Help choosing a DIY screen paint in the UK

Hi all,

I've been busy reading about all the great sucesses many have had with the DIY screen paint formula's available here. Credit to all the developers - the paints look like a huge triumph for the DIY community

I had made a decidion to go with SF2.5/5.0, but have since found that some of the paints aren't available here in the UK. I think I can source Liquitex Basics from a local art shop, but Minwax Polycrylic, Rustoleum Metallic Accents, and Behr paints of any description just don't seem to exist here. The biggest names in paint over here are Dulux and Crown.

I have a Panasonic AX200 (quite old but I've taken it to pieces and cleaned up all the lenses, mirrors and polarizers, and will be getting a new bulb very soon). Its throw is 3.5m, projecting about 90 inches. Currently I'm using a canvas picture that mounts over an aluminium frame as a temporary screen while I decide what to do. I've flipped the canvas over so I'm projecting onto the un-printed white side. It looks pretty good but the surface is rough so not so good up close, and you can just about make out the picure on the reverse during bright scenes (oops)!

The room is about 4m x 3.5m and has 1 large window just behind the ceiling mounted projector (opposite the screen). The ceiling is white and reflection immediately above the screen is a problem with the current white screen. The walls are cream/white. The curtains are complete blackout but there is still some light leakage during the day around the top and sides. At night the room can be brought to almost total darkness, with only the light reflected from the projector off the screen and walls causing illumination.

Painting the room darker isn't an option so I intend to upgrade to a Panasonic AR100/AH100 to up the brightness to 2800 lumens (50000:1) within the next couple of years. I find the automatic light harmonizer on these Panasonic models best for easy family use within a bright living room.

Can anyone suggest what I should do for a screen paint/material? I'm not far from an industrial area where the big names in paint over here can mix to any required colour. Perhaps I could take the specs of something like the Behr to them and ask them to make it up?

PS. I'm not a great fan of the film, but Cowboys & Aliens really showed up the weaknesses of my setup - some of that film is very dark!

Hi Granddad!

Blighty is good, Olympic crazy and strangely warm today.

I'm in South London, AKA Saaaaaf Laandon mate. I'd love to see some DIY screens in action - please do tell

Thanks for your suggestions on suitable alternative paints. Regarding acrylic mirror, I'm fairly sure I could source some of that, but getting a huge sheet of it to my house without damaging it, now that's another thing. Also I'm a bit concerned about painting something like that - wouldn't the paint coat have to be totally and completely even across the whole surface to ensure even reflection? Sounds a bit tricky!

Also would I be painting the acrylic with SF or just a flat gray?

I can indeed buy the paint sprayer over here. It looks like it'll come in at about £40 ($60).

You know something funny... I'm a member of CAMRA (campaign for real ale), have frequented many a beer festival, and have tried more than my fair share of local, national and continental brews. Strangely I have never come across a black & tan! Still, I'll be sure to give one a try and let you know a. the look on the bartender's face when I ask for one and b. how it tastes

While I've been patiently waiting there has been a change of plan...

I'll soon be the recipent of an LG CF181D and will be replacing my existing Panasonic AX200. It's an ex-demo model used by LG themselves at exhibitions that came up for the lowest price I've ever seen one available for, with just a few hours on the bulb. I'm hoping it might even be a 'cream of the crop' sample, specially picked or factory calibrated to show off the line's capabilities. It also comes with a years warranty from an authorised LG retailer, so we decided to lay down the readies.

I'm thinking I might not need such a reflective screen after all. I've ordered a load of lycra/spandex, vinyl and poly/satin fabric samples to try out and will be comparing them to some flat grey computer print outs to check for zero colour offset before trying them as a screen material. Some of them are silver-ish so I'm thinking I might need to spray them grey, or perhaps cover them with a second layer of light dispersing material.

Any further advice would be much appreciated

Complacency, a little procrastination and half a teaspoon of indifference.

The WAF was an issue here. I basically said the image will be so good you won't care or be looking at the big black box on the ceiling. If it's really bad I'll have to vinyl wrap it white or build a white hardboard box around it.

I think spandex is called lycra here. Anyway I've got a load of samples of thin stretchy stuff on the way and will try them all out. Can I use bright white BOC as a backing?



So do I strain that through a mesh or just mix it as is? Can it be rolled off the tongue or is it only suitable for quaffing? What about the environment, can I use it in a light room or just a dark and dingy oldy woldy kind of place?

Thanks for the tips. Now I've actually sold my AX200 I can go on to say how dark it was... I bought it unknowingly off a smoker and the inside was coated with tar deposits and dust stuck to it. I spent a good few hours disassembling everything including the entire lens assembly to clean it all up. The only thing I couldn't get to was the prism/optic block because the LCD panels and polarizers sit too close to be able to clean it. I also think the person I got it off used a non-OEM bulb, many of which are rated at 1,000 hours instead of the usual 2,000. So it was desperately in need of a new bulb, which I know for sure now, having seen just how much brighter the LG is. Also I had begun to notice a slight fault where the image would go completely green for a fraction of a second, perhaps every hour or so. It was so fast that if you blinked it would be completely missed, but it put me off investing more money on the beast. Also in the service menu I found out it had done close to 6,000 hours! Not bad really for an LCD.

Anyway back on topic. So the LG is absoultely stunning compred to the Panny, not just in brightness but in just about everything else too. Now in a completely lit room, projecting onto a white screen, it's completely watchable, despite the blacks obviously being lost.

Now I went on to try out some of the fabric samples I received recently. One of them is a silver spandex/lycra that looks like a pretty light shade of grey. But I just can't get my head around using it as a projection material. We tried it out, and yes, all dark colours including black look, well darker... But all brighter colours look darker too, and white just doesn't pop and sparkle like it does on a white BOC. It feels like gaining 5% black level to loose 10-15% white, plus the hue and saturation of all lighter colours is reduced. Is that what others are experiencing or is it just I have the wrong fabric?

With regards to black levels on the LG projecting onto a white screen, well they're not absolute black that's for sure. But one thing that made me feel much better about it was looking out of the window at the night sky here, about 7 miles South of Central London. Space is significantly darker on my projector than it is for real here! That's good enough for me