Upgraded PJ. Change from SILVER to AT spandex?

So, my BenQ W500 is reaching the end of it's lamp life. Instead of spending a couple hundred on a new lamp, I decided to blow a grand and picked up an Epson 8350. Full HD, more lumens, better contrast, etc. My Q is shooting at a 100" S-I-L-V-E-R screen thanks to guidance from MM 5-ish years ago. I plan on just swapping out the PJs for now, but in the long run I want to go AT and increase size to 111" (yep, that's right, not 110, but 111 ). For my cheap DIY pleasure, I'm thinking spandex. Probably the Moleskin matte silver. So now, the questions:

1) Is the Silver material listed above a good fit for the Epson 8350? I know some flourish with white, others with gray. Try searching for "Epson 8350" and "screen" and you can read for months.

2) I'm thinking of a frame much like lakersin2025 made here, but make two support braces off center to accommodate a center speaker. Do you see any pitfalls to this method?

3) I was thinking of using Screen Tight hardware to secure the spandex... if I can find it here in the Great White North. I feel this should be more forgiving than stapling. Thoughts?

4) What is the recommended minimum distance between the speaker and the back of the screen material? I want to conserve as much space as possible, so I need to build new speakers. I plan on looking up some DIY builds to go as thin as I can. Recommendations?

5) My PJ mount is currently 13' from the screen (lens to screen, +/- inch or two). I'll have to zoom ~1.77 to fill the 111". Is it preferable to be closer and zoom more or further back and zoom less?

6) MM, this one is up your alley, but others may have insight. Going from my beloved S-I-L-V-E-R to fabric, keeping in mind the PJ upgrade... will I be disappointed in pop and pizzazz? If so, it looks like I can possibly spray the spandex with SIL. Is that much harder than the first time when I sprayed MDF? Would a possible future spray affect the material choice (i.e. white vs silver)?

Whew! That's a lot of questions! I love these forums, but because of the size, they suffer from information overload. Searching any of these pretty generic terms yields hundreds of threads... Looking thru them lasted me a couple days, but now I'm just looking for opinions on my specific queries. What do you guys figure?

Thanks for the input MM. I got my crayons out to figure the 15% thing, but I'm afraid you lost me. Does this mean that if, say, the min throw distance was 10' you'd tack on 15%... So 11.5'?

Yeah... stop hijacking crap... geez!

Actually, I considered this as well. Run a couple grooves with a router and the rubber spline thingy for screen door repair and you should be set. I think I may get some sample material and try this out for something to do. My wife will be oh so pleased!

Since I'll eventually be putting speakers behind, I'll need to do some light blocking. Black spandex should do the trick I'm assuming. Can it just be generic cheap crap like this?

Hey! Nice! The ol' gray matter is still functioning! Thanks again.

Looks good schneedoo. I found some silver spandex locally, but not sure if I want to get it or just order from the US. I'm always worried about duty crossing the border killing any potential savings. But, I'm also afraid of getting something down the street that sucks and I'll be unhappy. oh the choices. But in the meantime, I have bigger problems. Just unboxed my new 8350, mounted it and fired everything up. No signal from my Onkyo 605. Direct blu-ray to the PJ and all is fine. Not a happy camper right now. I'm able to get sound by using the 2 channel outputs, but this is not a happy place for me. Looks like I may have to drop another $500 on a new receiver. Sh!t.

I'm thinking about skipping the hardware and just routing a groove in the frame and using spline directly in the wood. And yeah, bummed about the receiver, but good news... after it was running for around an hour, the picture finally came on. Must be some solder problems. I'll probably replace it anyway, but it may be a couple months before I can swing it.

So, back to the spandex... the "moleskin silver" I linked is 87% nylon, 13% spandex. The local stuff is 80/20. It also did not list a weight, and it's just called "matte silver". Not much to go on. Will pretty much any silver do or are we getting into specifically tested material here and any variance may end in disaster? I guess I could just drop the $40 and stop whining, but.... it's $40!

Nice job schneedo, and thanks for keeping this updated. I'm going to put in an order for my spandex shortly. Where did you get your velvet?

Update from me now... I built the screen out of 1x4 lumber, routed two channels in the back, used butt joins with a biscuit joiner, glued it, clamped it, and squared it up. Got my shipment from Spandex world and I have the black attached and just finishing up on the silver. I need more spline, so I'm off to Home Depot in a few minutes. The corners are a bit hard to get tight, but I'm going to overlap black velvet frame by an inch or two onto the screen surface. It's sitting at 118" diagonal right now. If I overlap the frame by 1.5" all the way around that leaves me with 115", which is just about perfect according to THX... I think.

It'll be kind of useless as an AT screen for a while. I don't plan on renovating the screen wall until after Canadian Football season is done in November. Then it's framing and speaker building. Now I gotta search thru threads and see what MM recommneded for trim for the final frame.

Looks pretty damn sweet! Kids are watching some super-low-def bullsh!t at the moment. I'll have to grab some pics with something more eyecatching on the screen, but it may be a few days... heading out the door very soon.

Thanks again Man from Miss' ;-)
As promised, a couple screenies:

Gotta love Pixar!


And with me in the frame.