# Ambrosio's Unaplex II: Room within a Room Build



## tjambro

Here begins the tale of Ambrosio's Unaplex II...

Yes, this is my second theater build. My first build was in a single level ranch with the biggest room becoming my dedicated theater. Unfortunately, when the HT wasn't being used, the house became very small. Also at the time of my build, my budget did not allow for any real sound isolation. At first my wife could tolerate my movie parties but when I added two large 18" DIY subs behind the AT screen, I must admit, it was pretty loud and rattled the entire house. My neighbor said I actually rattled a picture frame off HER wall.

So, we sold the house and now I have a full basement. My wife has given up rights to the right half (and portion of the left) of the basement for my "man cave". The only stipulation was that she had to have unfettered access to the laundry room and storage rooms in the back of the basement. You see, in the last house, I killed the pantry, hall closet and the family room. So her request was not unreasonable to me.  The basement was completely finished before I got my grubby paws on it.

**Note**: This basement layout has changed. Look below for the latest layout...or click here
Here is my current vision:










Note that the red walls and hot water heater are to be removed. The blue walls, hot water heater, and separate HVAC are to be added. The yellow circles are my lolicolumns.

If that's too much color, here's the same layout with just the finished "blue" items: Ambrosio's Unaplex 2 layout

I have made initial contact with BPape and he will be on board to hopefully stop me from making any major snafus. I am planning a room within a room with the theater's new ceiling joists nestled in between the current joists. I am going with 3 layers of 5/8" DW with GG. I plan on building an IB chamber ala Cathan and the walls will be finished with fabric frames ala GPowers. I already have my dricore but I cannot put it down until I convert my finished basement into an unfinished basement.

Here's what the room looked like prior to me picking up a hammer and pry bar:









The walls with X's on them is the bedroom wall that will be removed. The IB chamber and AT screen will be back here. The room does look a bit long in the layout and can be adjusted somewhat by making the IB chamber bigger if necessary.

The door by the CO detector is the only entrance to the back rooms and I will be sealing it off as it is on the left wall of the theater not far from where the screen will be. 








To make this happen, the water heater in the laundry/sump room was moved near the mechanical room and a new door is to go directly from the lobby/arcade to the laundry room and other back rooms.

To my surprise, here's what I found when I removed the paneling to make way for the new door:









Looks like I'm not the only one who thought a door should go there...

One more before shot:









This is the future lobby/arcade. The back closets will be removed and note the "blue" doorway by the popcorn machine. That is roughly where the new entrance will go. That 200amp electrical panel you see on the closet wall is now gone...thanks Dad! It's not the original panel either. The house was built in '65 and had 100A service. The original box is in the room under the stairs which is just a couple of feet to the left of the panel. It is currently just a junction box and was fed by the new 200A panel. Why they didn't put the new panel in the room under the stairs is beyond me. There was plenty of room to do so. Fortunately, when they removed the old 100A aerial service to the house and installed 200A underground service they spent a few extra bucks and installed a 200A breaker below the power company's meter so we could disconnect the house from the grid and move the 200A panel back under the stairs. This allows me to take the rest of that closet wall out and the driving Xbox 360 cabinet that is mostly finished can be located closer to the wall. The driving cabinet is a blast and will provide stress relief to me when I get burnt out from theater planning/building. If you look close, my previous theater's HTPC is sticking out the front of the cabinet...and do you see the cat6 cable going to it? Yep, that driving cabinet is also a personal hi-def (.mkv files stored on a Unraid server) theater... Yes, I have my own "Drive In Theater" complete with DD/DTS 5.1 surround. A little sub sits behind the 2005 Neon seat. 

And here is the room as of now looking toward the IB chamber:








You can see my old sub boxes standing upright behind the 2x4 wall. I killed myself getting these things down the basement (no walkout) and now I am just going to pitch them in favor of an IB chamber...it's Cathan's fault!  If anyone near Evansville IN wants them, they're yours...


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## Prof.

Looks like it's going to be quite a project..
Your finished room dimensions look to be 12'4"x 26'..That's almost identical to my first theatre size..
I found that size to be almost like a hallway, and not particularly good acoustically..
Unless you're planning on having three rows of seating, I would suggest making it slightly shorter..say 23' long and increase the size of the IB room..
I think both rooms would benefit with the changes in dimensions..


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> Looks like it's going to be quite a project..
> Your finished room dimensions look to be 12'4"x 26'..That's almost identical to my first theatre size..
> I found that size to be almost like a hallway, and not particularly good acoustically..
> Unless you're planning on having three rows of seating, I would suggest making it slightly shorter..say 23' long and increase the size of the IB room..
> I think both rooms would benefit with the changes in dimensions..


Yes, I am a little worried about the dimensions. It looks long and skinny in the diagram doesn't it? It doesn't look as bad in person but I know sound waves don't care what I think it looks like. :R I am planning on 3 rows of real theater rockers but I still think I could maybe increase the IB chamber or perhaps the sound lock room. Things are still fairly flexible, thanks for your comments.

-Tom A.


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## tjambro

Here's a rough diagram of my current HVAC trunks and runs. The runs are all metal and will need to be converted to flex. I am thinking of installing a totally separate unit for the theater to help with sound isolation...and comfort.










-Tom A.


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## Prof.

tjambro said:


> Yes, I am a little worried about the dimensions. It looks long and skinny in the diagram doesn't it? It doesn't look as bad in person but I know sound waves don't care what I think it looks like. :R I am planning on 3 rows of real theater rockers but I still think I could maybe increase the IB chamber or perhaps the sound lock room. Things are still fairly flexible, thanks for your comments.
> 
> -Tom A.


Hmm...three rows of seating eh!..
Then you will need to calculate your first row position in relation to the screen size you'll be using..and then work back from there for the other rows and spacings..
This will show you how much length you will have left..bearing in mind that you'll need to leave about 2' at least behind the back row..
Whatever you have left in length (If any) I would definately add it to the IB chamber...
Generally speaking..the bigger the chamber, the better..


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## roffe

Wow. This has a great potential. Looking forward to following the building process, learning more about what I could have done...


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## tcarcio

Looks like a great project. Are you leaving the paneling up or replacing it with some material that is more acoustically friendly? Looking forward to seeing your progress.:T


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## bpape

Yeah - Unfortunately, that breaks a couple of 'rules' about design. Length will be more than 3x the height. Length will be almost exactly double the length. 

