Skyrun Cinema build begins - Page 3

So, all the drywall stuff is finally done. YAY! It takes forever in between muds. Anyways, I picked up my black paint for the soffit faces yesterday. I'm using Mouse Ears Black from the Disney colors. And yes, it is really deep dark and black. A tip that I picked up from Brad's theater build from another comment.





And then I finally put the carpet back in on the side and that was awesome and easy.



Hopefully I'll be able to get in on the Star Ceiling action this weekend or the next couple of days.

So, I finished the star ceiling these last couple of days and here are my results. I used StarPak48's for the Fiber and an CoolSky LED illuminator. I started out with 1/4 inch masonite board or similar and drew the shape of my panel. Then I started just putting in star patterns. I didn't really want to do an actual sky because I really didn't buy enough fiber for that kind of deal and I just wanted something that looked cool.



I then drilled the holes, all the same size to make it easier. After that I put on black felt by using spray glue and carefully applying. Then I just used some blocking and industrial strength velcro with staples through it to the blocks and then put up the panels.
First Panel

All Panels, except the mini panel in the back, but not trimmed


Lit up with the lights on


And lights off


It turned out great. As most people would agree it's better to see it in person because you really can't get a good picture of it.

Anyhow, after finishing that I moved on to the next big project...carpet. Now I got a smashing deal on my carpet choice which ended up being better quality and cut my cost in half I just happened to catch a great sale. So, I could have hired an installer but one of the things that I really wanted to do since I started this build was learn how to do everything myself and then do it. So, I did. I read a couple of things about installing carpet and YouTube was of excellent help as well. I had only a couple of really tough spots and that was near the pillars for the carpet. But I eventually figured it out and here are the results.

Padding and tack strips down, which really was a cinch.




Riser Carpeted


Stage Carpeted


And I even did the stairs, which took a little bit more time but were not that bad either. I know it's hard to tell from this angle too but those are upholstered style stairs too.


And it was great, I even had just the right amount to finish everything. I was starting to get worried that my estimates were off but was completely relieved that I had enough to finish the last segment of the stair with no problems.

Well, this has been a goal for a while so what's next? Well, I still have some panels to put up for the front ceiling (non star ceiling but will be the same idea). Then I have some black fabric that I still have to put up near the mount area. That big white area is where I'm expecting to put up the anamorphic lens holders and polarizer filters for the 3D. Then I'm going to focus on getting the light tray and soffit panels done. At this point I'm still debating on what to do with the plain old MDF that will be the light tray and under panel braces for the lights. I would really like to veneer them to give the room more definition but the cost might be a bit more than I want. I've only briefly shopped around for veneer locally in Omaha and I think there's a place that does large panels (4x8's) and they're cheaper than buying the 2x4's from Menards or something like that. I guess I'll also soon get to working on the wall furring strips, yay I'm definitely going to be doing that one for a bit too.

You guys have any thoughts? Anyways off to do more. Oh and the carpet isn't purple. It's a greyish color.

P.S. I saw Star Wars Episode I in 3D last night and it was great! Really good quality 3D conversion.

Edited by ImmortalJman - 7/24/12 at 9:22am

Thanks. Surprisingly it wasn't that hard. I had to really think about how to get the carpet in around the columns but once I laid it down, it made sense how I was goign to cut.

So, I've been focuse on getting some other things done prior to leaving on my business trip and haven't got much done on the theater. I've got some more of the light tray up but still have more to go and hope to have it finished by the end of this week. I'll include some pics with my next update.

Thanks. I must admit, the carpet is certainly a milestone. And speaking of milestone I just dropped the dough on the chairs today. Yikes. They sure do look beautiful though. So, that means I better finish the soffit stuff before they get here. Luckily I don't have much to do in that area. Then I'll work on the front wall followed by the false wall. Sweet!

Ok ,well I've been pretty lazy in getting some updates posted and mostly for a good reason. I did a lot of work before I had to leave on my business trip so that I could have as much done before I left. While I didn't get everything finished I certainly got a lot done. I'll be posting more pictures soon, I hope. Things keep me quite busy here but rest assured work has not ceased on the project, just temporarily delayed.

Yeah, I have the entry to my HVAC area in the door next to the stage and it was a challenge to design it in such a way that I could still have my curved stage without blocking too much entry space into that area, just in case I needed to. Getting those things done on my theater was simply awesome to finally see the room take shape. I can't wait to see yours.

So, I had posted earlier that I hadn't posted in a while so that I could focus on getting done a lot of things before I left for my trip. And I did get a lot done. So without further delay here are some pictures of the things that I got done.

