My "Out of Africa" theater is "FINISHED" - Page 9

Hello guys,

Mystifier, glad you like the details, for a while I was thinking too much details will be boring to some people but then again, this is the whole idea of the forum: to share ideas and help other folks who just started on this lovely journey called HT building.

BIG, yes, the columns. I was wondering when someone will bring them up I am still throwing some ideas around in my head. I'm not 100% sure anymore about the speakers I'm gonna use, so if I can make up my mind and have the final dimentions of the bi-poles, then I can make my column panels. So, all I can say at this stage is: "Watch this space..."

Brian, for the screen I'm going to use a material found locally that seems to be identical to the sheerweave material some folks used for AT screens. I actually got the material a few months ago and it's still rolled up and standing upright in another room till it's time to cover the screen frame. I hope it will look good.

AirBenji, thank you for popping in! Thanx alot for the compliments.

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I've started to build my screen frame panel that will go in front of my screen to hide the masking system and actually BE the false front wall. I had to take the whole operation out of the HT and into the entrance hall of the house because I'm building the panel as one piece and there is not enough space in the HT to lay the thing down. So, after moving furniture and rugs, I managed to put together most of the frame. I'm at work again and will be going home in an hours' time to complete the frame. Will hopefully post some pics tomorrow if all goes to plan. My biggest fear now is that the top part of the frame will sag, so I'm thinking of ways to streghten it without adding to much extra weight and keeping it to the 45mm width of the panel - we'll see how it goes.

Till later,

Will

Here's the pics of the screenwall panel. Sorry for the dark photos. I had to take them last night and the little flash on my camera wasn't strong enough. Like I've said before, I had to assemble the thing in the entrance hall of the house and did'nt take pics of the whole process. Here it is almost completely put together:



Here the whole thing is finished. I used broader pieces of MDF on the top to help support the more than 3m span. It seems to work OK. When I put it in place in front of the screen, it sagged about 4-5mm. Lets hope it does not sag any more, otherwise I'd have to make another plan.



And finally, put in place in front of the screen and masking system. This thing is quite heavy. Now it must be covered with fabric.



This shows the MDF needed to build the DVD/Blu-ray media rack. This thing will be as strong as a tank - hope it does'nt fall over on someone, or ME for that matter

I've got some GOOD news, some GREAT news and then some HILARIOUS news!

First up - the good news is that I've made some good progress again. I have managed to cover the four masking panels and the frame where the screen will fit in, with black velvet. The two horisontal masks and frame were covered with normal velvet and the vertical masks were covered with stretch velvet to make it AT for when it moves in front of the speakers and screen in 4:3 mode. There is a very subtle colour difference between the hor. and ver. masks, but since they won't mask the screen at the same time, it should'nt be noticeable. I can't believe how black this stuff really is in comparison to my VERY black columns, they look almost charcoal now!

Here is a pic:


And now for the GREAT news:

I've also managed to put up the LED RGB colour changing strip lights around the perimeter of the soffits. The paint and crown moulding must still go up, but it looks GREAT!

The strips got their own 3M tape backing, that is you just peel of the cover strip and stick it down. They come in 5m lenghts and each needs its own RGB controller. I grouped the 4 controllers together and sticked the 4 IR receivers together to make sure all 4 receive the signal together. I put it in the front right column for now. All four controllers are connected to one power supply.

Here's some pics of the controllers and the strip:



Sorry, but it's very difficult to take a proper photo of the strip next to the white soffit:



For those who have not seen this type of thing before, here is a pic of the remote for the controllers:



You can do alot with these striplights. They can be dimmed and have different modes, like fade, strobe, flash and smooth. You can also adjust the speeds of the different modes. The fade mode is very cool. It cycles slowly through the whole colour spectrum. You can also just press a colour button like blue or orange to change to a static colour. I LOVE this

The major deciding factor for me with this setup was that you can have any colour you like and not just blue or red or white like the rope lights. So if you get bored with one colour you can change it, or if you are indecisive say between white and blue - GET BOTH!









And now, the HILARIOUS news. Very funny for you guys but for me, not so funny, in fact, I'm close to tears

Who whould have guessed that most of the IR commands for the RGB controllers and the MASKING system would be the same!!!! Yep, if I press the BLUE button for the lights, the masks move and if I want to change the aspect of the screen, the lights change Not all of the bottons - but most, so I won't be able to use them together as it is now

BUT....I think there will be a solution. I want to get myself a Harmony 900 remote for the HT because all of my equipment will be outside the HT and the RF function will work good with that, so I think that I can program the masking system commands into the remote and then just send them via RF to the IR distributor and from there a dedicated IR flasher just to the masking system, isolated so that the RGB controllers don't pick it up.

Anyway, I'm very happy with the outcome of the lights. One thing I must still figure out is what colour to paint the white soffits that will minimise reflections from the screen, but still look good when the strip lights shine on it. What colour do you guys think, medium gray? and how will that look with the rest of my colour scheme? Decisions......decisions......

Here is two videos of the lights in action. The first just shows the different static colours that change when I push the different colour buttons and the second shows how I can dim and brighten the lights.

Click on the pics for the videos:





Till later,

Will

Thanx BIG. I think I'll start on the crown moulding around the top of the columns tonight. Not a nice job with all the mitre cuts ect. - a real pain to do neatly.

Hi Greg, the column crow is DONE! It came out quite nicely. I'll go fetch my memory card from home and post the pics. Next up is the crown on the soffit. I'm stil busy painting the soffit moulding before putting it up.

calimark, the cost for the strip lights, controllers and power supply was R2650-00 - about $340

RT, thanx again!

I quickly fetched the memory card at home and here's the pics!