If we could shorten it a bit, give you more IB space, and shift to 2 rows of 3 seats, I think that might work out a bit better for you acoustically. It would also give you better viewing angles for both rows. Doing 3 rows makes it harder to get a good field of view included angle for all of them without either the back being kinda small and/or the front being really big.

Bryan


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## tjambro

tcarcio said:


> Looks like a great project. Are you leaving the paneling up or replacing it with some material that is more acoustically friendly? Looking forward to seeing your progress.:T


In a couple of months I won't even remember what the paneling looked like....yep, it's all going bye bye. The theater walls will have 3 layers of 5/8" drywall with green glue and then have sound treatments over the drywall all covered by cloth frames for a (hopefully) clean look.

-Tom A.


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## roffe

Seems like you have a good grip on what to do and the consequences of compromises. 
Personally I don't have much against 3 rows. I guess optimising sound and view for 3 rows is difficult, but if you need the seats, I guess you need it. :bigsmile:

Are you going for a totally black bat cave, or will the cloth be a somewhat lighter color?


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## bpape

It's more a video thing with the 3 rows.

Also, with a finished height of 7'8", getting the 2nd riser in there for proper viewing angles will end up with a head height (assuming 10-12" risers) of approx 5'6-5'8".

2 rows of 3 allows more realistic ceiling heights over the last row and also gives better video field of view and an easier time optimizing the lower room mode interaction of the length dimension.

Bryan


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## Prof.

Yes...If your ceiling height is only 7'8".(.which is the same as mine)..then 3 rows is not really going to be practical..
The benefit of course will be that you will have more leeway to get your angles right..


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## tjambro

roffe said:


> Are you going for a totally black bat cave, or will the cloth be a somewhat lighter color?


No, not totally but there will be no light colored walls. I will probably go with a medium to dark blue cloth for the walls, the columns and total screenwall will be black. The soffits will also most likely be black. If I do a star ceiling it will be....yep....black, but if I don't do the star ceiling, I'll probably paint it midnight blue or something like that.

-Tom A.


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> Yes...If your ceiling height is only 7'8".(.which is the same as mine)..then 3 rows is not really going to be practical..
> The benefit of course will be that you will have more leeway to get your angles right..


Ok, ok, you guys have convinced me to go with 2 rows of 3 instead of 3x3. I knew the back row would cause potential problems with height but to be honest I really didn't consider viewing angles all that much. In my previous room, I had a 8'6" ceiling which isn't high by any means but dropping another foot would make a difference. You guys also convinced me to shorten the room length also. I knew the diagram did look odd and I had a hunch this wouldn't be good acoustically but I was hoping it could be worked out. But now only going with 2 rows due to height, there's really no reason to make the room that long anyway. So more space will go to the IB chamber and some to the soundlock room also. I'll update the diagram and post a few more pictures of the construction mayhem in a couple of days.


-Tom A.


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## tjambro

bpape said:


> It's more a video thing with the 3 rows.
> 
> Also, with a finished height of 7'8", getting the 2nd riser in there for proper viewing angles will end up with a head height (assuming 10-12" risers) of approx 5'6-5'8".
> 
> Bryan


Actually it's worse than that. The 7'8" is not finished height, it is the height from my tile floor to the bottom of the new ceiling joists I plan on installing assuming I place the joists 1" below the current joists. I still need to add dri-core and 3 layers of 5/8" drywall.

-Tom A.


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## tjambro

Well this weekend was not a very good week for room deconstruction. I was loading up the ******* Ranger (see post below) Friday nite and I was getting very, very weak so I went to bed early. I woke up in the night with the shivers and my wife said I was burning up. So, the room was put on hold and I pretty much slept all weekend. I did manage to make it to the dump but that was it.

-Tom A.


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## tjambro

******** Ranger **CONTEST***

Some people track how much money they spend on their room. Some track trips to HD/Lowes. I'm gonna track pounds taken to the dump....er Sanitary Landfill...

To kick things off, I am starting a contest. Below you will find a picture of "The ******* Ranger" all loaded up to go to the dump. Since my "Sanitary Landfill" uses a scale to determine how much to charge, I know exactly how much was dumped each time I go.

One and only one "Major Award" will be given to the poster who comes closest to the weight loaded up on the ******* Ranger in the photo below. The Major Award will be given on Dec. 22nd (just in time for Christmas) and may be delivered to you personally in the back of the ******* Ranger...

Good Luck!










There are no tricks here. There are not 3 tons of lead hidden under the wood you can see. The contents of the ******* Ranger are typical of basement remodels including wood paneling (using the most exquisite exotic veneers possible), drywall and 2x4s. Nothing more, nothing less.

On a side note, I bought the ******* Ranger a few years back while living in my previous house with the intention of using it to haul sand and gravel for a large brick patio I built and sell it after I was done. It ran so good (much better than it looks!) I decided to keep it. Glad I did!

-Tom A.


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## tjambro

*Smaller Room*

It's official...the compromises have begun...

Here's the new smaller room:










It would have been nice to have the longer room to have 3 rows of 3 chairs but due to width and height constraints I will go with 2 rows of 3 instead.

In addition to the smaller theater area you will notice the IB chamber got bigger :devil: as well as the soundlock area. The soundlock area will be a bit funny shaped due to the fact that I want to enclose that lollicolumn (yellow circle) within the wall structure. I think the funky nook may be a good place to put my equipment rack, no?

Also, bpape suggested that I move the communicating doors to the soundlock entrance instead of by the theater entrance which at first seemed counter intuitive but actually does make sense so that's what I will do. Also, since I was planning on temporarily removing the bathroom vanity and closet to add 2 more layers of drywall to the existing layer, I will now put the closet on the other side of the vanity and seal off the current bathroom door and replace it with a new door that connects directly to the lobby/arcade area. This will keep the laundry/sump pump room off limits to guests. The vanity drain pipe currently runs through the wall where the new door will go so that will have to be relocated to the wall where the current door is. This will create a bit of extra work but I think it will be worth it in the end. I plan on having a bathroom sign on the new door and a "Employees Only" sign for the door that leads to the laundry room. 

Yesterday I removed several 6" flex lines that supplied the half of the basement that the theater will occupy. I capped the ends and now I need to start working on removing all the metal 6" lines that feed the main floor and replace them with flex. Bpape suggested that no tin should be above the theater area even though there will be 3 layers of drywall.

-Tom A.


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## Space

I'm just thankful you got over your sudden illness.

Oh, my guess for the contest is 1100 pounds.


