Ideas for a giant outside screen?

I've been toying with this for awhile, and I wanted something that can be set up and torn down rather quickly.

My thought was to have a couple of 1.5 inch diameter posts extending perhaps 10 feet up. HD sells galvanized fence rails that would do the trick. Between the posts, add a cross bar a couple of feet up. Mount a roller for your material here.

I intend to use a PVC screen material that has a 3-5% openness. The reason for this is you don't want the screen to become a sail, unless you intend to use it on a boat. I would also tension the material by adding a torsion spring inside the roller. The roller can be made out of 4-inch ABS.

On the leading edge of the material, you will need some sort of load bar. You could fasten 2 pieces of wood (1x2), one on each side of the material, and fasten together with wood screws.

Attach a metal handle in the center, so you can pull this up. I would have a couple of bolts sticking out the sides of the load bar that would be able to hook on the top of the posts.

This really an inverted manually tensioned screen that you should be able to set up in minutes. According to my calculator, if your screen is 10 feet wide, then it will be 5.6 feet high for a 1.78 screen. Therefore, the roller would be positioned about 4 + feet off the ground.

If you find some material that is 72 inches wide, then cut it at 10 feet, and roll it along the long edge. You can attach the material to the roller with duck tape or some super glue.

Total material cost for this s/b no more than about $100.

Good Luck!

Don

Take a look at the 'outdoor theaters' section under 'other areas of interest' on this forum. There's a lot of good info there. I personally use a Gemmy inflatable screen. It's a 12 foot blow-up screen that cost's less than $200. It's cheap, easy to put up, and works really well.

Jim

We do this all the time for neighborhood parties. We call it "screen on the green" A Queen sheet works perfect! I use spring clips to hold it in place. A low tech solution. The 4 year olds won't know the difference!

We do this all the time for neighborhood parties. We call it "screen on the green" A Queen sheet works perfect! I use spring clips to hold it in place. A low tech solution. The 4 year olds won't know the difference!

My queen sheet is still stapled on the back of my garage from last sept!!

There's a fabric company that makes Celtic Cloth - check out their website, you should be able to find perforated material there that comes in 120" widths made for projection, and it's pretty cheap too.