Help finding a members Theatre Room post (1 Viewer)

[MartinShaver]

I know this might be a shot in the dark, but about a year ago I was reading someones post where they made their own screen. The screen was made out of tubing that was curved slightly and covered with a material.

 

If someone could help me find the post or know of the post, that would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks

 

[Adam Gregorich]

This one isn't curved, but there are some good ideas:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/thread/235970/diy-screen-vs-professional-screen-projector-central-article

 

Leo seems to find most screen threads, so I'll ask him to add his $.02 he might remember it.

 

[Leo Kerr]

Off hand, do you remember the "direction" of the curve? As in, was the screen intentionally being "bent" so as to replicate the old Cinerama-style screen? Or was it just that, for whatever reason, the tubing edges were bent?

 

I know I have talked about my obsolete screen where some of the pipe edges were iron, and some were PVC (and thus flexible,) and intentionally not rigidly attached so I could re-tension the screen as the material stretched..

 

Leo

 

[drobbins]

I don't think this the one you are looking for, but FYI -

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/wiki/how-to-build-a-diy-black-out-cloth-screen

 

[MartinShaver]

it was concave. I am going to do some more searching and if I do happen to find it, I will post the link.

 

[Leo Kerr]

Well, I have to admit not recalling seeing this thread. However, some practicalities:

 

It's not too hard to make a rig for bending pipe. Getting the two pieces of bent pipe to be perfectly parallel, however, would probably be something of a trick.

 

(at my college theater, the TD built a rig for bending, with a gentle curve, Schedule 40, 1.5" black iron pipe. The contraption was pretty simple, with two fixed rollers, and a third roller between them on a vice-like apparatus.)

 

That was, of course, for a simple curve. If you want to make a compound curve (as in, a spherical, or semi-spherical section,) then it's either much easier or much harder. My recollection is one of the cinema chains did this in some of their "high end" screens. The screen was a solid surface -- a mylar or something like that -- that was put into a sealed box frame. The air was pumped out of the box, sucking the screen "into" the box forming a perfect -- or near perfect -- multi-axis curve.

 

Their bigger complication was they could no longer put speakers behind the screen, and ended up putting smaller, "thinner" speakers along the top and bottom edges of the screen.

 

I can't remember the advantage that the cinema was expecting to get; I don't recall them having any east-coast cinemas. (Or maybe they did. High Performance... something something something? Bother. Probably about 12-15 years ago now that I saw the article.)

 

Leo