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## akakillroy

I am not sure what your plans are for a front screen wall/stage/enclosure for speakers/such but if it were me I would get at least 24' length out of your room. You want to avoid as much as you can the possibility of a square room. There is a link or document somewhere that talks about "ideal" room dimensions to avoid certain room "mods"

Maybe bpape can chime in here and disuse it with you, beings though you are in the beginning stages you can maybe avoid the issues that others have encountered with room dimensions.


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## akakillroy

Just a quick look, this is what I would change if possible, I didn't change the dimensions as it was just a quick change to suggest the change.
View attachment 10909


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## akakillroy

With the above change you would have roughly the same dimensions as the room I have. Not that my room size is ideal, but I would not want it any smaller, and 12'4" wide its going to be cramped for berklines at 3 wide.


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## tjambro

Space said:


> I'm just thankful you got over your sudden illness.


Thanks, I appreciate that. I feel much better. It was amazing how quickly it hit...

-Tom A.


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## tjambro

carls64 said:


> With the above change you would have roughly the same dimensions as the room I have. Not that my room size is ideal, but I would not want it any smaller, and 12'4" wide its going to be cramped for berklines at 3 wide.


Thanks for your input. My original theater (previous house) was also 21' long with 18" behind the screen making for about 19' of "visible" area. I planned on going with 26' (24' visible) this time but due to width and height restrictions bpape and others have talked me out of a room that long. I had Berkliners in my other HT (room was 14' wide) and while they were extremely comfortable, I was planning on real theater seats this go round even before I knew I would have only 12-12.5' of width to work with.

There's no theater layout detail in my drawing but I will have an AT screen in front of my IB chamber, probably 2' from the IB wall. This should allow ample room for my speakers.

-Tom A.


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## Audio1

Well, Let me start off with saying congrats on the new space! This will make for a great man cave. I would also like to make a stab a guessing the weight in your truck, I am saying 415 pounds.. :yes:


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## tjambro

*Major Award Winner!*

Well folks, it's time to announce the winner of the "Major Award" for guessing the weight in the back of the ******* Ranger.

First off, I want to thank the two of you for participating. 

And the winner is: Space. He guessed the actual weight of 1100 pounds...

And as promised, the ******* Ranger will deliver this Major Award to Space:





Thanks for participating and Merry Christmas!

-Tom A.


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## tjambro

*Door slabs*

Here's a picture of the custom door slabs I ordered from Lowes. I had them only route one side of each door because I will be adding mdf to the slab to beef the door up more. I plan on using (5) 4" spring loaded hinges on each slab. I also had Lowes not cut a hole for a door knob as I will be using a push plate/pull handle on each door. The idea is that the doors cannot accidentally be left open. You will go through the door and it will close itself. If the spring loaded hinges are not enough to do the job, I will buy commercial swing arms or whatever they are called. Lowes was supposed to make the doors 1 7/8" thick but they made them the standard 1 3/8" thick. No real problem since I will be adding mdf anyway.

While I like 4 or 6 panel interior doors for the rest of the house, I was pleased with this design as it just says "theater" to me:










-Tom A.


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## tjambro

*Enterprise*

Here's a before and now picture of the future theater space:

BEFORE:










What makes this funny, is that my wife saw this and said it looked like a scene from the bridge of Star Trek when the Enterprise was about to be destroyed. She is right on! The hanging 6" flex has been removed and the supply lines capped as the theater will have all new flex. 

It's hard to see in this photo but in the ceiling joists there were 4 all metal 6" supply lines to the house above. All these lines were going to be above the new ceiling but I decided to replace them with flex. I didn't want to use the old flex so I bought new shiny flex...look in the "now" picture below. You can also see 1 stack (of 3) of dricore - at the bottom right of the photo with the pliers on top - that still needs to go down.

NOW:










Both of these photos were taken from the sound lock wall looking toward the IB chamber at the far end of the basement.

-Tom A.


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## bpape

Making progress Tom. I agree - I love the door pattern.

Bryan


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## tjambro

bpape said:


> Making progress Tom.
> Bryan


Thanks but I wonder if I should have just bought a house with an unfinished basement. :huh:

-Tom A.


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## tjambro

*Sad Day...*

Yesterday was a sad day:










This is one of the two sub boxes I had behind my screen in the old house. That opening is for a 18" driver. These boxes are the reason I am going room within a room...that and my wife and neighbors would kill me if I make any more rattles. :R I killed myself getting these boxes into the basement and I could not get them out without hacking them up. Oh, well...

-Tom A.


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## tjambro

*Drywall arrives!*

My drywall has arrived!










All the 4x8 drywall on this truck is now in my basement. Two young and foolish guys unloaded 150 sheets of 5/8" into my basement. When they saw the 90 degree turn they had to make to get down the basement they did not look pleased. They turned out to be nice guys and even though they were in shape they were extremely wore out at the end. I am usually pretty cheap but I gave them $20 each when it was all over because they more then earned it. They said business was slow and if it wasn't for my job, they would have went home today with no pay. They were here 3 1/2 hours.

I get a kick out of this photo:










Does anyone see what's so interesting about this photo...anyone....Buehler? That orange fork-lift thingie is not from the local drywall supplier but Home Depot! That's right, I scheduled lumber and drywall deliveries from 2 different companies for today. I was supposed to be the first run for the drywall but their regular crew didn't show up (probably 'cause they knew how hard the job would be) and I had to wait for the backup crew from Owensboro (about 50 miles from Evansville) to get here. Well, it turns out the drywall company didn't have any fork lifts or even carts to assist in the drywall delivery so the drywall guy asked the Home Depot guy to run the last couple of loads into the garage. The orange lift would not quite make it but he dropped it just inside the door with the idea that we could at least close the garage door since it was 10F outside. Of course things never go as planned and the light sensors were blocked so the door wouldn't go down. But at least it was closer for the two fellas. While this was all taking place I was wondering what the local drywall shop and HD lawyers would think if they knew this was going on. They would have liability nightmares. :R

And here's what 10,854 lbs of 5/8" drywall looks like in my lobby:










Don't worry, there is still just enough room to get to the driving cabinet/Personal Drive-In-Theater. :bigsmile:

-Tom A.


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## tjambro

*Compromise #3*

First off, some of you folks might be wondering why I had drywall delivered when I don't even have my subfloor down yet. Good question. Answer: I don't have to work this week so scheduling is easier and my father is coming down for a week in January for the major building blitz. We don't know how far we will get but we're hoping to get framing and at least some of the drywall done. Time will tell.

Now that the major deliveries are here, I guess I should continue getting the room ready for the building blitz.

Let's add to the Compromise List... 

