Mr.Tim's 15x27 Theater - Page 8

Given all the snow and a loss of power, I didn't get anything accomplished over the weekend.

I did get a shipping notice for my UMIK-1, so they must be back in stock. Just thought I'd mention it since it's pretty highly rated and was out of stock for a while. If you want one, now might be the time to grab it.

Tim

We're in the same boat. I really have no idea what I am doing. It's really just something I would like to do for the sake of doing it. I will probably start a thread in the DIY Subs forum since I have seen them be very helpful in interpreting the graphs.

Both the Dayton USB mic (which you can get with better calibration from Cross Spectrum Labs) and the MiniDSP UMIK have gotten good reviews. I think REW has better support for the UMIK, and the UMIK did edge out the Dayton mic in accuracy.

One of your other choices is the EMM, which isn't usb and needs phantom power from something like the Tascam box.

I only spent $100 on it, so I am not expecting more than that out of it. SHould be fuyn tho.

Tim

Got the rail done in the rear of the theater. It has a rabbet to accept the fabric frames that will flank it:




I also got the cap done at the radius corners. After the glue is set up for a day I'll round them a bit:



Wood-workin' in a Winter Wonderland (sing to 'Winter Wonderland'):


..and those white spots ain't from the flash


I put some thought into the binary amplitude diffuser and I think I've figured out how I am going to assemble it. However, I don't think I'll actually start that until I'm pretty much done with that other woodworking in the theater. Hopefully I can finish up the door casing tomorrow morning. If I can prep all the woodwork tomorrow afternoon, that should pave the way for paint on Monday.

Random thought for the day: I think I'll try a painted star ceiling (using a stencil).


Tim

Ursa Major stencils has the nightime and daytime skies. I've been following the star ceiling thread the Nightsky Murals recommended them as a decent DIY stencil. As for paint, I'm not sure. Again, Nightsky offered to sell his paint if you email him. His other suggestion was Glow Inc. paints. Although I'm not sure what color.. stars are kinda bluish-white, I think??

That's still a way off, I will probably drop an email to him and get some advice before I move ahead. I have plenty of other things to do in the meantime!

Tim

Good progress today. Finished up the trim at the radius corners:




Unfortunately I didn't get the door casing done due to a change in design. This is what I have right now:


I started with 3/4 x 3-1/2", then put a 1/2 x 2-1/4" piece on top. I had originally planned on using a 3/8 x 5/8" nose& cover to finish off, like this:


(sorry for the poor quality)

The nose&cove is on the left. When I stood back and looked at it.. I wasn't impressed. I think I am just going to put a quarter round in that corner and be done with it.

Shot of the back of the room:


The rail continues around the room, from the wainscot, through the columns and onto the back wall. When you get to the front of the room, the rail will be the same height as the shadow box for the bottom of the screen.

On the back wall there will be a 3/4" thick fabric frame below the rail (no treatments in it). Above the rail will also be frames, but I am going to incorporate the binary amplitude diffuser into the frame. I think I am going to use safe'n'sound between the studs, spaced 2" off the wall for the actual absorber on top. In the corners I will fill with pink fluffy.

I got all the nail holes filled and sanded. Put a second coat of filler on the holes. Will do the final sanding tomorrow and then it's on to painting the trim. Once that's done I have to hang the doors, install the doorstops, install the crown and make the fabric panels for the columns. Wow. I have a lot of work to do.

Tim

Made a lot of progress on the paint prep. Spot sanded the rough areas with 150 grit, then did everything with 220. Pics, or didn't happen, right?



Looking forward to (hopefully) laying down the paint and poly on all of the black trim this weekend. First I need to clean up all the cr-p that has accumulated in room. I finally got around to replacing the brake lines in my truck. Replaced 2 of the 3 lines from the ABS module (both front brake lines) and got them bled. Wouldn't you know, the third one leaks (to the rear drums).. So now I'm waiting for the specialty hose to ship. Until then I have no place to put all the junk destined for the landfill.

After that, a good vacuum of everything, followed by a lot of masking and wetting down the floor to keep the dust to a minimum. Finally, a few hours with the "noname" sprayer, which totally rocks.

Oh, I had another delivery:



I might get a chance to mess around with it this weekend. Curious as to how the F-20 will measure. I'm not going to take it outside, so I won't get a true reading, but I want to see how it measures in my living room.

Tim

Luckily I can get to the outside stairway from the theater pretty easily. I have to navigate through another room, but it isn't too bad. The only thing better than this would be a walk-out basement, because carrying all that sand was a PITA! I ended up piling all the garbage in the outside stairway for now.

I installed REW and played around with the UMIK a little bit. I didn't do any real measuring. The mic seems pretty much plug & play.. the REW manual says I can skip all the calibrations that are needed with other mics.

I'll have to try it against my NIST certified db meter and see how accurate it is.

Tim

I made a few new friends this weekend:




Needless to say.. this weekend S-CKED. I got two coats of black base coat on the trim and just finished my first coat of poly. Sanded between each coat, which was a nightmare due to all the raised panels.

Have a few drips in this coat of poly (I forgot the poly was thinner than the base coat.. did not adjust the sprayer properly at first).. but no big deal since I have another coat (or two.. we'll see how motivated I am) to put on there.