So, I finally got the soffit tray done and stained. That was really frustrating because my walls aren't straight which doesn't show with the soffitt faces and lengths going across the ceiling but did when I had to put up the tray. So, when I would put up the piece it would either be wonky or the straight edge would not create a seamless gap into the next piece. But with some wood filler and some good dark stain, you really don't notice it and they happen to be in areas where you're not normally looking. But overall I'm happy with my work and that's what counts for now.



The next big thing I couldn't wait for were my chairs. Originally I was getting some Berkline chairs but saddly they were out of stock and I really didn't have time to wait for or choose a different set that were a close match. Fortunately, the company did have other companies that looked close to them and I ended up getting a similar one but I can't recall which one at the moment. They look good and feel really comfortable too. I also got the buttkickers with them and will be figuring out to wire those up when I get back. And of course I put up both projectors before moving in the chairs to make it easier.



The next big work project was the false wall and screen. The false wall came relatively easy with just figuring out how big of an opening I needed in places to get speakers in and out and how to support my screen. Sadly I don't seem to have images of that at the moment. But anyways, the real challenge was the screen. I mentioned back in one of the first posts that my goal was to have a 2.40 screen capable of doing 3D. The problem with that is that there currently are any very affordable options to do this. So, I did find a company that does it with paint. It's used mainly in amusement parks and other really large venues and it has up to 4.0 screen gain. So, you can paint it on a wall or similar hard surface. I had to decide between a wood type or drywall. Well, from my work with drywall, I was really concerned about getting it to be completely smooth (level 5 finishing). And I really didn't have quite that confidence in my drywalling ability. So, the next best thing was to MDF. It had to be stiff enough to prevent vibrations and keep it flat. So I had to figure out way to hold 1/2 inch MDF up that would be about 12 feet across by 4 feet high (rough estimate). So, I had to cut out the MDF in the correct dimensions and then join them together with a biscuit joiner.



Then I had to put a structure beneath it so that it could help hold it together and then be used to support it on the false wall.



I put hex bolts through the bottom of the structure and then nuts and washers to hold them in place. I know it sounds weird but it worked and it's really strong. Then using heavy duty door hinges, I think eight of them, I was able to mount that to the cross beam on the false wall. The reason for the hex bolts was for the ability to take the screen off if later I decide to do something else with it or replace it.



Then i had to spray paint it. Not real hard but time consuming because it has to be done with a very fine spray so that it comes out real smooth and in many thin layers.



Now the screen in the picture looks more white than it actually is. In person you can definitely see that it's silver coloring. I did do some test video on it and was quite surprised by how accurate the colors already were without having to correct for the silver color.

Now I did get to start on something else but I don't have those pictures at the moment and I also didn't get very far. I started on the speakers, and what a beast those are, but that will have to wait until I get back close to the end of May.

Unfortunately I'm still out of town until the end of May. So you would have to wait for a bit but other than that, I wouldn't mind at all.

It's always nice to post something and then not see it show up. I did a post about a week ago and I guess it didn't get posted. So I will repost the progress that has happened so far a little later today if possible.

OK, so I finally have some time to update my post. Even though it's been kind of dark on my thread (I apologize for that) I have been busily working away at finishing the theater. My goal is to have everything 100% done by the end of July. So here's what I've done.

Speakers
With most of the construction items done, excluding the wall fabric frames, I wanted to get the speakers done. I'm building all of my own cabinets and doing it the professional way with 1.5" MDF all around. They are super heavy and I have never been so tired of cutting MDF. That stuff makes the worst dust. So here's the stack of everything ready to go.

Below some of that pile you can see the towers already put together and ready for the wiring.

So, as of today I'm done with all the speakers except the subwoofer which will be a THTLP. And in the process of testing my speakers I learned that my receiver went bad while I was waiting to have the speakers done . Anyways, in the end I guess it worked out ok because I ended buying a much nicer receiver and after playing some music through the new speakers I'm amazed. Even with these I'm getting great lows, much better than I expected. So, I'm going to try and head out to get the wood for the THTLP today if I have time. I will post pics of all the speakers in place today sometime.

Things to Do:
As far as finishing goes I need to work on fabric frames and some patches of my soffits that I didn't have enough velvet for covering them. Then to cap those projects off, I have the new door, window plug and my DIY backlit movie frames which will be quite an experiment but I think I should be able to recreate a good looking professional product.

Thanks OJ.

It's fun learning all these things and being able to say that you did yourself.

So, I'm a little late on this post but I did find some more pics to post which I'm sure will please. I found another pic of just putting together one of the speaker cabinets. I believe this was the last of the surround speaker type boxes.


And while I was waiting in between dry times I received this:

This will be my new storage server. Eventually it will house 66TB's according to 3TB drives in a RAID 50. I started out with 6 to get things going but then went ahead and ordered 4 more.