Compromise #1 was Room Size: Make the room smaller in length for acoustical reasons
Compromise #2 was Seating: Only have 2 rows of 3 instead of 3 rows of 3 due to height issues

Compromise #3 is Ceiling Height: 










I planned on removing all these joist blocks and turning them on their sides to allow the new joists to go further up into the ceiling. After trying to remove one I decided it was too much work to remove them all. Besides, if you look close in the photo, you can see that there are some 2x's that run parallel with the joists. These are where the builders goofed and couldn't get the plywood subfloor to line up with the joists so they added these cheater blocks. If I remove these then I would have to screw the rotated block back while trying to catch just the subfloor above and not go through the hardwood floors above. I'm sure it could be done but I didn't feel it was worth the effort. On the plus side, my air gap between the floor above and the theater ceiling will be larger so I should have better sound isolation, no? 

Note: To the right of the photo you can see some of the 6" flex that replaces the old metal 6" supply lines for the house above.

-Tom A.


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## tjambro

******** Ranger Rides Again*

Ok folks, last post for the day...I promise. :whistling:

The ******* Ranger is loaded up once again:










I was originally thinking this would be my lightest load so far but I'm not so sure, it may be my heaviest. I was planning on getting to the dump today but could not due to deliveries. I'm leaving town tomorrow for Christmas so you are looking at one Lonely Ranger....sorry, couldn't resist.

If anyone cares to guess the weight in the back, that's fine but there will be no "Major Awards" this time around....if anyone is keeping score, the ******* Ranger has carried 2240 pounds to the dump in two trips. Stay tuned for the new tallies in a few days! :R

Merry Christmas to all!

-Tom A.


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## Prof.

*Re: Door slabs*



tjambro said:


> While I like 4 or 6 panel interior doors for the rest of the house, I was pleased with this design as it just says "theater" to me:.


I see what you mean when you say the door says "Theater"..
It straight away reminded me of the double doors that used to be the entrance doors to my local cinema, when I was just a boy!..Good choice..:T


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## Space

Hey Tom, I only guessed 1100 pounds because I was hoping that was a high guess! My fear was that all the demo material would be my prize!!!

Be safe out there in your trip.


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## Guest

Looks good.


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## tjambro

*Re: Door slabs*



Prof. said:


> I see what you mean when you say the door says "Theater"..
> It straight away reminded me of the double doors that used to be the entrance doors to my local cinema, when I was just a boy!..Good choice..:T


Thanks Prof...it was dumb luck. I was looking at a Lowe's ad and they had that door pictured as one of many doors that could be special ordered at a 10% discount. I immediately knew that was the one. :bigsmile:


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## tjambro

Space said:


> My fear was that all the demo material would be my prize!!!


LOL! I didn't think of that. That would have been a "major award" wouldn't it? :R


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## tjambro

******** Ranger is done for now!*

That's right, the load in the back of the ******* Ranger (a few posts above) has been disposed of...new record...1220 lbs. Next time the truck goes to the dump it will be taking scraps from new work not demolition. If anyone is keeping score, the ******* Ranger has dumped 3460 lbs in 3 trips...


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## tjambro

*First Value Added Project...Dricore*

I have finally turned the demolition corner. Instead of taking building materials out of the basement, I finally got to put some materials down. I got the dricore done. It was very easy to install and I must say it was satisfying to "add some value" to the theater project.

Here's the obligatory 3 row complete shot:










...and here's the entire theater area done. This photo is taken from the back of the sound lock room looking through the theater and the IB chamber.










Note the 2x2 squares behind the work lights are not leftover dricore squares. They are the drop ceiling tiles that I removed. The ******* Ranger is forbidden from taking them to the dump until I re-do the lobby and laundry/sump pump room drop ceilings with these better tiles.

I did have 38 (out of 180) tiles that I took back to Lowes today. I guesstimated about 150 tiles but the Dricore calculator calculated 180. I figured it would be better to have extra and take them back so that's what I ended up doing.


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## tjambro

*A Few pics before the building blitz*

My dad is to arrive tomorrow and the building blitz should begin Friday. I doubt I will have time to post any pics during that week so I will update my progress once the blitz is over. Until then, here are a few more pre-blitz pictures...

Here's a shot of my 3 door slabs. They were solid core 1 3/8" slabs. I added 3/4" mdf to each one. I put a tube of GG in between the mdf and the slab. I plan on using five 4" hinges on each slab. They sure are heavy now:










This is a picture of my brand spanking new drywall lift. I predict it will be more Christmasy looking after the GG is applied to the 3 layers of drywall. I also made sure my ladder was in the shot as you guys seem to like ladder shots also:










And finally, here's the two windows that I covered. Both windows will be in the IB sub chamber. I painted one of two blueboard layers black, put that against the glass so from the street it looks like the basement lights are off and added 2 layers of 3/4" mdf to cover the windows. I sealed them with acoustical caulk:










The blueboard around the right window was added after I took down the 2x4 wall that was there. This IB chamber was a bedroom and it had R13 insulation in the wall with sheetrock. The rest of the wall was the open basement with 2x2 walls with blueboard and paneling. I took down the 2x4 wall so that I could reclaim 2" in room width for the theater.

I'll post more after the "Building Blitz".


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## Prof.

*Re: A Few pics before the building blitz*



tjambro said:


> This is a picture of my brand spanking new drywall lift. I predict it will be more Christmasy looking after the GG is applied to the 3 layers of drywall. I also made sure my ladder was in the shot as you guys seem to like ladder shots also:


That lift will make light work of the job..:bigsmile:
You're putting up 3 layers of drywall.? That's a LOT of drywall!! :thud:


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## tjambro

*Re: A Few pics before the building blitz*



Prof. said:


> That lift will make light work of the job..:bigsmile:
> You're putting up 3 layers of drywall.? That's a LOT of drywall!! :thud:


Yea, after it's all over, I may regret that decision. :whistling: Currently, there are 150 sheets of 5/8 drywall in my basement waiting for walls....10,800 lbs! :scared:


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## bpape

Tom wanted serious isolation. Mass is your friend - except when you have to schlep it all around.

Bryan


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## Prof.

I think he's building a secret bomb shelter!! what with those doors and all that drywall!!:rofl:


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## Space

Hope the ******* Ranger can make it!

So you and your Dad, while you insulate the overhead, you guys already thought about "ya know Dad, we are going to add roughly 7 pounds per square foot additional dead load to an already existing live load in this 13X26 sq. ft area?"

Or you had it checked out, or checked it out?


Right?


