DIY screens for projectors

[Andrew Pratt]

This might be better suited to the DIY forum but I'll leave it here for now. As some already know I should be getting a Sanyo Z1 projector in the next couple of weeks and as such I've been looking at screens. I already made a blackout cloth screen that hangs nicely from my ceiling and folds up out of the way when not in use. I made that so I had something to view movies on when I borrowed the NEC PJ from work the odd weekend. The black out cloth screen was easy to build and cheap but its a 4:3 format and only 6 feet wide so I've decided to build a new 16:9 format 89: * 45" screen instead. Since the Z1 is an LCD projector I've been reading about the grey and silver screens that are becoming very popular since they help boost the contrast on these LCD projectors without harming the white levels too much (esp silver). Anyway after reading a ton of information online I've found a formula that seems like it produces very good screens and is affordable so I'm going to give it a try. I started last weekend by having a panel of 1/2" MDF cut down to 84" so its now 64" * 49" which should leave me with a nice 2" boarder around the intended image size for a black boarder. I have since then painted the MDF with a coat of killz white primer paint and sanded it down with 320 grit on my palm sander to get a nice smooth finish. Now with that base done the forumla I'm following calls for a couple of coats of a pure bright white paint. I managed to find a nice suitable paint yesterday and spent the night trying to apply a couple of thin coats with a small foam roller. This worked somewhat but it wasn't going as smoothly as I needed so I've been sanding between coats with the sander. I went to home depot this afternoon to buy the remaining paint supplies and figured I might as well buy a sprayer to help do the job right. I found a fairly cheap Wagner sprayer that I'll admit isn't the ideal tool for the job but I don't have the funds to but the nice high volume low pressure models so this will have to do. The first coat with this new sprayer went on way to thickly and I'm going to have to do some more sanding and try again with a much lower spray volume...I'll get this sorted out sooner or later :twisted: Anyway once I get a nice smooth white base on the board I'm going to mix up the top coats. This top coat is a mix of 50% Behr premium plus metallic paint (#743), 40% glaze and 10% pure white paint. This mix is supposed to be very close to the digital grey goo product...in fact several reviews have said they perfer this mix then the goo! I'll keep you posted on how it goes and should have some pics up as I go along.

[Andrew Pratt]

I let the screen sit over night to really dry then sanded it really well this morning with a grittier paper on the palm sander and I managed to get it very nice and smooth so I was very pleased. I also have found a setting on the sprayer that appears just right as the coats I've been laying down today go on much more evenly. The final coat of pure white is now almost dry so after dinner I'll be applying the first coat of the grey paint I mixed up this afternoon...its a neat looking paint...a sort of silver grey colour. More to come later.

[Andrew Pratt]

I finally got a nice smooth pure white surface on the screen board that I was very pleased with and started to spray on the silver grey metallic paint only to get 95 percent done and have the sprayer dip a few drops on the screen...no problem I thought I'll smooth them out with the foam roller and touch it up again with the sprayer...no dice the roller picked up the paint leaving a nasty looking mess that I'm going to have to sand down tomorrow when its dried....so close yet so far! On the bright side the part that didn't have a problem looks like it will make a great screen. I guess I'll try spraying it leaned up against the wall tomorrow so if the sprayer does drip it won't be onto the screen. I will also turn down the pressure a lot...I used up a lot of paint (all of it!) which is likely why I couldn;t smooth it out with the roller and when I ran low that's when it started sputtering. I was checking for drips most of the time though...oh well live and learn...might as well learn on "cheap" paint vs screen goo!

[Gordon Moore]

Andrew...do you have a compressor? I wonder if an automotive sprayer would work better in terms of atomizing the spray for finer coats and drip control? Not sure if the paint you are using would work so well in that case.




"A RONSTER!"

[Andrew Pratt]

I don't have a compressor but I've heard of others using them for this application. I think the wagner will work providing I can get spray pressure down so its not going on to thick and I keep an eye on the levels and for drips

[Andrew Pratt]

Well I attempted to sand down the silver mess but it just wasn't going to work so I flipped the board over and will paint the other side I've already primed it and have just finished spraying on the first coat of pure white....so far so good.

[Andrew Pratt]

I managed to get a fresh coat of base and white on today and I just sprayed on the first coat of silver that seems to have gone on much nicer this time. I leaned the screen up against the wall so no drips would land on the screen and also sprayed a strip then cleaned the nosel...I should get another coat on tomorrow when this one dries and then I get to start building the boarder and masking systems...not 100 percent sure on how I'm doing that yet but I've got some idea's to think over.

