liked the picture of the flower that incorporated that silver metalic in the Begginer's guide. How, and in what proportions the metalic, and the Poly 780 or the satin polycrylic, may be incorporated in this gray paint. As you can judge by my questions I am a newbi with no paint experience. Could you provide a formula for the latter that I can take to Home Depot.

I also sent a PM with similar questions, and a detailed description of my setup

Thks for your feedback

subscribing...

Just tried Behr #1750 with a 3 parts to 1 mix of the Clear Satin Polycrylic (i.e., 25% polycrylic) and am happy with the results. Paint is easy to work with and the mix provides good gain and ambient light performance.

I recently traded in my 4 year old framed Blackout cloth 2.35 screen for a 16:9 wall painted screen. New screen is 145" diagonal, which is just a bit wider (126") than my old 2.35. I used an 8.5 mix from Tiddler's Behr mixing values.

Started with 3 coats of mud and 5 coats of Killz2 as prep on textured, dark-painted wall. I didn't get the surface perfect, but stopped dinking around after I had to be honest with myself that I couldn't even begin to detect the imperfections from the 12-17 ft average viewing distance. I was using the white Killz2 wall for about a month, so it was completely dried and cured.

I did 2 coats of the #1750+Satin mix, using a 1 person 2 roller method -- Purdy white dove 9" 1/4" nap for a couple of up/down vertical strokes, then a 7" Purdy foam roller for downstrokes. I wasn't that fussy about it other than being careful to keep wet edge -- the mix covered and leveled nicely during application and dried to a smooth surface with no roller marks. Again not perfect, but nothing detectable from viewing distance. I do painting in the house from time to time and am sensitive to roller mark sheen; have to say this mix was very easy to work with.

My current projector is an Ax100 with about 2K on the bulb. I just did a side-by-side with a friend's AE3000 with 250 on the bulb, and their brightness were about comparable in the brightest modes (both with zoom wide open), so I'd estimate based on AE3000 reviews that my Ax100 has dimmed to somewhere around 700-1000 lumens in Vivid Cinema and Normal mode, which is what I do most of my watching with (in both darkened room and some ambient light). Since I had a 2.35 screen before (via manual zoom) of almost the same width, for letterboxed movies my projector is throwing the same image size it was previously.

The polycrylic adds a nice even sheen that helps gain, but in my setup there is no detectable hotspotting. I don't have any quantitative tools to measure, so just have qualitative comparisons with previous screens. Although I didn't have time to do side-by-side comparisons with different mixes and other surfaces, I'm quite happy with the new screen. The gray tint provides a better ambient light picture then Killz2 or BO cloth did, and I do not seem to have lost anything in gain (darkened room picture is as bright or brighter as previously).

I will be upgrading projector soon for more lumens, probably to a 8500UB, in which case I may go darker on the gray tint for a better ambient light picture. I had done research on metallic mixes, etc. but this performs so well I won't bother experimenting with others unless I find myself with time on my hands.

Thanks to all the great DIY information out here, especially Tiddler! Hoping to post photos comparing to BO cloth as a reference point and if I'm really ambitious, a panel with the #1750 with no Satin.

Sorry but I've heard of no mention on this Forum where there exists a BOC with 1.0 gain. At best .9 and usually .85 or less.

Iffin' there were, there would be even more folks advocating it's use. So considering your bulb's usage, the NG8 w/Poly is doing as good as it is because...and only because of the Poly. Without such it would show a dimmer image than the BOC for almost certain. It's the use of the Poly...at the required concentrations....that even brings such neutral Grays into consideration. Without such they'd be applicable ONLY when being hit with very intense PJ lumens.

Beware of what might/will happen with a similar darker Gray w/a Poly induced sheen being hit with a significantly brighter PJ. If you start out with using Low lamp, then you'll probably be OK.