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## tjambro

Space said:


> Hope the ******* Ranger can make it!


Was he not able to deliver your "major award?" He's got the week off, so hopefully he will be ready for the next great adventure. LOL.



> So you and your Dad, while you insulate the overhead, you guys already thought about "ya know Dad, we are going to add roughly 7 pounds per square foot additional dead load to an already existing live load in this 13X26 sq. ft area?"


Actually, I'm building a true room within a room...so that means I am adding new walls and new ceiling joists. So the 3 layers of ceiling drywall will be attached to the new 2x8 joists that will be resting on the new walls. No live load. I was going to leave it at that, but bpape suggested that I attach the top of the new walls with DC04 clips to the current 2x10 joists. I thought the room would be sturdy enough without the clips but he said with the massive IB, I would risk cracking the drywall from shear forces without the clips. Seeing the power of my DIY subs (See my avatar: that's me sitting in one of them) in the last house, :hsd: I believed him. :R So...DC04 clips it is.


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## Space

Yes something to help prevent the destruction from racking is always welcome. Let in (cut into)diagonal bracing in the walls used to be code here @ Exit 4. Now days they require a vertical full sheet of 1/2 OSB on the exterior of the residential framing on both walls of all corners. You could use plywood on the interior of your framing and achieve the same positive benefit.

Exit 4 is in hurricane alley so we don't question things that may save our home and health


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## tjambro

*Building Blitz*

Well folks, my dad and I survived Building Blitz '09...tee shirts are on order. Large amounts of ibuprofen were standard tools while toting drywall.

First off, if my dad is reading this....thanks for your patience. I know I kept slowing the project down by adding little projects to help sound isolation. Dad said it was fine and that his time was my time but I could tell he was a little frustrated. He was hoping to get all 3 layers of drywall up but we only got 1 layer done. Sure, I would have liked to get 3 done but I knew that would be a pretty tough goal to achieve. We didn't even start the drywall until Friday and Saturday was our last working day. I could tell Dad was much happier installing drywall than waiting for me to install pieces of mdf between joists and caulking them...see below for my reasoning.

A lot was accomplished but of course a lot remains.

Here's the highlights of what was accomplished:

Door from left theater wall to back rooms was removed. This door was recycled as a new entrance to the laundry/sump pump room from the lobby/arcade. In the picture below the left door is the laundry room and the right is the bathroom.










Bathroom was flip flopped. By this I mean that the bathroom door was moved to the opposite side of the room so that the bathroom is accessible from the lobby. This was done so that people will not have to walk through the laundry room to get to the bathroom. To accomplish this, the vanity and cabinet in the bathroom had to be moved. The vanity drain line had to be re-routed around the back side of the bathroom through the laundry room walls to allow for the new door. During all this mess, I decided to put up two layers of drywall over the existing 1/2" bathroom drywall along the wall that is next to the theater.

Here's the bathroom freshly reversed:










Notice that the vanity and cabinet need to be painted on the sides that used to be against the wall. Also you can see the old linoleum where the vanity and closet used to be. Naturally, the light switch had to be moved near the new door...all this stuff takes time!

The two HVAC returns for the house above that consisted of a joist cavity covered with sheet metal was redone by removing the sheet metal, adding 2" cotton on the bottom and covering with mdf and caulked:










In this picture, you are looking at the center basement wall (where left theater wall will be). You see the space between the joists that open into the non-theater portion of the basement? These will be filled with mdf. See below picture.

The HVAC supplies for the house above (originally metal but converted to flex) were also boxed in with mdf:










MDF was installed between the old joists all along the center of the basement:










This is where the left wall of the theater was built. I did this because I am using the bathroom and mechanical room walls as my outer wall in this area. While we were framing the new inner wall I noticed that any sound that would get past the upper portion of the inner wall would have a clear shot to the current HVAC trunks that run parallel with the left side of the theater. I figured the mdf squares between the joists would make the outer wall more contiguous. In this picture you can see 1 of the DC04 clips. After all the new ceiling joists were installed, I put a DC04 clip on every joist (not the new joists that I installed below the original house joists) that I had free access to.

...more Building Blitz '09 to come...


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## tjambro

*Building Blitz*

A couple things I learned during this blitz:


You can't go to Lowes without spending at least $100
The guy who built my house was drunk
The biggest regular corded drill will be beat by a new Hitachi Hammer Drill for installing tapcons through ceramic tile and concrete
You can't go to Lowes without spending at least $100 - see Hammer Drill
Fiberglass insulation is itchy
Fiberglass insulation cannot be bought at Lowes for less than $100
As you are installing custom cut pieces of R13 and R30 in the joists built by a drunk home builder, you learn to hate the Pink Panther
You cannot go to Lowes without spending at least $100 - see Hammer Drill and Insulation
If you knock over your shop lights while they are on, 50% of them will quit within 10 seconds of falling
You can't go to Lowes without spening $100 even if your home builder was drunk

Here's a picture of my custom cut R13 and R30 insulation between the new joists we installed and the original joists installed by the drunk home builder in 1965:










The reason I say the builder was drunk is because none of the ceiling joists were square with the block walls. When dad and I added the new 2x8 joists between the original joists we had to make them square so that each piece of sheetrock would not have to be cut on all sides. It would have been nice to just space the new joists an inch or so from the old joists but if we did that, each piece of sheetrock would have ended up being a trapezoid. The downside of installing the new joists square should be obvious in this picture...the insulation had to be custom cut.

Also, since the basement floor and original ceiling joists were not level, the walls we built had various different clearances between the top of the new walls and the original house joists. The main home floor does actually pitch in a few places along the center of the house. I'm not sure if this was due to settling or maybe the builder really was drunk. Although I wasn't thrilled, we ended up notching each 2x8 joist so that the new theater ceiling would be fairly level. The theater width will only be 12' so I think the notched 2x8 joists will support the 3 layers of drywall. I'm glad they will be supporting a dead load, not a live load.

Here's the first piece of sheetrock being installed by my dad...only 149 to go!










Here you can see a few pieces of ceiling rock, R13 in between the 24"OC walls we made as well as the R-13 and R-30 in the ceiling with the new joists:










Here's what the room looks like right now:










This shows the first layer of drywall complete. I have yet to mud and caulk, but at least one layer is up. The room is still a mess, I haven't touched it since we finished Saturday. I am taking a break and will get back to it maybe this weekend. Now that dad has left and I have to go back to my real job so that I can support my insulation purchases, the work will unfortunately slow to a trickle. Note that the IB chamber wall and theater/soundlock wall have not been built yet. I plan to build these walls after the 3 layers of rock are installed.

