My 1.5-2.0 gain - simple, no mixing, DIY Screen - Page 2  

as listed on the 1st post:

"My list of materials:

I started with a 77x54 BOC screen (any screen will work)

1 – Quart of Behr Ultra Pure White Flat wall Paint $6 aka UPW
1 – Quart Behr Premium Plus White Opal Pearlesence No. 751 $19 aka WOP
1 – Quart Behr Premium Plus Crystal-Clear Water Based Polyurethane Clear Matte No. 780 $15 aka CCM"

Total cost of paint = $40

I was always under the impression that the base coat was the determinent of gain?

Cheers...
Duy-Khang Hoang

Ron, thanks mate......I appreciate your effort. It's interesting to note that BISMUTH OXYCHLORIDE is also used in paints, cosmetics to provide a pearlescent effect. Behr SILVER METTALIC has it.

WOP : Ron, a small thin smear on a piece of card should reveal any shiny reflective particles when dry (even when wet actually). If these particles look multicoloured/rainbow like under light....they're most likely mica and will reflect light in the typical angular reflective way.
I've got no idea what bismuth oxychloride looks like .
A good thing to check would be if these shiny bits exhibit RETROREFLECTIVITY (road traffic signs, glass beads ,high powerscreen etc.)
but somehow I doubt that this would be the case.
Thanks again Ron.

I have an AE700, so wanted a grey screen.:

Layer 1: Silverscreen
Layer 2: WOP
Layer 3: Crystal Clear Poly

I am happy. Your results may vary...

(Sorry for the "only 1 post". Too busy for more.
Thanks to everyone for the very valuable info on this forum.)

Just appear for an instant, drop that little GEM in our midst and you're gone? Well, thank you indeed!

What this means maybe is do it yourself firehawks or grayhawks or gray lites or whites (if blacks are as good as they are with hot MMUD topcoats....same gain range) in easy DIY gain up to 2.0. He's got 1,000 lumens and is using the same hot WOP pure coat over a base as 2 others of us have now done successfully, and the clear matte as has mission313. That's got to be great news for him as he waits to try out 900 lumens!

Great!

I have a few ducks lined up myself. First of all, I've got to know the owner of the best paint store in Zürich - and bought over 100$ worth of paint too.

- I've got a liter each of:

- flat/matt clear finish (like your new secret ingredient),
- metallic silver
- WOP (silver-white pearl)
- flat white.

They're all high quality water-based acrylics of the flexible/latex type (no more chalky textures for me!) - and though they're obviously not the brands you American guy have, I'm guessing that they're close enough.

- Even better, I have a line of flip chart pages all ready to paint. One page just paper (for reference), another for pure flat white, another for pure silver, another for pure WOP, another for a MMud derivative (white + clear + WOP), another for a silver mud derivate (white + clear + WOP + Silver). And once I've tried all of those, I can try them all with a coating of clear matt.

- Best of all, I have a digital camera on the way to document my results. My old one was stolen and insurance has just come through for me.

Peace,

Mike

I like this combo from Only1Post. Before this thread I was experimenting with taking the UPW out of the MMud and just painting on the DB and WOP mix. For knocking down the hotspotting I was spraying a can of frosted-glass coating, but it was hard to get an even layer. I think the CCP is a perfect solution.

I plan on mixin some of this up this weekend. I am also going to get some of the Rust-oleum "aluminum". I'll shoot 'em out against my screen and post some pics when I'm done.

This thread is too good to die. Mission313 hit the nail on the head. MMan and the others seemed to be ignoring the fact that whenever you add UPW to a mix, you cover up any "pigment" qualities in it (like the O in WOP).

....and your ignoring the fact that without a adaquate level of opaqueness, the properties in either WOP or SM will do more to degrade an image than enhance it.

It's all about balance. There efforts with clears have been tried before with pretty poor results. But that doesn't mean that there is a formula that "balances' out what they have to offer.

Until actual representations of these applications are completed, tested, and the deffinative results posted WITH photos, then it's all speculation, and that sort of stuff only serves to confuse the whole issue for newbees looking for direction. Plus, it's not nice or correct to discredit the work of others based on the 'conjecture' of those with no real experience, just a suppostion.

Let them prove their point irrevocably, and everyone will climb on board, myself included.