And my new RAID card that has 4GB of on storage buffer, which makes this thing wicked fast. Getting 1.1 GB/s (yes that's gigabytes and not gigabits) on reads and about 900MB/s write speed. This storage will be as much for my theater movie storage as it will for my film editing needs.


And here's the pictures I actually promised. I put up the front left, front right, surround left, surround right, back left and back right. But I still need to put in the center (after I place the sub-woofer) and the high left and high right speakers for the Audyssey stuff.



Even with just these speakers up I'm getting great lows (not real low of course) and it sounds impressive.

So, speaking of the THTLP placement, I'm limted on the room I have to place the center channel and the sub-woofer lying down in close configuration, so I'm thinking I will have to stand this thing up on end and have it firing at the ground. , which means I'm going to have to be creative in making a stand to put this thing on.

So, now the work begins on the THTLP. I might document that one a little more completely but Brad Horstkotte in his THT LP thread did a pretty good job of showing how its done. We'll see.

So, with the way the weather has been out here I dared not go into the 125 degree garage to do some woodworking, especially with the humidity. So that delayed me a little. But it was cool enough yesterday for me to go and start. I made a little bit of progress and I've decided to go ahead show how it's built so that others can follow. The instructions are pretty clear for the THTLP but in someways it's confusing until you actually start putting stuff together. So, the first step was to cut out one of the sides and then draw out all the major and minor panel spots. That took some careful measuring and clearly some time, but this step will be extremely helpful in making the panels.



The part that actually took the longest to do was the driver baffle. I ended up just using my plunge router to create the perfect hole, which it did end up perfectly fitting the driver. Now the directions indicate that you should use 3/8 bolts of some sort and I thought they were a bit small. So, I went with the bolt size recomended by the manufacturer and then proceeded to drill that size into the baffle. Well, it was just barely ok. The holes ended up being really close to the edge but it would have been better to go with the smaller size. So, tip #1 for any of you. However, that being said it mounted just fine and looked awesome.



After getting that done I was finally able to mount the first panel which to say the least was not a clear instruction point for me, so I think this is what they were suggesting and it worked out pretty well. It kept it in place and tight and in a completely perfect 90 degrees. You take a straight piece of 2x2 and then clamp it right along the joint line and then clamp the piece to that. Then all you need to do is apply the PL. This is the result.



Another side note is that you can use either brad nails from a pneumatic gun or just screws to hold the panels in place while the glue dries. Right now, the way it looks, it looks like doing the screws is the easier option so you can easily put in all the screws right where they go. Because at least you can pre-drill all the holes and then you know where the panels are. If you use the brad nailer then you're kind of guessing. So, the way I figure, I'm going to have to pre-drill some holes and then use the brad nails right next to these holes so I know where they go. Then all you do is fill the holes with glue. I would just use screws at this point but I'm tired of having to return stuff and then come back to start on the project again. It's least 30 mins to do that and since I already have the means, I'm just going to run with it. So hopefully that gives somebody some insight and help. I will try to be busting out a lot more tonight and defintely tomorrow.

Yeah. Mine is the full 36 inches. I finished painting it tonight and the driver is breaking in right now. Hopefully everything turned out OK. I'll find out on Monday. I'll post some more pics with the build as well.

Well, I completed my goal of getting all the speakers done before then end of the month and the biggest part was getting the subwoofer done, which I ended up doing in 3 days total... in 100 degree heat. Anyways, here are some of the pics of the rest of the build.

After getting the first side drawn on I finally realized the part about drilling holes through both sides so you know where your panels are ( more on this later). So I drill holes through both sides and connected the dots and away I went cutting the other panels.


Panels 1-5 installed. Nothing to difficult here.


And top view with the braces installed. By the way, when you're trying figure out what the height is of the braces because it doesn't give it to you in the document, it's like 2" or something. I got the dimensions by using the Sketchup diagram and it worked out beautifully.



The next couple of pictures are pretty self explanatory from the documentation but, it's as simple as cutting out the appropriate sized panel and then gluing it in. A note on gluing it in later.







So, now some words on gluing. When I did my gluing I didn't put glue on the edge of the panel and did it on the side of the joint with a joint squeegey to make it look neat and sealed. However, when I started to put on the second side, there must've been some extra width or something somewhere and the second side didn't fit as well going on top. So, this meant a lot of clamps and finishing nails from my pneumatic gun, which meant that some of the panels underneath the second side were just a hair off. So, I'm hoping that I got a good glue seal on the top. The bottom side should be fine. However, if I were to do this the next time, I would use screws. They will hold it in place better while the joints are drying and gauruntee a secure hold. So, after finally getting things lined up, I was able to clamp it down for a bit and then do a lot of seam checking and filling where needed. Then I just did some rough sanding all over, including a little rounding of the edges. Then it was just a matter of priming and painting it. I had some leftover Mouse Ears black and that did a fairly good job. I could have done a second coat but it's going to be hidding the whole time so I'm not to worried about the appearance. The driver is broken in and I will be installing that and moving it down into the basement tonight. So without further adue, here's the finished product.