Two last pics for the Building Blitz '09. This one is a shot of one of my custom door slabs (standing on its side). The pic shows 2 of the 5 mitered hinge locations. I was pleased how this came out. I didn't think I would be able to route this that well freehand:










The last pic is this door slab hung:










This is the door that enters to the soundlock room. You will have to pass through the soundlock area to get to the theater. There will be communicating doors at the theater entrance. Note that the door is very rough. I don't even have the header installed. I just hung it because dad was here and it is hard to maneuver into place by myself and I wanted to see how the 5 spring loaded hinges worked. I am pleased to report that I believe they will have enough tension to close the door against the weather striping that will be installed later. We put a temporary stop up to keep the door swinging too far when closing. I won't put the pull handle/push plate on until the heavy construction is done.

Thanks for looking!


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## Space

Tom, thanks for the work, the pictures and the heads up about Lowes. I was curious what the dollar amount cut off was, now I know 

Pretty quiet in there, eh?


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## bpape

One other thing to add to the list - you can't build a theater without making at least 100 trips to Lowes! :bigsmile:

Bryan


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## roffe

bpape said:


> One other thing to add to the list - you can't build a theater without making at least 100 trips to Lowes! :bigsmile:
> 
> Bryan


Yikes! This means you'll spend at least $10000 at Lowes before you are done. :yikes:

Luckily, there is no Lowes in my country. :yay:


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## tjambro

Space said:


> Pretty quiet in there, eh?


It's getting quieter in there but it's not super quiet yet because the room is still open. You can't see from the picture I posted, but where the sound lock room (about 8' wide) opens up to the main theater room (about 12' wide) there is a little wall. I don't have this little wall rocked yet. I am using it to pass rock from the lobby to the theater. I mudded and caulked the first layer ceiling tonite and will start the second ceiling layer this weekend. I will start from the IB chamber (furthest away in the photo) and work back toward the sound lock room. When I get close to this wall with the 2nd ceiling, I will confirm that I can get rock in through my sound lock door (shouldn't be a problem) and then wall off this short wall. Then maybe it will start getting even quieter...of course the door is not really doing much yet either...

Having said all that, even with the room basically open, I have noticed the furnace is much quieter. While in the basement, I used to be able to hear the furnace strike the igniters, here the gas make that slight "woosh" noise when it ignites and then hear the blower kick on. All I can hear now is the blower and it is much quieter. I must be doing something right, no? :R


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## tjambro

bpape said:


> One other thing to add to the list - you can't build a theater without making at least 100 trips to Lowes! :bigsmile:


Ain't that the truth! Of the 10 days dad and I worked on the room (Building Blitz '09), we went to Lowes every day except 2. That's no joke. Sometimes we went twice! Fortunately (unfortunately?), Lowes/HD are only 5 to 10 minutes from the house.


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## tjambro

roffe said:


> Yikes! This means you'll spend at least $10000 at Lowes before you are done. :yikes:


I purposely am not tracking total costs at this time. I am putting all my theater related receipts in a file folder but will not add up all the costs until it is complete. I know it will be a nice piece of change...a figure I probably won't volunteer to my wife unless she specifically asks...[on knees praying she won't ask] :hide:


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## emo777

Hi Tom,

Love your work and documentation of your home theatre project.

I will be doing the same thing in a few months and had the same idea as you with regards a room within a room. Just wondering why did you use the RSIC-DCO4 clips and how we're they installed???

Can't you just place the 2x8 beams in between the 2 old joist ontop of the new framed walls?? 

How about the interior walls, how did you space them from the old wall?? ( i didnt see this step unless i mssed it?? sorry if i did.) 

I will be definitely keep a close eye on your project. I hope you dont mind if i ask you a few questions once in a while.

thanks

Emilio


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## tjambro

emo777 said:


> I will be doing the same thing in a few months and had the same idea as you with regards a room within a room. Just wondering why did you use the RSIC-DCO4 clips and how we're they installed???


First off, welcome to the Shack! I originally didn't plan on adding the DCO4 clips, but bpape suggested them. I did put the 2x8's directly on the new framed walls but it was recommended to attach the DCO4 clips on top of the new framed wall and attach the top of the clip to the old joists. Even though it seems a bit counter intuitive to me, I figured I might as well listen to the people who have been doing this stuff for years. I was told with all the bass (I plan on a large sealed IB chamber), drywall would crack if I didn't secure things better with the clips.



> How about the interior walls, how did you space them from the old wall?? ( i didnt see this step unless i mssed it?? sorry if i did.)


Three sides of the theater project (IB sub chamber, main theater and sound lock) are surrounded by block walls. I just built new walls 1" away from the material on the block walls and secured the new walls with tapcons (through basement concrete) and screws (not thru concrete, just thru the dricore which the walls are sitting on. The side of the theater that has no block will have an interior and exterior wall built by me. For part of it, I already have a wall that was there before I started. I spaced that section 1" away from the current wall. The section of the actual theater that opens into the lobby/arcade will have a thicker wall (more spacing between framed walls). The idea is to try to minimize the sound transmission into the lobby as it is open to the rest of the house...my basement doesn't have a door at the top of the stairs. I'll probably make that wall about 6" away from the interior wall.



> I will be definitely keep a close eye on your project. I hope you dont mind if i ask you a few questions once in a while.


Don't mind at all...that's why we're all here, to ask questions and learn from others. Let me know when you start your build thread. I would like to see how you do yours...


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## emo777

Hi Tom,

Just curious cause i will have this problem down the road. I want to run a conduit pipe from the front of my screen to the back of the room where all my equipment and projector will be. I want to have a plasma and drop down screen option.

with the joist running the wrong way can i notch the joist for a 2.5-3" conduit to fit through or would that be a structural issue??


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## bpape

If I may - that's why soffits around the room perimeter are very useful. You can run the conduit in there and keep all of the structural integrity of the joists.

Bryan


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## emo777

Ahh.... blonde moment there for me... correct totally forgot about that. thanks


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## tjambro

emo777 said:


> with the joist running the wrong way can i notch the joist for a 2.5-3" conduit to fit through or would that be a structural issue??


I would have to agreed with Bryan. Use the soffits instead. If you aren't going to have soffits, I personally would not notch my joists for a conduit. I only did it as a way to get the joists to fit atop my newly constructed walls. My house was built by a drunk and the new ceiling would not have been anywhere near level if I didn't do this. Without notching the joists, I would have had to take down all the walls we constructed and make each one a different height trying to compensate for the unlevel floor and pitch of the current joists. Note: my house does have a slight pitch from the outside wall to the center where the main beam is. It is slightly noticeable with our wood floors. With carpet, I doubt you would notice it at all. But the basement (theater) ceiling would have been off too much for me to ignore.