After ALOT of sawing with this saw and mitre box,


Here is the first attempt before touch-up paint and cleaning:



And here is what they look like after all is done and touched up:
(some little white spots is small pieces of ploystyrene that must be brushed off and some spots are still wet paint, so it looks like it's white) - in real life it looks great!!





I'll try to get a "bigger picture" of all columns crowned, but it's getting more difficult to take good pictures with everything in the room turning black

The columns look much nicer now with the crown moulding. It forms one piece with the soffits and gives the illusion that the columns is actually supporting the soffit, as it is intended.

Thank you for the advice Frank, I'll give it a try.

A little update:

The screen wall is covered with black velvet and looks good with the masking system - everything blends in nicely. I'll post pics as soon as I can.

Till later,

Will

A little update:

Like I've said before, I've covered the screenwall frame with black velvet. I must still make the top part to cover the gap above the frame. That'll be made out of MDF as well (could've called it the MDF theater ) and painted matt black to match the proscenium underside and the soffits as well.

This pic shows how the screenwall look with all masks open:



And here it is masked for 16:9



and masked for 2.35:1



and here it's masked to 4:3



After painting the crown moulding - FIVE COATS EACH X 10 pieces = 50 coats it was finally covered without any hint of black showing through.



I put the crown up yesterday afternoon around the soffit perimeter. The wierd angle of the two front corners took some time to do right. I used my DeWalt radial saw to cut them - they came out PERFECTLY It look quite different now that the moulding is up and the strip lights shine out from behind - the hard work paid off. Tonight I'll do all the touch-up painting on the corners and some places where the adhesive shows and for good measure I'll give the whole thing one last coat - again - coat nr. 6!!

Here's some rather dark pics to show the look. Please remember it is before touch-up and final coat. The pics above of the masking and screen wall, also shows the moulding around the soffits.

Thank you very much, BIG

Hi Greg, RT and Jeff. Thanx again for the compliments. I feel very honoured to be named in the same context as BIG. It sounds like a great idea and the company name is also very catchy!

For the premier, I think all of my AVS friends must charter a jet and fly over here!

Last night - till about 24h00 - I finished the two front columns' crown moulding as well as the cover piece above the screenwall frame. Here is a pic of the two pieces for the screen being painted. All the following pics' levels have been edited to show more clearly what is going on, so the greys are actually black in real live.



This one shows the screenwall with the top cover piece, that holds the frame in place, installed.



The next two shows the last of the columns to receive their "crowns"





And here's the whole screenwall as it is now



This shows the projector box and surrounding columns and crown moulding



Till later,

Will

Some progress - just a little bit

I started work on the "speaker cover" parts of the columns. They will once again be made out of MDF and also aluminium square angle. It wil basically be a box frame covered by ..............yep, BALCK VELVET!!! This time I'm using four-way stretch velvet. It is very AT and looks good as well. This is the fourth type of velvet that I'm using in the HT. Altough they are all black they differ in texture so it does'nt all look the same and too monotonous. I was thinking of using a deep red velvet to break some of the black, but I think that it will look too corny, so I'll stay with the black. Here's some pics of the different sizes of MDF for the columns and their bases that will be nailed to the columns.







Here's one of the little Monopoly houses I made - they'll be used in the frames to keep the aluminium in place.



And then the fabrication started:


And after a while.......... a LONG while........ we get to this:



After the glueing and clamping came the painting:



Oh I just love this foam roller brushes - much nicer finish and so easy to use (and cheap too )

Here they are after 3 coats:



These pieces are the bases and tops where the "box frame" will rest on and under. Here is a pic after they were nailed in place on the columns:

The one at the bottom:



and its twin buddy on top:



All the columns will have the box shape covers, except the two in front next to the screen. Their covers will be at 45' angled towards the screen to "pull" the viewers eyes to the screen and match up to the angled step of the stage on which the columns stand. This two pics show the angled bases and tops of the two front columns:





I did'nt document the creation of the actual frames, but it's straight forward if you look at the pics. Here the basic frames is just put in place without the aluminium strips.



And this shows the angled panel in place:



This one just shows where and how the Monopoly houses are glued to the frame as a support and place to fix the aluminium strips to.



Here is a very blurry pic (sorry ) of the back columns with their frames in place. This is where I am at this stage. I hope to make some progress tonight and be able to show some more soon.



Till later

Will

Hi guys, thank you, I hope they turn out OK. I tried to work last night but after putting my little girl to bed I was also too tired at 21H30 to go back into the HT for some work - hopefully tonight something will get done.

I think it's time for an UPDATE.

All the frames for the column panels are assembled. I've glued the aluminium angle braces to the "Monopoly house" pieces of MDF with epoxy glue. I've also added cross braces to keep the aluminium form bending when I pull the velvet over it.





And here they are lying flat while the glue on the cross-brace and aluminium joints set.



I painted the frames black to prevent anything from showing through the velvet.









Ahh, panel covering... I can do it whith my eyes closed by now

This latest kind of velvet is very nice to work with and also very forgiving. It streches in all directions without showing "pull" marks. Also it is very AT and will work great in front of the speakers.



I started with the little front frames to get the feel of this fabric first:



Here is an action shot of the a frame being wrapped:



And EVENTUALLY AFTER MONTHS OF WAITING the columns is finally finished!!







And the bigger picture:













These shots just show the profile of the columns and frames:





Till later

Will

PS. I see now a few pics is OOF and the columns is very dusty - it has been vacumed after the pics were taken

Thanx BIG.


calimark, what did you have in mind for the fan, a coat of black paint maybe


NOT!!!!!

Ha Ha

Don't worry, the star ceiling is in the making!!