My Laminate Screen Build (dialup beware)

**tritonman** · **02-11-08, 06:57 PM**

I received a free sample of a WilsonArt laminate from Bill. The information on the laminate can be found in this thread. Basicaly these were custom colors straight from Wilsonart.

http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...-laminate.html

I got the brighter one from Bill, which is closer to the DW color. I believe the color code is N9.25. As you can see one of the stipulations of the free sheet was to do a write up of the screen build and send a sample to mech for testing. Here is the first part of the stipulations.

Sooo..here it is, the screen build. The end result will be a 92". I had alot of help from a friend on mine with this.

This is a pic of the back of the sheet with the numbers etc on it. I have no clue what the numbers mean but here they are anyways. I figure this would be of more use to mech and Bill.

Next is a picture of the laminate and the 4x8 1/4" sheet luan plywood that is going to be used as the backing for the laminate.

The next step will be to use Contact Cement on both the luann and the laminate. Here is the product used

Here you see the cement has been applied to the luann and the laminate. A paint roller was used to apply the cement on both pieces. After the cement was applied, any big pieces of the glue etc were removed or smoothed out to prevent any bubbles or bumps showing up later in the build. This had to be done on both pieces.

Here you see some pieces of wood placed on the luann in intervals to keep the laminate from touching the whole luann sheet at once. You place the laminate on top of the wood strips and center your laminate to where you want it to sit, then remove one strip at a time as you let the laminate touch the luann and work your way from one end to the other removing each wood stip along the way until you have the laminate attached to the luann

The laminate is now attached to the luann and smoothed out with a rubber roller. Once it was smooth the edges were trimmed to match the luann underneath to help with the cutting it to size. In my particular instance the measurements for the 92" screen were made to be 3/8" larger all the way around to have enough room to attach the border later.

The next step is to work on the border that will go around the screen. 1x2 wood was used for the border. Here are the pics of the wood. The edges were rounded to make them look better and not sharp.

Here you see the wood has been cut into 3/8" deep to match the 3/8" that was left all the way around the main size of the screen

Now you basically put some wood glue inside your groove that was cut, along with cutting your corners like molding and then slide it in on your edges of the luann/laminate, then place a few strategic finishing nails in the corners and underneath the long edge of the screen as well. When you place the nails in the underpart of the screen make sure you dont go too far in or you will end up with a nail showing up on the laminate side of your screen.

So here is our finished product.

Ok. So ive got my screen built, its almost pretty much ready to go. But how am I going to hang it? Well here is your answer. You will need 2 of these btw. At the Home store Depot

I bought these at they were roughly 5$ each or less.

You install one of the stips on the top of your screen like the below picture.

The other one you install on your wall the other way. Then you just simply hang the screen and they will lock together. Then you have your nice new screen hung up and ready to go.

Dont mind the wall as its not completely done just yet, but you get the general idea. The next step for me is to order some black Duvetyne tape to black out the border all the way around to absord any possible light spill and to add a finished look.

Well there you have my screen all built and pretty much ready to go. At this point I dont have any screenshots of it in action. Bill is possibly coming over to my house this weekend and we will be taking some pics of movies in action. I hope to post them once we get them all uploaded and ready to go. Im hoping we also have time to take some addtional pictures of different laminates or materials to show any differences in the screen color i have compared to others.

Thanks and enjoy.

**mechman** · **02-11-08, 07:44 PM**

Beautiful! Any cut offs?

mech

**cynical2** · **02-11-08, 07:47 PM**

Wow...1st class all the way! Absolutely beautiful. Looking forward to screenies!

**tritonman** · **02-11-08, 08:08 PM**

Quote:

mechman wrote:

Beautiful! Any cut offs?

mech

I didnt forget about you mech

Ive got you covered.

