My "Out of Africa" theater is "FINISHED" - Page 7

I've changed my horisontal masks' driving system. The vertical masks work perfectly every time but the horisontals have been given me some troubles. The pulley and belt system wasn't very relyable. It would work for a while and then start slipping and work again and then fail again. I'm a bit anal about stuff like that and don't want to sit with people in the room and suddenly one of the WOW factors isn't working and I have to get up and do it manually, oh the horror....the horror...... And soooo, I've made another contraption. An actuator of sorts. I've looked around for an actuator, but boy are those things expensive! So I let the old braincells loose and came up with this thing:



The whole thing now goes into the soffit at the back of the proscenium and the dowel-rod goes through the bottom of the soffit and attatches to the top horisontal mask. This works MUCH better and smoother than the previous method, but one downside is that it's much slower than before, so I'll have wait a bit longer for the horisontals to adjust. Like I've said before, it will only be done once before the movie, so it's no big deal - longer time for the Oooh's and Aaahh's

Here's a bit closer:


I'll have to post pics of the thing installed as well.

Sunday afternoon me, the wifey and little monkey took my dad's old Isuzu bakkie (pickup or little truck) and drove to my friend's house in Pretoria to pick up the fibreglass panels for the walls and the back of the screenwall. The company only delivers in the Gauteng province, so I had them deliver it to his house. About 140km and 90 panels later, we were back at home.

Here they are, eventually, stacked and waiting to be slaughtered and stuck all over the place.



My modern art collection on the HT walls, by my little Picasso, is also growing. I let her go wild on the walls of the HT while I'm busy working there. It's very cool for her to be allowed to paint and draw on the WALLS OF THE HOUSE without anybody complaining, in fact, Daddy is encouraging it!
It's just sad to know I'll be covering it soon. I'll take pics of everything to show her one day, at least I'll know its there. I get all teary eyed thinking of how quickly she grows up - nearly five years old and it's as if she was born just yesterday.

Hi tmavs, I haven't got the Panny yet. I got a quote from a place in Brooklyn Mall, Pretoria for R32800-00 (+/- $4100-00) Are you from SA?

Yes DIY screen, 2:1 ratio. I already got the frame and will wrap it with the screen material after I've finished the wall panels and carpet is laid. When do you plan to start your HT?

Hi RT, I'll try to snap a vid on my phone tonight just for you!

Hallo calimark, it's a 12v geared motor, the same as the other one for the vertical masks, except this one turns at 280 rpm.

Will

Hey Greg, how's it mate? On the contrary, I wish I had more time, then the HT would have been finished already. To make my point clearer, let me depress you with my job working hours: Mon - Fri 08H00 - 19H00 Sat 08H00 - 13H00 and AGAIN form 17H00 till 19H00 and Sun 10H00 - 12H00 and yet again form 17H00 till 19H00. As you can see I work EVERY day till 19H00 with the exeption of the few hours off between moring and evening shifts on Sat and Sun.

I work my ass off during the day and a then some little more at night in the HT. Like the saying goes: "Own BOSS, own SLAVE!!"

Oh but that's life, hey? At least I can see where the money goes. This hobby sure is expensive!

Have a great one Down Under

Will

Here's quick vid of the new masking contraption in action. This this is also as loud, maybe a bit louder, than the other one. I think I'll pad it with some sound panels to quiet it up a bit. The new "actuator" is much slower than the previous setup, but is MUCH more accurate. We'll see how it goes

Click on pic for video



I started on the fabric panels last night. I will continue as soon as I can and post pics when I've progressed a bit.

Thank you Greg, the finish line is so close, but yet so far! Ha Ha.

There is a lot of things that must follow one after the other starting now with the fabric panels.

Till later,
Will

Some more progress! I've been busy with the fabric panels over the easter weekend. I made mine a bit different than most others here. I used MDF cut to strips of 45mm and 40mm to construct the frames. The borders of the frames are made with the 45mm and the inside cross braces are 40mm to ensure that they'll not push against the fabric and show. The inside "blocks" will be filled with the fibre glass panels. Every panel was made-to-fit, so every cut was measured individually to make sure it was just right with a few mm's on each side for the thickness of the fabric.

Enough blabbering, here's the pics:










I first made all the panels to size and afterwards measured the spaces between the vertical braces , hence the writing on the walls, for the horisontal braces. It took 45 pieces to do the job.

Here's the horisontals cut and ready for glueing and nailing:


Here is one of the panels in process of being made:


And finally, all of them are "cross-braced" and put in place - ready for the streching of the fabric and filling with sound-lite panels.

This pic shows my Super Hi-Fidelity sound system used for music in the HT while I'm busy working away.



I can't wait to be fully surrounded by the 11.1 speakers for real!!

Hi RT and Jon,

Thank you guys. I've got the day off tomorrow, so I hope to make some good progress on the frames. The music helps alot, even though it souds a little tinny Both your theaters are comming along very nicely.

RT, the carpet sample look great, can't wait to see it installed!

