Meyer Home Theater construction - Page 6

I just bought my GOM. Bryan Pape (sensiblesoundsolutions.com) had a comparable price to Fabricmate, and Bryan beat them on shipping...

I'm starting to work on the little stuff! Running speaker wire, wiring my outlets, etc. Just need to keep the momentum going for a few more months.

Off to buy more paint and some electrical supplies.

Thanks! It sure is taking longer than I originally thought it would. Although I remember saying from the beginning "It's done when it's done. No deadlines."

I have a new expense I didn't account for: crown molding. The existing room had plain white crown molding, at the top corner and supporting the light shelf. I planned to do the same. I figured normal home depot molding, $1/ft. I hadn't figured color yet.

Once I decided gold would probably be a good color, I posted a thread talking about gold crown molding in red/black room. Lots of good sample pictures posted or linked to. Unfortunately, all of the ones I liked best had fancy carved crown molding. It really worked with the gold! I was sold

Unfortunately, the local big-box selection of fancy crown molding is quite limited and quite expensive, so I'm looking on line now. Much greater selection! Looks like it will run me ~$4/ft, or $450 with shipping. Ah, well. More delay as well, as I'll need to get samples mailed out and test paint them...

No problem, I can finish my wiring and projector selection while waiting for crown molding.

Anybody have good sources for crown molding?

Sifford,

I'll be in touch. I would love to see an RS2 in a real theater with no salesman hanging over my shoulder. Are you using a video processor of any kind to manage colors?

How old are your kids? Mine are 5 and 7, just old enough to allow me a bit of breathing space to get things done.

Vili,

I'm not sure what it is. If you rub your finger on flat black paint (or maybe any color, don't know) it changes the texture and reflectivity of the paint under your finger relative to the area around. I think it is more of a 'rubbing' than a 'touching' thing. If you lightly put your finger on and off, I don't think it looks that different. If you bump into it with your elbow and scrape an inch, it shows.

I wouldn't use it anyplace within normal reach of fingers.

Big progress. Everything is now painted. I painted the angled ceiling satin mouse-ears black (Behr), and the walls Glidden satin "Deep Garnet". That was the closest color I could find to the Mulberry Anchorage GOM sample I had. They couldn't get a color match off the fabric.

Most of the red walls (except right around the door) will be covered with gpowers type GOM panels (Anchorage Mulberry). This paint job is just because I want the room to look good while I'm working on my wall panels. I may even start showing movies before I finish all the panels, so I don't want the walls white.










I also painted my rack while I had the roller and a bit of extra satin mouse ears around. It's an ugly job, but it just needs to make the rack non-reflective.

The fun part now will be getting the masking tape off without damage. It looks like that will be a project in itself!

My first attempts (in obscure locations) had problems. There is enough red paint on top of the edge of the tape that it sometimes peels up, even peeling up a bit on the red wall. I can solve this by slicing a bit with a utility knife before peeling.

The next problem is that in some places right near the edge, flecks of the flat black paint are peeling off all the way to primer. Not big pieces, but still.

I'm giving it another 24 hours to dry to see if that will help. If it doesn't improve, in the worst case I'll have to go along the edge with a little artist brush and fill in any gaps.

I pulled my completion date in by about three weeks last night!

After deciding on gold crown molding after looking at examples in this thread: Gold crown molding in red/black room, I realized I didn't like plain crown molding in gold, I only liked the 'ornate' fancy crown molding. A good example was: Curtisg's 36 Month HT So, I had decided on gold, but now I needed to pick crown molding!

I stopped by the local big box stores looking for the normal 12+ foot crown molding in fancy carved styles. Didn't see anything (except some $4/ft stuff at HD that I didn't like anyway). So I started poking around on the web and found places like http://www.wishihadthat.com/ that carry fancy crown molding. There are several in there I like, and they sell samples for $3 each.

So, things were stretching out. I would order samples, they'd take a week or two to get here, then I'd paint them up and/or antique them to see what I like, then order, then wait. It looked like it would be September before I was able to do crown molding. My light shelf completion requires the crown molding, so it was holding everything up!

I did more research on the topic last night, and was getting ready to order samples. I had learned by now that the 'ornate' crown molding is really polyurethane (expanded foam?), and the widest selection is available in 8' lengths for $15-$35 per 8' section. It would cost me maybe $425 to do the room with the $25 variety (~$60 shipping). I figured I would need 15 pieces.

Last night, I went to HD to get some paint and check out their molding again. Still nothing I liked. At Lowes, however, I found they had the same (or very similar) molding CurtisG had used. $23/piece. They had EXACTLY 15 pieces (at first, I saw only 13, then found two more partly hidden). I hadn't really noticed these during my first pass because they were expensive, plastic!, and I was looking for 12 foot lengths. I had since learned that plastic was fine, I could live with 8', and I wanted the look.

I sat there and stared and thought for about 10 minutes. Then I bought all they had.

By selecting an easily available and demonstrably acceptable alternative, as opposed to trying out all the options and picking the 'best', I shaved three weeks (and a lot of hassle) off the schedule...

Here's one, still in its plastic wrap:



Here's what it may look like painted and installed.