Considering the expense involved in experimenting with different mixes, this is wise. I know some people like to play with things on here, but there are those of us who are here because we are looking for the best value for our money. I know that's why I went with the DYI route, and my results have been quite satisfying. I'd be less happy if I had a bunch of false starts along the way, and wasted a bunch of money on it. It would make me think that I might have been better off with a pro screen.

Personally, I wouldn't disparage MMan's work. His MMud is quite eye-opening, and works quite well for off-the-shelf paint. Certainly the goal for higher gain screens is laudable, and worthy to persue, but to disparage what came before, particularly when you know how it works, is a bit much.

Jason

Ok I should give a more complete report.

I will make it clear that my impressions are completely subjective.
This is not something I have any experience in, and I have not tried
other screen solutions either commercial or DIY. I have been projecting
on a plain piece of 40x60 inch foam-core for the last three months.
So I am likely to be impressed by any improvement.

I first painted this with the Behr Silverscreen color, as suggested in the
Silverscreen thread. To me, the whites looked grey. I was ready to try
a simple white MMud screen.

But then I saw this thread. So I covered my flat painted surface
(silverscreen in color rather than white) with the WOP then the
Crystal Clear Poly Matte (CCPM), as described at the beginning of this
thread.

I first tried a 20x20 inch sample. Held up to my Silverscreen screen,
the blacks were almost identical, but the whites were quite a bit
brighter. How much, I cannot say. It is subjective. But no question,
they were brighter. At least, in about a +/- 40 degree viewing cone.
Beyond that, it seemed about the same as the plain Silverscreen
(these tests done with a barely dried sample).

Then I painted my entire screen. As I said before, I am happy. To me,
it is a big improvement, and something I intend to keep for at least
a while. It seems to have a lot more brightness and contrast than the plain
Silverscreen, while maintaining black levels, and only a slight (quite
tolerable to me) hot spotting.

Now for the problem with this scheme. It is essential to get the WOP
layer as even as possible. Evenness for the CCPM may also be critical,
but my impression is it is not as important. Anyway, any uneveness
shows up as something that I can only describe as "shadowing",
something only noticeable with very bright scenes that cover large
areas of the screen. This effect is most noticeable when viewing
the screen along the line of maximum reflection from the projector.
For me, I have the projector at table top level, and the screen slightly
higher. So I don't really see this unless I stand up. But for those who
are ceiling mounted, this may be a real problem. The screen is now only
two days old, and as it continues to cure, this shadowing effect seems
to be lessening.

I only did one medium coat of WOP, as described at the beginning of
this thread. I used rolling techniques described elsewhere, to maximize
evenness. I did not attempt to sand at any step. It is possible that two
thin coats of WOP would give better results. It is possible that sanding
at some point will give better results.

Perhaps this belongs in the Silverscreen thread, but since it uses this
new technique described in this thread of layering WOP with CCPM,
I posted it here. This combination seems to be a true breakthrough
for DIY but of course only time, and more experience, will tell.

Sounded a lot easier than a Light Fusion screen, so I made a 1 foot test square to try with my DIY 15" LCD projector. So far it looks pretty good: The colors are far more accurate than my slightly off-white wall, and certainly brighter. The blacks look about the same as on the wall. I tried it at all angles (a must with such a small test piece), and I can't see any hot spotting. I also tried it at the edge of the illuminated area, and the border is still a nice deep black.

The thing I especially liked was the occasional bright white object in the image. Projecting on the flat off-white wall never gives me a pure saturated white. Everything that should be white is a light pastel of one hue or another. This material can deliver a brilliant white.

One strange thing: My wall looks about the same shade as a piece of white laser printer paper. The test sample looks quite a bit more cream-colored from the WOP.

I will be trying it over the next week or two to see if it "matures" like other WOP screens. I also have some "paint over aluminized mylar" test squares and a real Light Fusion test square in the works for comparisons.

I post stuff on both DIY Audio projector forum and on DIYBuilderGroup. Both are for DIY video projector builders. I actually followed a DIY Audio posting link to find this forum, when I started to look for a decent DIY screen choice.

Hey, nice work!