**tritonman** · **02-11-08, 08:42 PM**

Just as an FYI..the projector that I have for the screenshots will be the Epson Home Cinema 720. The screen is 92" and seating is approx 12' from the screen. I will be including a picture of the lighting in the room as well to show where my lighting is so people can have a better understanding of where the light is coming from. Naturally there will also be pics of no lighting as well

**mechman** · **02-12-08, 09:08 AM**

You know I just went through and looked at this again. Triton, you are a craftsman! And the carpet edge trim for the french cleat? Ingenious!

mech

**tritonman** · **02-12-08, 10:36 AM**

Quote:

mechman wrote:

You know I just went through and looked at this again. Triton, you are a craftsman! And the carpet edge trim for the french cleat? Ingenious!

mech

Thanks Mech! I cant really take all the credit for this, I did have a lot of help in putting this all together.

Im just glad to have the opportunity to post something like this for others to see and hopefully get some ideas from. Its been too often I had used other peoples ideas and not had a chance to share any of my own or had anything worth contributing.

**muzz** · **02-12-08, 07:54 PM**

Looks good tman.

Very well done.
Thanks for sharing that, I hope you enjoy it!!

**tritonman** · **02-21-08, 12:33 PM**

Quote:

muzz wrote:

Looks good tman.

Very well done.
Thanks for sharing that, I hope you enjoy it!!

Thanks Muzz, always glad to share!

**bidzer** · **02-21-08, 12:55 PM**

It does look awesome. Looks like you have a nice area to work on it

**mechman** · **02-21-08, 02:48 PM**

Hey Keith,

Throw some pics up in the Laminate Showcase sticky thread!

mech

**tritonman** · **02-21-08, 04:27 PM**

Quote:

mechman wrote:

Hey Keith,

Throw some pics up in the Laminate Showcase sticky thread!

mech

Will do!

**mechman** · **03-21-08, 09:55 AM**

Quote:

tritonman wrote:

I didnt forget about you mech

Ive got you covered.

Did I give you my address Keith? And did you get the lighter or the darker of the two?

mech

**tritonman** · **03-21-08, 10:29 AM**

Quote:

mechman wrote:

Did I give you my address Keith? And did you get the lighter or the darker of the two?

mech

Nope you never sent me your address that I can remember? I believe I did ask you for it? I think we are both just getting old and forgetful!!

I got the brighter one of the 2..N9.25

**slybarman** · **03-28-08, 02:30 PM**

Quote:

tritonman wrote:

You install one of the stips on the top of your screen like the below picture.

The other one you install on your wall the other way. Then you just simply hang the screen and they will lock together. Then you have your nice new screen hung up and ready to go.

How tight against the wall is your screen using the carpet trim french cleat? I was considering using this method to hand a wood frame around a painted screen - would that work or does it leave a gap between the frame and the wall?

**MonsterMaddness** · **04-04-08, 01:19 AM**

I gotta say I'm impressed. I think I'm gonna build one of these for my setup!

**tritonman** · **04-04-08, 01:47 PM**

Quote:

slybarman wrote:

How tight against the wall is your screen using the carpet trim french cleat? I was considering using this method to hand a wood frame around a painted screen - would that work or does it leave a gap between the frame and the wall?

It does leave a small gap, i can measure it for you if you are interested in how big the gap is. Im pretty sure the gap is minimal at best. I dont recall it being very large at all.

**strongisland** · **04-23-08, 12:12 PM**

Hey Triton,

I followed your screen build to the T. I couldn't be happier. Thanks for the post. Project pictures and screen shots to come soon.

**DAE06** · **06-03-08, 01:57 PM**

Is there a certain color of laminate to use? Or could I paint this with the black Widow or Cream and Sugar?

**wbassett** · **06-03-08, 02:26 PM**

Laminates are a stand alone screen option. If you want to paint there are less expensive substrates you can paint.

**DAE06** · **06-04-08, 07:21 AM**

Is there a list of laminate colors that will give us an N8 or N9 shade?

**Harpmaker** · **06-04-08, 01:20 PM**

Quote:

DAE06 wrote:

Is there a list of laminate colors that will give us an N8 or N9 shade?

For a list of color data for many paints, mixes and laminates read this Sticky:
http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...ster-list.html

The column marked "L" can also be read as the Munsell N value by moving the decimal point one place to the left. For example, the second listing is for Formica Platinum Laminate and the L value is 69.0; this can be read as a N value of 6.9 .

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