I'm starting to get close to picking a projector, but I keep circling around:

Sony vw60 (good price, I like the convergence features, CIH vertical stretch)
v
RS1x (About the same price, brighter?, better blacks, more pop, no stretch)
v
RS2 (Come on, you've put all this work in, treat yourself to the 'best in class')

On top of that, we are just a bit more than a month from CEDIA! If I buy now, they'll announce (for immediate shipment) the JVC RS3 for $5k and drop all the prices on the current ones. If I wait until CEDIA, they'll announce all sorts of great new projectors that will be shipping in December or February that I can't possibly wait for!

I'll wait, though. It'll probably be September before I get crown molding up and carpet in, so no big loss. I'll keep trolling the Projector forums for CEDIA rumors...

That's about where I'm at now. I think if it was just the $1.5-2k price difference, it'd be easier. The possibility that I'll be bugged by the colors and want a video processor makes it that much harder.

What I need to do is table the projector thinking and start painting some crown molding...

Actually, I don't think that was an option for me. I ended up painting over about three days. However, if getting this tape off turns out to be too much of a pain, I suppose I may modify my painting practice and get it all done in one shot in the future...

Or just paint everything flat black, windows, moldings, doors, everything. Somebody should sell something like those bug foggers. Just put it in the middle of the room, push the button, walk away, and it paints your room black.

I don't think my tape is pulling up the paint. I think what is happening is that the new paint on top of the tape is dried but elastic. Some of that 'new' paint has also leaked a bit under the edge of the tape, and dried on top of the black paint under the tape.

When I pull up the tape, some of the paint on top is connected around the tape edge to the 'leaked' paint. That leaked paint underneath comes up and I get little (2-3mm) spots right along the edge where the black paint has peeled off.

If that's all that happens, I'm good. I don't mind touching up the black with a little brush. Also, I think my technique will improve (mostly paying attention to where I cut with the utility knife).

The funny thing is that I gave somebody else that exact same advice a week ago in another thread. Then I ignored it when it was time for me to paint, because I didn't have any spare 'flat mouse ear black' and I didn't want to open a whole gallon just for that! That will teach me.

(posted here as well as CurtisG's thread, trying to end my thread hijack)

Already got that book a couple of months back. Thanks for reminding me, I just pulled it out and scanned it.

By the way, looking through that book, they show your 'at an angle between the back and bottom plate' method for a regular miter saw that doesn't tilt left and right (page 27). For a compound miter saw, they show the crown molding lying flat on the table. You turn the table left/right and tilt the saw left/right to get the compound cuts.

I'll need to take a weekend to goof around with scraps and see how it goes.

I've successfully removed my masking tape. I think I understand what was happening.

For the first 'rip', I picked a section I knew would be hidden behind the screen, and just pulled the tape off. Not good:



Then I tried 'slicing' along the corner before pulling the tape off. Didn't help much. What was happening was the red paint on top of the tape was one piece with the red paint under the tape (leakage). The red paint under the tape was very effective at sticking to the flat black paint, and pulled it off. Slicing in the very corner (which I think was actually a millimeter or two beyond the edge of the tape) made things worse. Once I sliced, there was even less to keep the combined top/bottom red paint from pulling up.

I kept experimenting on parts that would be invisible until I found a technique that worked. It worked almost perfectly, I was impressed.

First, instead of pulling the masking tape away from the ceiling at a right angle, I folded it back on itself:



That solved most of the problem. Doing it at that angle folded and tore the red paint on top of the tape away from the wall/leakage red paint, pulling at the connection almost directly parallel to the corner-line. This put almost no tension on the leaked red paint perpendicular to the ceiling, the direction that was pulling off the black.

Every now and then, however, the edge of the tape would catch and tear, held too firmly right up in the corner by the red paint:



If I was pulling slowly enough, that would only happen for maybe a centimeter before I stopped pulling. Then I'd use a razor knife in the corner to slice the red paint right at the edge of the tape line:



I didn't have to pull up the little bit of tape, or cut it off, I just sliced along the edge of the torn part. Then I'd keep pulling and it would come off on its own:



Success. Next, on to crown molding experiments...

Cool. It looks like the same angle finder that came with my book, along with a jig cut at the correct angle to hold the crown molding for a non-compound miter saw. Simpler and more secure than leaning it up against the back fence.

To start with, I'll try the compound angles. I'm not that worried about that part.

I'll also experiment with miters vs. coping. I must admit I'm convinced that I can make 'perfect' looking miters, even on the ornate molding, but since so many people do coping (there must be a reason, right?) I won't really be sure until I get it to work.

Anybody know anything about Paradigm Export/BP bipolar speakers? I got a pair of them for a very good price: $0.

Will they work well enough as my mains to tide me over until I build new speakers next year? Two specific questions:

1) They are bipolar (apparently have a rear-firing tweeter/mid). Will they be totally messed up behind my stage with 2" of absorption 6" behind them? Should I remove the 703 directly behind the speakers?

2) Will they be a reasonable match to my mini-monitor surrounds?


My current setup is 5.1 with four Paradigm mini-monitors. Next year I plan to build 7 new speakers (design tbd), but I wanted a couple of new speakers to take me to 7.1 until the theater is done and I switch to speaker building mode.