I'm curious: I've been testing paint pretty intensively over the last couple days (work, eat, kiss wife & kids, paint, sleep, get up ... repeat :-) ), and my silver metallic - which may obviously be different from what you stateside guys have - puts down a pretty THICK coat. I can't imagine much of a base coat coming through the silver, unless you thinned it way down with a transparent paint of some kind. Do you have a differnt take on this?

What I *could* imagine doing with my paints would be to lay down a pure silver base then cover it with a middle layer mix of silver + white + (maybe) clear. I've got a mix of ca. 2/3 silver to 1/3 white drying downstairs right now and I'm very curious to see how it comes out. Down in the basement it just looks light gray - no metallic sheen left. Presumably, the white stuff has toned down the metallic element pretty heavily. However, the metallic element *is* still there, and it may still have some punch one I aim the projector at it.

Best,

Mike

Perhaps a gray primer like KILZ would work for the MG.

<back to closely monitoring this thread>

313,

I would also suggest Lowes Valspar plank gray, its a little darker than SS and it works great with my 450:1 XGA lcd pj.

Victor

Well first of all let me apologize to you Mississippi Man. I did not mean to "discredit" your work or anyone else's. You have much more experience than me and most of the other people in this area.

What I can say is that your are right. As you will see in my shoot out here, as soon as you try to put transparent or translucent coats (such as WOP) over UPW, your whites start to yellow. Thus the balance you speak of. I do however, still believe adding UPW to pearlecent "mixes" covers up the pigment properties. I have concluded that I cannot tell the difference between 1:1:1 MMud and UPW with a little Deep Base added (no WOP.)

That being said, on to what I have experimented with:
I am saying now, what I have done here is far from perfect and I challenge those out there to continue with this experimentation.


I am comparing:
313White
Rust-oleum Metallic "Aluminum" No. 7715 (touted by tryg here)
Rust-oleum High-Heat Silver No. 7716 (also from tryg)


I started with a small sheet of luan wood (all I had around the house) painted with UPW.
-On the left I put one coat of WOP covered by one coat of CCPM.
-Middle is Rust-oleum metallic "Aluminum"
-Right side is Rust-oleum High-Heat Silver
-In between each paint is a line of the UPW which is underneath.


http://home.comcast.net/~jjcritch/Sh...in%20light.jpg

You can tell I had to take the picture at quite an angle just to get rid of the hot spotting from the "Aluminum" paint. Its like a mirror.

Here is a picture with the samples right in the middle of my MMud screen. This is right in the hot spot as you may be able to tell. The PJ is an Epson 800p LCD.

http://home.comcast.net/~jjcritch/Sh...hot%20spot.jpg

It doesn't show here well, but the moral to this whole story is that the whites of the 313White are yellowish. Now maybe this has to do with my technique...but i doubt it.


Here is a picture off the hot spot:
http://home.comcast.net/~jjcritch/Sh...spot%20CCP.jpg


As you can see, there is a huge difference in the whites and blacks of the "Aluminum" when it is on and off angle.
The High-Heat paint performs very well. If you are dealing with a "light cannon" of a projector this is definitely the way to go. The whites however are a little too dulled for me.
The 313White performs great. Whites are bright, blacks are deep but that darn yellowing ruins it for me.

Here are some close ups to show the blacks and whites a little better:

Here the white square is 313White/UPW stripe/"aluminum"
http://home.comcast.net/~jjcritch/Sh...%20-%20CCP.jpg
Shows the yellowing a little. The "aluminum" streakiness is from the wood texture. It goes to show you how bad this hotspots because each line in the wood shines back like a mirror.


This picture really shows what I got excited about with this expirement:
("aluminum"/UPW stripe/High-heat)
http://home.comcast.net/~jjcritch/Sh...ot%20black.jpg
The blacks from the High-heat silver are amazing. Tryg shows a close up of the paint itself but it is really something you have to see in person. It has almost a gritty surface that is indeed a $5 Firehawk. Best of all, despite the rattle can, the paint goes on flawlessly even.

I will be using this No. 7716 on a screen I am constructing for use with a Infocus LP530 2000 lumen DLP. It is perfect.

However, I am going down in lumens soon with my personal HT and I am not confident in the white levels from this darker paint. What I think I may do is go to Home Depot tomorrow and pick up High-heat White No.7751 and expirement with that.

Stay tuned...

You scared me there for a second. I had to check my WOP to see if I had the wrong one. It says No. 751 though so I think I'm OK.

