Question on hanging up movie posters... (1 Viewer)

[king]

My theater has a clean simple look to it. I am thinking of hanging up some movie posters but before I put nails in the walls, I have a couple of doubts...

For one, the glass will probably shine and glare especially if the frames are mounted along the side walls.

Secondly the sub will probably cause the frames to shake and vibrate.

Is there any way to get around this, and special frames or mounting techniques?? No glass perhaps? Just looking for ideas from those that have already done this...:frowning:

 

[Leo Kerr]

I haven't done it with home theaters, but working with lighting in museums and small informal theater settings...

Glass reflects. Even antireflective-coated glass reflects. Ain't no way around it. Posters might glare, too, depending on how they're printed.

One of the things you can try is if you can figure good angles, mount the posters so that glass/plex frontpieces are angled in such a way to drive the reflections where they don't cause trouble. This may or may not be possible. Alternatively, glass may not be required. This is the easy path.

Mounting. Nails in the wall is quick and dirty, but... yeech! We generally mount flat materials (framed and matted, or face-mount to plex, or laminated to sign-blank,) either with double-stick tape to the wall (use something like Scotch VHB, black or red; just be aware that it ain't gonna come off for about 10 years or so,) or with "hanging strips."

Hanging strips are pretty simple constructs:

1. Take a 1"x3"x12" for moderately heavy, or even a similar sized bit of .25" masonite for really light stuff. Run it through a table-saw with the blade set to a 45-degree bevel.

2. Take one half of the material (1"x1.5"x12" with the 45-degree cut) and screw it to the wall. The cut should be "up," with the higher part away from the wall (giving you a "v" shaped channel between the wall and the edge of the wood.)

3. Attach the other piece to the poster's frame or matte, so the cut side is down, the lowest part away from the back of the matte.

4. Take another piece of the same material, maybe even just a couple of inches of it, and attach it to the bottom of the matte. (This is a balance strip, and will keep the whole assembly "flat" to the wall. Actually, off of the wall, but supported so it doesn't flex, swing, or whatever.)

5. Take the framed assembly and lower the down-pointing bevel into the channel of the up-pointing bevel.

If said ****** being hung this way is small enough, say a 6"-8" high sign, then by all means just use the hanging strip, without the balance-strip. If you're doing a full broadside poster, then you should use the balance-strip. Somewhere in the middle is the transition point where you should decide.

There are some nice advantages to using hanging strips. If you get it set up right, and it's a nice frame, then you can change the posters without too much trouble, and just drop the thing back into position. You can take it down easily for cleaning, or even for repainting the walls. And, when it comes to subwoof vibrations, if you've got enough going to shake it off of a strip, then you're also going to be respackling the cracked sheetrock in your theater, too!

Good luck.

Now, I did leave out one bit about the hanging strips. Making sure that they're level is a real P.I.T.A.. Our cabinet people have all sorts of different methods to make sure it works; none seem really "good" to me, but it's gotta be really level - on the wall, and on the frame.


Leo Kerr