And suddenly, I feel a sudden urge to jump up and down and make tools and stuff (2001 reference btw).

As for the placement of this I will need to make a stand for it tobe aimed at the ground. I'm going to try and make that tonight and then I will start on the furring strips for the fabric frames.

Well, the THTLP is all setup and in place. And I ended up just pointing it at the ceiling and whew:eek:, it's earth rattling. Of course I've been adjusting it so that it's not quite as overbearing. Later when I get some more space cleared out of my computer room I'll move the main HTPC/gaming computer down and start doing some mearsurements so I can see what it looks like before treatment. So, next step is to start working on fabric frames.

Oops, messed up the quote fields above. Hate that I can't edit anymore. But you get the idea.

So, after having a full week of work off to work on the fabric frames I have got quite a bit done. I, unfortunately, still have a little of the back wall, the back columns, the right column, the half wall, and the stairway to do. The results look pretty good but there are some downsides to what I've been working with. The method is pretty good and quicker than having to create the furring strips that attach to the wall and ripping strips to make the frames. However, I'm working with a wall that has un even height meaing that if everything were perfectly square, then I would be struggling to get panels to line up without causing weird triangular gaps between panels. (Funny thing is I still ended up with gaps). So, even as much as I wanted to do the perfectly square method, I couldn't really work it so that if match frames next to each other. The other thing was I used cheaper 1x2's from Home Depot which were fine if you picked out the straightest boards. Most of them do have a little warp. So, if your board cuts are shorter then you can work around that. Some of my panels were longer and I delt with any of the curving as much as possible. But even with the straight sides it left me with the uneven wall problems which left me with small uneven gaps between some of my panels. So, I can't do much to fix that, but my fix is to use the same color of fabric and put it against the wall in those gaps so that it doesn't show up to the eye as much. Now, if you absolutely need really good straight 1x2's; go to Menards and get the premium boards or standard, whatever it's called. But be prepared to drop some dough. Each board is roughly $7. If I had bought these in place of all the others I would have ran through my budget long ago. I also did not want to rip plywood boards which is why I chose this route. As for the edging, I used base shoe boards that have a nice little round over. The effect is quite nice. I promise, I'll have pics up tonight. I just haven't taken any yet because I've been too busy getting the frames done.

One final thought. I had bought just some good fabric for letting sound through and it matched the colors that I wanted. The problem is that I can't find enough of the same fabric in stock through fabric stores. So, in retrospect, if I had enough money in my budget I would've bought GOM material because then I could've bought huge amounts of the same color fabric...but at 3-4 times the price of what I've paid for the fabric I'm using right now. Oh, well, all my frames are removeable, so I will probably redo them later with GOM. It still looks nice and the colors are pretty close to each other for the different fabrics so it's not too bad.

Sorry, for the delay. I was delayed due to one of my insatiable joys of theater. 3D. From the onset this was one of the goals and I needed a break from the fabric making. But don't fear, I have pics of my current progress.

It's pretty simple. I didn't make any furring strips along the wall as noted earlier. So, all I needed to do was make a frame, then put fabirc over it, then fill with the appropriate material. In this case OC703 1 and 2 inches or poly batton, depending on where the frame goes.



Here's an example of one of the more complex frames I had to do to fit it around the lips of both the stage and the risers.



Here's the result of one of the walls and the back wall.





And the screen wall.



And here I am enjoying the new Tron : Uprising cartoons. A very good prequel to Tron Legacy.



So, on to the 3D.

I was quite anxious to test out my filters and the required wave retarders that were needed to make it work. I won't give a full setup and specs yet until I have more time to sit down and write it out carefully, because, my particular setup is a little complex and I don't want to miss anything. However, I can report that the detail of dual projection 1080p/24 3D is amazing. And I haven't even enabled the FI engines (more on the importance of this for 3D later). I watched a little bit of Tron Legacy, Toy Story 3, and Cars 2. It was wonderful, no ghosting/crosstalk...at least that was visible to me. I'm am 100 percent happy with the way I created my setup. I had fears from hearing about other peoples' setups in circular polarized situations. But, after doing a lot of research and from a lot of help from rjdam on his 3D research thread (The Ultimate 3D Projection System) I have obtained spectacular results. So, for this upcoming weekend I'll get back to the grindstone and complete more frames. I will hopefully post more soon.
Edited by ImmortalJman - 7/23/12 at 12:08pm