[Andrew Pratt]

Well all was going well with the screen again...right up until the last 5 seconds when I got another spit at the screen as the paint levels got low. I was just thinking that I'd better stop soon and then it sputtered. I was upset that once again I'd come so close yet so far....so now I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I got a price on some real screen material from AVS and the DaLite high contrast that E!'s using isn't that expensive so I might just swallow my pride and admit I would be better off just buying the material. I have some samples coming anyway from both DaLite and Stewart so we'll see what they look like and go from there.

[George Bellefontaine]

Good try, Andrew.




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[Andrew Pratt]

I've sanded down the rough spots and will see if I can touch them up or not..I don't think I'll be able to get it as smooth but I figure at this point I've got nothing to loose.

[Andrew Pratt]

Well I borrowed an NEC LCD PJ from work to test the DDog screen in my HT room and I got my samples from DaLite today so I had chance to compare those as well. The samples I got from Dalite are the High Contrast Cinema Vision, High Contrast Da-Mat and the High Contrast Matte White. The Mate white is horrible compared to even black out material so I don't see the point in that screen esp for the DIY crowd. The cinema vision was the best of the three since I found the Da-Mat to dark in comparison. The DDog screen falls somewhere between the Da-Mat and the Cinema Vision and if you had a near perfect finish it would be ideal...unfortuantly I can see the slight texture on my painted screen that I find somewhat annoying. The Da-Mat material is very thin material and seems to be just a grey thin plastic film. The Cinema Vision has a little sparkle to it which is likely why its a 1.1 gain where the Da-Mat is 0.8. At this point I'm not sure what to do the DDog mix has the potential to easily best the offerings from Da-Lite and is certianly better then straight black out cloth (which isn't a bad screen at all really). I'm interested in seeing if one of the large fabic stores here in town might not have some vinyl material that would be somewhere between the Da-mat and Cinema Vision for colour...worth looking I guess.

[Burke Strickland]

Sounds like you are having "fun" and learning a lot about projection screens. Is it safe to assume that the "blackout" material from which you made your original screen has a white or gray surface? (A black finish would probably give it great black levels, but might make it a little less useful for the rest of the color spectrum.) :>)

Burke
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[Andrew Pratt]

Yes black out cloth has a white or cream finish depending on the style you buy...mines obviously white...though its not a brilliant white more a dull white.

I went the largest fabic store in town (mitchells) to see what they had that was silimar to the Da-Lite product samples I had an although they have a vinyl that's color wise perfect its too textured so that was out of the running so I bought some more black out cloth instead and went back to home depot for more paint. They were all out of the Behr Premium Silver so I started looking at the paint chips they had and they scanned in the cinema vision sample but they weren't that confident with the results so I didn't get a paint sample of what it suggested. What I did find though was some Raplh Lauren paint that looks very similar to the high contrast cinema vision screen material. The paint is called Silver Bell (DS06) and its part of their Duchesse Satin lineup and was $22 (canadian) for a quart so its about the same price as the small Behr silver paint. Its got a very similar sheen and the color was very close to the same shade of grey if not a touch darker which from my testing would be a good thing so I've bought a quart and have just applied a sample to the old black out screen on the wall. So far I've only painted a couple of square feet of it but man its way easier to apply even with a 4" foam roller. Its much more viscous then the DDog mix and you end up more or less soaking the black out cloth with the paint rather then what usually happens when you try to roll on silver paints. I didn't apply an undercoat at all just rolled it on to get a feel for it and its still drying but so far I'm very oppomistis that I've found a much easier method of getting a silver screen...I'll report back when I have compared the dried sample to the da-lite samples.

[Andrew Pratt]

Well its not suitable at all. It appears similar to the high contast when its dry but when you turn the PJ on it goes from bad to worse. Its silver partical size must be larger then the behr because its got a slight sparkle to it...if that was all it might not be that bad but it also has a strange viewing angle. I was sitting in one chair with my wife in the other...no more then 4 feet apart looking at the sample I'd painted on the bottom right corner which was directly in front of me...I thought it looked much lighter then even plain black out while my wife said it looked much darker....for awhile I wasn't sure what she was smoking but I eventually got up and walked over to her side of the room and sure enough the painted sample looked quite good actually...from the middle position between the chairs it looked identical to plain black out and from my side it looked horrible. So I guess the moral is unless we can find something to mix with this (white and glaze?) its useless.