So you think I probably put too thick of a coat on? I think you're right. I'll have to try another sample with a thinner coat. Maybe I will thin it down with some water.

Oh and by the way. I noticed you live like 2 miles from me (I'm at 11 and Coolage)...What a coincidence.

jjcritch,

You speak of not being able to differentiate between MMud 1:1:1 and UPW/with "a little" Deep Base? That's pretty ambiguous considering the extensiveness you put into your 3-Panel experiment.

When MMud is used by itself, it needs to overlayed on a bright white Primer or some such undercoating of Bright White nature. And it works best in that application if applied thickly (several smooth coats rolling or sprayed) I didn't search for any description by you of what/ how you effected your MMud screen, however, so I might be typing redundantly.

It's been known to happen. :rolleyes: So I've been told. :D

MMud was originally intended as a Top Coat for application over reflective surfaces. Much of what your doing now is old news (...important, but "old'.) to those of us with 2+ years on the forum. Your observations will take a decidedly different bent once you try applying the High Heat Silver to a large surface. The Only, really successful usage of High Heat Silver as a pure coating as been within a Torus (curved screen) . And the PJs it was being designed for were CRTs of decidedly low Lumen output, so the Hot spoting was not as much of an issue as trying to increase gain all they possibly could.. (These experiments led to my use of SM, because of the inability to acquire HHS in can form at the time.)

Check it out. Test samples can be very deceiving, and prompt courses of action that result in totally different observations when the size is drastically increased.

Consider that when I mix 6 Oz of SM into MMud, a 1000 lumen DLP PJ hotspots like crazy.* Mind you, the Hot spot is much larger and even than what you'll experience with the HHS, but it very obvious when you are viewing a Blue Screen. And if it's there on the blue Screen, it's gonna be there and affect your image when you view your content.

* ....and then, if more SM is added, the effect becomes an increase in perimeter attenuation...with a Hot Spot getting more and more defined.
within the center

Mission313,

If you don't see a big difference between RGB and S-VHS, get something checked out. PJ or Eyes..., but get 'em checked!:cool:

No, No, No, No. Thin it down with Flowtrol, and only a very little. Flowtrol won't reall thin it as much as make it more tractable to use.

Better still, just get your rolling technique up to snuff. WOP's properties are going to change with much thinning or the addition of additives, and if your trying to use WOP for it's specific properties it lends, you don't want to change it through thinning.

Pure Faux paints always go on better (...when rolling...) using a 1/4' nap roller in "Dry Roller" fashion, with one working a small amount out as far as possible. It's a slow process and a tricky one that take a fine touch, but because the coats are thin, and you don't have a loaded up Roller, but rather one where most of the paint is off it BEFORE you roll, rollermarkes are so thing, subsiquent build-up of additional paint "covers" not accentuate them because there is essentially no "ridge" to collect and disperse light (refract) in directions you don't want it to go.

I am sure you are right (given your experience) but let me tell you what I have done.

I have a 110" diagonal drywall screen I have constructed. I have a bright white primer covered by 2 UPW layers. Then I started reading this forum and decided to make up some 1:1:1 MMud. Covered the whole screen with 3 coats (light sanding between each.) And dont get me wrong, I am very happy with it. What I am saying is that I (personally myself) cannot tell the difference when I put a couple of coats of UPW and DB mix on a piece of drywall next to it. I just dont see what the WOP is doing for the mix.
Now this all makes sense when you say that 1:1:1 MMud is really for LF screens. I have complete ignorance in the LF area.

About the HHS, are you really talking about the "aluminum", because I moved that panel all over the place and I didnt think the HHS even got close to hotspotting. The "aluminum" however was like a mirror.
As for it not going on evenly. I disagree, I have sprayed large enough surfaces and it looked flawless to me.

I dont want my posts to sound like I am disputing your knowlege. Everything you say is right and comes from years of experience. The things I am statiing probably are old news and maybe my conditions/meathods are way off. I recommend people out there follow MMan's advice way before mine.

That being said, I am just calling them how I see them. And unfortunately there are a lot of new commers on AVS nowadays and due to the way things work in forums, we cannot possibly go through the last 2 years threads to find out what worked and what didn't.

I appreciate your input MMan. Please continue to help us less experienced DIYers with your input.