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## Space

If it comes down to a space requirement, wood floor trusses would allow for overhead conduit with no boring of the framing member.

The cost goes up, sure, but the open access would be significant. A different material, Wood I-Joists ,come with pre-stamped knock-outs for conduit.

Just some things to consider.


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## emo777

thanks for the advice i think the soffit on both sides will work i totally forgot about it 

On another topic, how much differences is there if you we're to do stager the 2x4's for the interior walls as opposed to creating another wall?? I was thinking of just adding 2x3 base and top and butt it against my 2x6 framing that i have now and just add 2x4 staggered and then add 2 sheets of drywall or accoustic sound barrier and drywall and then do the ceiling as how Tom is doing it?? what do you guys suggest??


thanks guys!!!
Emo


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## Space

The difference in doing one wall with both sides layered and two decoupled walls with opposing sides layered is huge!

Using STC as a reference it can be anywhere from 32 points for the one wall to 60 points for the decoupled frames. If dollars and cents are part of the equation, the two decoupled wall frames will reach the desired goal sooner then the other.

Also, in order to do an overhead of any weight you will need substantial framing support. You will not get this support from 2 X 3 members.


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## bpape

Agreed on the double walls - if you have the space to spare.

If you are tight on space and still want some extra decoupling, you can do 2x6 top and bottom plates and staggered studs one side to the other so no studs share drywall on both sides. It's not as good as 2 separate walls but takes up less space, costs less, and is certainly better than 1 standard wall.

Bryan


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## tjambro

Emo,

What they said. :yes:


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## emo777

Hi Tom
Any new update on your HT project
Emo


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## tjambro

emo777 said:


> Any new update on your HT project


Not as much as I would like. I did get 9 full pieces plus a couple of small pieces of drywall installed on the ceiling with green glue. This is the second layer. I have a wall that I have not finished that I am passing sheet rock through and I took the 2nd layer of ceiling close to that as possible. I cut rock for the 2nd layer for the walls (to this same pass through) that I hope to get glued and screwed this weekend.

Unfortunately, I haven't done as much as I would like mostly due to work and last week's ice storm. We had over 1" of ice followed by 6" of snow. We lost power Tuesday nite and didn't get it back until Friday afternoon. By Thursday morning it was 43F in my house and we had had it by then so I bought a generator and got the gas furnace running by 8:30PM Thursday. This weekend, I would like to work on the room but I may be cutting up all the limbs that fell in my back yard. One limb took out a section of fence also. It might rain though on Saturday. If it does, I can work on the room instead of the limbs. :whistling:

My plan is to get the 3 layers of rock done up to the pass through wall, finish that wall and then finish the rest of the rock. Once all 3 layers are done, I will build the dividing walls for the soundlock/theater and the theater/sub chamber.

There's no point me posting pictures of the drywall because 2 layers looks just like one, etc.


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## bpape

Come on rain! 

Bryan


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## tjambro

bpape said:


> Come on rain!


You're a very bad man, Mr. Pape! :R 

Unfortunately, it didn't rain so I worked on the trees Saturday. It took nearly all day and I still have a lot of branches to contend with. It would have went quicker if I didn't get the chain saw stuck in a 8" limb that straddled my fence and the neighbor's yard. I ended up standing on my rickety ladder, which was standing on ice, using a hand saw to free the chain saw. That was an hour of my life I'll never get back!

The theater wasn't a total loss this weekend, I did stay up late on Friday nite and hung my second layer of rock on the walls...up to the pass through wall. I used an entire pail of GG. I'm still working on trees this week and my inlaws are coming to visit this weekend so progress is gonna be slow...


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## tjambro

*Battle of the Trees*

I still haven't got much done on the room. I have been fighting the tree limbs that broke off during the ice storm. The city will pick up tree debris less than 6" in diameter and less than 4 feet long. They are supposed to come pick it up tomorrow. I decided to comply with the requirements so that the workers will have no excuse for skipping my house.

Here's a bunch of twigs broken up in neat piles and compressed to please the city sanitation dept:










...and for you ******* Ranger fans:










Here's the limbs that were big enough for firewood. Since I have no fireplace they will be going to a buddy of mine at work:










My inlaws were down this weekend so I didn't get to work on the room. But my father-in-law helped me get the last of the twigs up and the both of us got the stupid idea of freeing one branch that had a "Y" in it that got caught up on a branch high above and was draping down to just over head level. I about gave up on it myself but my father-in-law wanted to give it a try. Being stupid, I agreed. The main branch was about 4" in diameter and these things weigh more than you think. After trying to rock it back and forth we decided to use some of the 2x4's that I just happened to have around. Good thing I'm building a theater or the next stupid idea would not have been possible! :R We thought 3 overlapped 2x4's would be enough to reach the top of the branch where the "Y" was so that we could push it up and over the branch it was stuck on. Nope, 3 didn't do it. So we tried 4. In case you are thinking about doing this...don't! Four overlapped 2x4's are easy enough to move with 2 guys...when they are on the ground. But when you try to lift this thing up, it doesn't work to well. I'm not a physics scholar, but something about leverage and fulcrums comes to mind. It took every effort to get the contraption up against the tree and before you know it we had the 16" cheapo extension ladder that I own against the tree. He wanted to go up a little and try to work it up the tree and over to the branch but could not. Since the ladder was already in place I figured I would try. I started about 4 rungs from the top and before you know it I was two rungs from the top of the ladder. I'm usually not afraid of heights, but something just didn't feel right about it. Maybe because I usually have the ladder propped up against a nice flat surface (house) and not a tree, or maybe it was because if the four 8' 2x4's would have fell they could have possibly knocked me off the ladder. Either way, when I took that step up, I held the tree best I could and said to myself that I would not stay there more than a few seconds and would not try again if it didn't work. Well, it did and we were able to slide the contraption up the tree and over toward the stuck branch but it wasn't enough to free it because...physics again...when we wedged the 2x4's up against the stuck branch, it moved up, but guess what?....the branch it was stuck on moved up also! Doh! Anyway, now that we had the contraption stuck and had time invested we got some cable and used a flimsy 20' telescoping aluminum pole that I had (for hanging Christmas lights in an outside tree) to try and get the cable over the end of the branch to get it free. The pole wasn't long enough, so we attached it to a 2x2 I just happened to have. It didn't work, we weren't strong enough. One last thing to try before giving up...go to Lowes (my favorite place!) and buy a pole saw. We knew a pole saw wouldn't reach the limb that was between 26' and 28' (4 8' 2x4's is 32' less overlap) off the ground but surely we could cannibalize the blade and come up with something. All pole saws were sold out and the guy said they were only 14' anyway. They had replacement blades for $12 so we bought that and four 1x1's. This was the first time in a long time that I left Lowes having spent less than $100! :bigsmile: After all the 1x1's were screwed together and the blade attached we were able to lift the contraption up very easily. Unfortunately, the lowermost 1x1 snapped before the blade even made contact with the limb. No problem, we added a 2x2. Now we're cooking with gas! The blade made contact and both of us figured it would take 30-60 minutes to cut through the branch. Nope, about 10-15 minutes later the limb fell down. Of course, the little end that the "Y" was attached to stayed up in the tree. The aluminum pole had no trouble pushing that over. It was not the best way to get the limb out and it sure wasn't the safest adventure, but it's over and I enjoyed cutting that tree limb up. 