I used General Finishes waterbased products.. Black underbody to start, then High Performance Poly tinted with black vivitone and crosslinker additive. Can't say enough great things about the GF products. Too bad I have to mail order them since nobody around here carries them.. but it's worth every penny.






Tim

I suppose it's just two different ways to do the same thing. My technique is more of a cabinet-finishing technique.. where as paint... is just paint. The poly will definitely be more durable than paint and the finish will be glass smooth when I'm done. It will certainly be easier to clean.

I've switched to all water-based products. The downside of waterbased polyurethane is it doesn't have much burn in like oil. Burn in is where the top coat kinda melts into the coat below when you apply it. The crosslinker adds that property to the poly, as well as makes the finish harder.


Thanks, Nick. I'm giving that noname sprayer a workout, but it is working great. The only thing I've noticed is when you have the volume of paint turned down, the fan spray gets really narrow.

Tim

Thanks, rmajor. The color on the walls is just tinted primer (notice my spackle repair of something that draged across the wall). The finish color will be a darker brown. Black on the ceiling. Red GOM for the absorption panels.

Starting to get a tiny bit excited, but still a long way to go. Compared to when I started I guess it's not that far.

Tim

I think this holds some truth.. although I've been working on this for so many years it's hard to get excited anymore That being said, I did go down last light and sand all the runs out. Man, that poly is some tough stuff. I was plugging away with the sanding block and finally ad to give up and break out the power sander.

It now seems like I won't have enough poly or base coat to actually finish. I forgot I haven't painted the 3 doors yet (or ordered them, for that matter). So I probably won't finish up this weekend. I am going to try and get at least half done, so I can remove the masking and start on the walls.


Thanks, it does look pretty good.. I like earth tones

Tim

I think the table is a great value. I would recommend the accessory kit that has the featherboards and dust collection hood. Also worthwhile is the aluminum insert plates with different size openings. I don't have them (the table comes with a plastic insert), but they would be really nice to have.

Then you need to pick a router. I bought the Triton, which is a little more expensive, but it doesn't need a separate router lift. The base included with the router doubles as the lift. I've been really happy with the Triton. I have a Freud plunge and a PC fixed base and the Triton is much nicer.

Tim

More paint arrived today, so it looks like I'll get the trim finished this weekend and move on to the walls. I cannot say enough great things about Homestead Finishing Products. Ordered Tuesday AM and at my house today, two days later.

Interesting observations about step lighting over at the Bacon Race. I was going to use the save louvered step lights that damelon used, but apparently they aren't too bright. I will wait to hear how the translucent ones work out before I order.

Ever since Mario revealed his LED movie poster I have had it in the back of my mind that his idea would be a really cool addition to my theater. Unfortunately I don't run MainLobby, so it wasn't really achievable for me. However, I stumbled across meyer64's MoviePoster addon for XBMC. Now, I do run XBMC, so I still had a chance.

I've had my eyes open for a budget 32" HDTV.. surprisingly they are hard to come by. I figured everybody is buying these television the size of billboards now, so the smaller ones should be easy to come by cheap. Apparently not. Well today Amazon had a deal on the Seiki 42" and I picked up an open box one for $210. Unfortunately the deal was good for about an hour and is now dead.

But I have a screen for my poster

Tim

Thanks Nick! I will be tapping your knowledge when I get around to building the subs and calibrating. Stay tuned! I almost picked up 3 more DVC385-88 while they were on sale.. But figured I would wait and see what else PE puts on sale.


It may be a while before I get the poster going (you have no idea how much cr-- er.. stuff I have to move out of the way to get it mounted) Then there's that little thing called a theater I have to finish.. but I am a sucker for a good deal. Sometimes I get sidetracked and start little projects like the poster...


Ah, cool idea. I hadn't thought of mounting the frame so that it could be rotated (note to self: file that idea for later consideration). If the TV has a built in picture rotating program, that's a real nice and simple idea. The cost to get into XBMC isn't too much.. sure for the MoviePoster you will need a windows box.. but you can tie the rest of the house in with cheaper solutions. I have two old xbox's (the black ones) running XBMC very nicely up to 720p. I originally started running it because the kids were destroying the DVDs. I added a Zotac box in the master bedroom and can do 1080 with that one.

I was thinking about another Zotac for the poster.. I can grab one for less than $100 and it would fit nicely in the poster frame. Ocassionally I build my own servers/computers, but I've come to appreciate an AIO solution I don't have to mess around with.

Tim

An eventful day. USPS delivered my HAI thermostat for the theater (click for vid, you'll love this):







Do you know what happens when you throw something at a dog?



Yeah, he totally destroyed the package and was working on the tstat when luckily my wife came home and saw him.

In other news, I knocked over one of the frame for the column and it snapped in two pieces. Lets see.. I'd have to mill the mortises, the tenons, the lock miter corners... rabbit out for the fabric panel. Yeah... No. Glue it is, hope it comes out ok, but finding it hard to actually give a s--t.

Got the second coat of poly on everything.. Will be doing a 3rd coat on some areas tomorrow. THen remove the masking and hopefully start on the walls. Or something.

The new 42" LED TV arrived today, the thing is awesome for $209.

Tim
Edited by Mr.Tim - 3/2/13 at 5:52pm