[Andrew Pratt]

I started painting the new projector screen tonight. I made up a new frame from some 2" * 2"'s and some 2" * 4" peices in each corner to help brace it. There's also a peice of 3/4" MDF that's a few inches wide that runs down from the top to the bottom that helps keep it together. Once it dried it was quite sturdy and very light. Tonight I moved onto the next stage where I cut two 80" long 2" * 6" and drilled some holes on through the top and bottom beams so I can lag screw these new boards on top and below. These will help give the frame more strenght and also serve as a place to hold the mattes when not in use. I hope to have some sort of sliding mechanism on the sides so it will be a simple matter of sliding them up or down to the approp. height...that's still in design stage (i.e. in my head!) Anyway I managed to get the blackout cloth stretched over the frame and the first coat of the DDog paint on tonight with the 4" roller and it went on great. I really think the trick with the roller is to water down the paint a lot...I mixed in a little more white then last time as then added in about 25 percent water and shook the can for a few minutes to really mix it up. From there its a simple matter or rolling on a little paint and working in a small area at once. Try not to let any ridges start drying so what I do is paint a strip with the roller then move on and paint another strip..when you've got an area to work with go back over the first area with very gentle sweeping motions that are in arc's and cross the "grain" of what you painted the first time. If you do this when your roller is out of paint you should find that it nicely levels out the paint and forms a smooth finish. You'll still likely need two coats to get it right but it is possible...just keep rolling over the old areas when you've applied paint to the next area. When I sprayed on the paint I ended up using a lot of paint but this time with the black out cloth I barely used any...its not so much as painting the screen as soaking the cloth...at least that's the impression you get. I painted on the rubbery side if it matters. I'll post pics when its all said and done.

[Andrew Pratt]

I applied a second coat last night and it now looks pretty decent so I think I'm done for now...at least painting I just got my screen samples from Stewart and holly sh!t is Firehawk dark...I mean REALLY dark 8O. I also got StudioTek and Greyhawk and the greyhawk looks much closer to my screen. Interestingly when at wal-mart the other day in the fabic dept looking at fleece and felt for the mattes I saw some plastic vinyl that had a swirly grey pattern on one side but the back side was a shiny silvery color. I asked for a small sample but when I compared it visually to the other samples I had it was obviously way to dark...but now that I've got the firehawk sample its not that dark at all...it won't have any gain at all...likely a negative gain actually but I might give it a try anyway when my PJ arrives...it would be dirt cheap since I think a 54" bolt was in the $4 a meter range so $12 would easily make a nice sized screen!

[Leef DaLucky]

reminds me of a site i saw earlier this year.

http://members.shaw.ca/danhanson/Theater/screen/screenproject.htm

sounds like your having fun though, andrew. Get some pics up when you can. I'd be interested in seeing the final product.




-----------------------------------
"Some days yer the Dog, others yer the Hydrant."

[Andrew Pratt]

Leef that's very similar to how I built my screen..only I went over the top and stappled to the back of the frame. There's a 2*6 on the top and bottom that are wrapped in felt to give me a place to store the mattes when not in use and act as a boader...that and I painted my screen silver:0

[Andrew Pratt]

I watched all of ice age tonight on the new screen with a NEC LCD PJ from work tonight and compared it against the Stewart Greyhawk, Stewart Firehawk, DaLite High Contrast Cinema Vision and DaLite DaMat.

What we found was essentially the DDog paint on blackout cloth is extremely similar to the Stewart Greyhawk material. The Greyhawk's a touch darker but if you didn't have one right beside the other I doubt anyone would notice. Watching Ice Age with a quarter of the screen being Greyhawk, a quarter being Firehawk and the rest being my screen most times the greyhawk and my screen blended near seamlessly together.

Overall I preferred both my screen and the greyhawk to the DaLite HCCV since the HCCV produced a slightly washed out image in comparison. Of course this wasn't a really fair comparison since I made adjustments on the PJ so there's a good chance that post adjustment the Dalite could be made to look as good also.
The DaLite DaMat material isn't suitable unless your PJ really has very very bad black levels since its very dark and any white will now be a shade of grey...it ranks last every time we compare samples.

Now onto the Firehawk...from looking at this material you'd swear it wouldn't make a good screen material since its very dark but its amazing! The biggest thing you notice about the firehawk is that its got a much higher gain then the other screens which brightens up the over all image a lot. The black levels are as good or better then the greyhawk and white levels appear pretty good as well. Of course for what Firehawk goes for (~$15US a square foot) it better be good. If I had the funds I'd buy the firehawk no question about it....but since I can't afford the Firehawk I think my screen holds up very well against the greyhawk and is slightly better then the HCCV. For what this screen cost me its well worth attempting one if you're looking at purchasing a screen...if it doesn't work out simply buy the firehawk screen material and stretch it over the blackout and you'll save money not buying the frame...but I think you'd be pretty impressed with the DDog mix if you give it a try first.