If you are not comfortable with power tools, you can still do this. It gets easier with a screwgun, but mostly what you need are paitients and the right set of tools.
There are a variety of methods you can use to build a video screen. And when push comes to shove, you just may find it easier to buy a pre-made screen, and be done with it without this explanation.
A little bit of preparation is recommended. The first item is to determine how large the screen you are going to build is going to be. Since I use a front side projector (that’s a video projector configured to show the video being shown from the front of the screen, rather than the back) how large the screen needs to be depends to some degree on how far away from where I am projecting onto, the projector will be.It also makes a difference what the ‘throw’ of the projector is. There are some projectors that you can put on a table less than a foot away from the surface you are going to project onto, and it will ‘throw’ up a 100″ display with no problem. They are a little expensive for me at the moment, so I’m working with a throw across a room that’s about 12′. In my case this means I get between an 80″ and a 91″ screen diagonally.
For the past few years, I’ve been projecting onto a white wall. There are problems with this, and Home Theater purists are probably cringing, but it was what I had to work with at the time. Even with my current plans, (not the ones I am about to describe to you) I am going to have a far from perfect solution.
OK, we have our rough dimentions for the screen. In my case that turns out to be a wall 4 feet tall, by 6 feet wide. “Easy” you say, “pick up a 4′x8′ sheet of 1/4″ ply, cut two feet off one end, paint it white, and you’re done!” Well sort of. The problem I ran into with this is that I am setting up my projector temporarily some place where I can’t just hang a piece of ply. So we need to build a support system. Also in my case the material has to be transported from my home (or rather the garage I was making it in) to where I was going to use it. I would have needed a couple of sheets of 3/4″ or heavier ply to support the screen during transport. That, I’m afraid to say, would have busted the budget. (Go price 3/4″ 4′x8′ sheets of ply…)
Over the years I’ve discovered that a 2′x4′ sheet of ply or hard board fits very nicely in the back seet of my car. That means that I can set a sheet of this on the seet, have the area under it available for storage, add a piece of carpeting on tom, and the dogs can ride there without significant issues. I haven’t been doing that, but it’s an option. It also means that I can put 3 2′x4′ sheets of hardboard in that I can assemble into a screen without too much trouble. So the first purchase was of 5 sheets of 2′x4′ 1/4″ hard board. This comes with a rough side, and a smooth side. and they run about $3 a sheet. Add a pint of flat white paint and a roller and tray to apply the paint, and we’ve got about $20 invested so far. Stay away from glossy white, whiteboard, and similar paints, as you will end up with a screen that you can’t sit in front of to watch a movie or play a video game. You will get glare from the projector.
Apply the paint and let it set up hard. I recommend three thin coats over several hours, but if you use kilz primer rather than paint, you could probably do it in one shot. (it’s just more expensive.)
One of the down sides of 1/4″ hard board is that it is not self supporting when mounted ‘vertically’ or 4′ tall. So you need to add some support to the boards. Spend some time at the lumber yard and find 2″x2″ 8′ pieces that are straight. I used 4, which I cut in half. If you are comfortable ripping 2×2 diagnoally, you will probably have sufficient support, and can probably do this with only 2 2×2′s. I’ll leave that up to you. To guid where the screen would go, I also picked up a 3/4″ 2′x4′ sheet of partical board (mdf I think they call it – great stuff for work benche surfaces as well) which was another $20 including the liquid nails and the calk gun to apply that stuff. Oh yeah, the guides came from fencing material, a couple of 8′ long pieces of u-channel plastic. $2 each.
A little bit of notching for the channels, and gluing down the support 2×2′s and we were almost off to the races. I cut the 2′x4′ piece of mdf into two pieces that would be the top and bottom supports, and attached the guids with a single screw in the center. My plan was to build a little bit of an arch into the screen to provide better focus control. Whether that was needed or not is debateable.
So we are still under $50. By quite a bit actually, enough to handle the last four boards, and the screws to put it all together. I had discovered that I didn’t have enough latteral stability in the assembled structure, so I picked up 4 8′x1″x4″ boards, then cut and assembled them into side supports. This gave me great stability, as well as the mass needed to prevent things from moving around.
In fact the mass in question is a bit too much for my longer term needs, so that is not going to be my home screen. This one will stay out in my garage for now, and may be used for some out door shows and the like. It may even go with me to the convention again next year. After I repaint the various surfaces again, giving them sufficient time to dry.
-Rusty