Jon, it's a VERY good and BRAVE thing you did by putting away the PJ.
(when do we get a new vid from you?)

Have a great day!

Will

Hey Greg, how's it going! Yes mate, the details and finishing is THE most important part I think. It's so easy to bugger up a very nice project with hasty and half-hearted finishings. You have put a LOT into that theater of yours - literally blood, sweat and tears - the end is in sight!! It's a very nice piece of handywork you can be very proud of. I think you must be strong now and take off your PJ as well

Thanx for the post and best wishes to you.

Will

Hi blipszyc, yes you are correct. The airflow is good and the whole room is cooled nicely but at a cost - NOISE. The thing is a bit to loud for my taste. Most peolple that have been in there says it doesn't bother them but for me it will be distracting while watching a movie, aspecially a quiet scene. I'm going to put some of the ridgid fibreglass panels inside the soffit where the aircon is and see if it will help. The aircon part of the soffit is not completely close of from the rest of the soffits, so some of return air is sucked out from the soffits as well. I've got a secondary aircon unit in the adjoining room connected with a duct pipe to the HT for fresh air (previously in thread). The idea is to cool down the room with the split unit, for a few minutes before the movie, and then just use the second aircon to keep it cool and fresh - works so far

"Let the games begin!!"

A new phase of the my project started today. I filled the fabric frames with ridgid fibreglass batts. It took me nearly the whole day. You can't believe how different the room sounds now. The screenwall must still be covered as well as the bass traps and a few other places must also get the fibreglass treatment, but it already sounds much better accoustically. The itching is one downside to the whole process.

I asked my wife this question, trying to sound as inconspicuous as possible, but she saw me comming!: "Do we have an electric carving knife by any chance?"
"Yes we do, why are you asking........NO sorry!! you're NOT using it to cut anything in your movie room!"

I thought of sneaking it out of the kitchen and just return it afterwards as if nothing had happend, but with my luck the thing will burn out and then there'll be big sh*t!

So, I got my own:



The process was really quite easy and straight forward. I started with laying the frame over the panel and marking, with a pencil, the size to be cut.




The knife really cuts through the panel "like a hot knife through butter" - or an electric carving knife through a ridgid fibreglass panel



The cutouts fit nice and snug into the frame so there is no need to glue them in place.


And here is the first (one of 18) panel filled with the yellow batts.


Fast forward about four hours of cutting, fitting, itching, sweating and breathing through a mask and all the panels are done. Here's a pic of the carnage and the weapon of choice:


I saved the off-cuts for later when the will be used to fill some nooks and crannies in the HT somewhere.

Here they are in place: (once again, I'm VERY happy )








This pic shows how the fibre batts and the braces are 5mm "deeper" than the frame of the whole panel so that the fabric don't come into contact with the fibreglass or cross-braces.


Here is a little TEASER of what's to come!

Hello BIG,

By scrim do you mean the craft paper? I was thinking of that but thought I'll have a listen first. The panels are easily removed and the fibreglass batts can be removed from behind, scrim inserted and put back without much fuss.

Do you think the top row in the top panels will be sufficient enough with the scrim and the whole back wall?

Thanx,
Will

I have waited for the next part for a very long time. It feels if the theater is now slowly comming together. The first bit of colour! Like most folks on the forums say, the colour of the pictures is not exactly how the material look in life. The red is a bit deeper, more like a royal red. I was torn between my favourite colour, blue, and red. My wife said that the red will look more dramatic and "theatery". I'm very glad I went with the red in the end. The material is a very strong upholstery type of material without much stretch so it can be pulled very thightly over the frames.

Here's the first pic of drops sheet I laid down on the riser for a smooth and clean surface to work on.


Material rolled out:


The material looks different from the different sides (top to bottom and not back and front that looks completely different). From the one side it looks like the nice, deep red, but form the other side it looks more like a brighter, tomato red - not what a have in mind

So I have to make sure with every panel that the "right" side of the material will be on the topside of each panel.

Here's the first panel (actually it is the second one, cause I once again got carried away with the production and forgot to take pics but lets assume it's nr.1) laid onto the fabric, ready to be stapled:



The next few pics will detail the corners. The corners must be relatively flat and not to thick on the back otherwise the panels won't fit into the gap behind the skirtings.

















And here is a panel finished!


This one shows how the panels will look in place. The area where the two panels meet will be covered with a type of chair rail that I'm gonna make with MDF and halfround trim and cover it with fabric. The most diffucult part of the whole process is to get the two panels' stipes to aglign PERFECTLY. It will just look sloppy and bad if the stripes don't match especially where the panels and colums meet.



This is about how far I am today. I'll be working again this afternoon (Sat.) between 13h00 and 17h00 and we'll see how far I'll get. BTW, the camera-flash is SO unforgiving and not your friend. It shows every LITTLE flaw and mistake you make. The little wrinkle on the right top panel doesn't look like that in real life and already looks nearly completely flat this morning. I guess it takes a few days for the fabric to "settle" on the frames.



Till later,
Will