On another non-theater note, I mentioned that during the storm we had lost power for 3 days and I broke down and bought a portable generator when the house got down to 43F inside. At that time, I just temporarily rigged the generator up to the gas furnace and ran a couple of extension cords for some lights. The fridge wasn't needed since I just put our food in the backyard since it was much colder than the fridge. Anyway, after that was over, I told myself I would come up with a more permanent and code approved way of hooking up the generator to the house wiring. After some research I learned about back feeding generator power via transfer switches which if you are not familiar with are like (but not exactly the same) sub panels that come with usually 6 or 10 breakers that you supply from 6 or 10 of your main panel circuits. The romex from the transfer switch then goes to each circuit's load. The transfer switch is basically a switch that lets you choose either utility power or generator power for those 6 or 10 circuits that you hook up to it. This seemed like a fairly reasonable solution but the transfer switches ran about $300. This doesn't include the outdoor weather proof box or the 30A 220V cord to hook the generator to. I almost bought one but then I discovered a very simple solution from Square D. It is called a "Generator Interlock Kit" and it cost me $56 which is actually expensive considering what the device is, but still better than $300 and much easier to install. Basically this kit is a glorified metal plate that sits between the main 200A breaker and a breaker that you must install in the top right position (position 2 and 4 on my Square D Homeline panel). I wanted a 220V setup so that I could run....yep....220V stuff and also a 220V breaker would give me access to all the 110V circuits on each phase of the panel. If I had used a 110V breaker, I would have only had access to the "right phase" side of my breaker panel. I already had a 30A double pole (220V) breaker in position 2-4 and instead of moving all the breakers down, I installed my new breaker at the bottom of the right side and extended the water heater wires (with the same 10-2 wire) down to the newly installed breaker freeing this breaker up for my generator back feed breaker. Having never worked inside an electrical panel before (I've ran wiring from circuits my dad installed but never did the panel side stuff myself) I took my time, took off my watch and wedding ring...I should have shut the power off, I know, but I did not. I knew what not to touch and was very careful and didn't get shocked, so that was good. :bigsmile:

I would have been happy to just get the outdoor box installed since I didn't even start working on it until 2:30...my hammer drill I bought for the theater sole plates really worked well...but I actually got the whole project done at about 5:45. Now it was getting dark but I HAD to test it out. I rolled out the generator and announced to the wife that a Power Failure Simulation (PFS) was about to take place. I threw the main 200A breaker, slid the handy dandy Square D metal plate up so that I could turn on the 30A generator back feed breaker and went outside to start the generator. I plugged in my 20' 30A 4 prong 220V cord and started the generator. I let it warm up for a few seconds and turned on the 220V breaker on the generator. I could see the basement lights on, that's good! As I went inside through the garage I heard the generator go off...that's not supposed to happen! First thing I thought was I tripped the generator breaker as I left all the breakers on my main panel on, even though I only had a light or two on. Not the case, the breaker was fine. I tried several times to restart the generator, no dice. Had plenty of gas, now I'm getting concerned and I fiddle with the choke a bit. Then it dawned on me, when I shut the generator off the last time, I shut the gas petcock off. Doh! There was just enough gas in the line to run the generator for a couple of minutes. Once I turned the petcock on, two pulls later and the generator was screaming once again. Went inside and started testing the lights and such. The 6 floods in the kitchen worked ok, I could see the microwave and stove clocks running and the den lights worked fine. The purpose of this test was not to see how many watts it would take to trip the generator but just to make sure I had access to all the electric in the house. I did have to try my 1000W halogen flood light (2 500W bulbs) in the theater and that was no problem. While in the kitchen, I hit the "toast" button on the toaster oven and I could hear the generator adjust to the load but it did work. Anyway, I was feeling pretty good about myself but then I got down to the master bedroom, master bath and bath off the hallway and they were dark. What went wrong? Maybe I only had access to the "right phase" of the panel even though I totally believed that the 220V breaker would give me access to both sides of the panel. After a little investigation I saw several breakers off on the left side on the main panel. I threw them back on and all was right with the world. I don't think the breakers tripped. I think when I reinstalled the panel cover, I must have threw a couple of the breakers. Whew, that was close. :bigsmile:

One thing I should mention, the portable generator (Menards, 7500W peak, 6000W continous $650) manual says not to run delicate electronics with generator power. You can see the lights dim from time to time, even when not activating other circuits. Now that could be the fridge, freezer etc. coming on but I noticed the lights dim during the storm when I only had the furnace and a couple of lights on. In addition to that, the APC UPS that I have hooked up to my computer was having a cow. It would beep and go on battery power only to go back to the generator a second later. You could hear it clicking back and forth between generator and battery power. Not sure I would want to run the computer off the generator but I guess I could. I can't imagine that would be great for the UPS but I could always just shut it off.

Ok, that's probably more than you wanted to know about generators and such so I will post a picture of green glue:










You will notice the 5 gallon pail of green glue and the Speedload is on top of the pail...that's for Ted! :R

I currently have two layers on the ceiling and walls up to the pass through wall. I hope to get the ceiling and walls mudded and caulked so that I can get the 3rd layer up this weekend...but I also have a section of fence to repair that the trees crushed, so we'll see...


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## tjambro

*Hollow Victory*

Well, now that I got all the ice storm debris removed and the portable generator hard wired to the house, I got back to rock this weekend.

I'm down to 10 pieces of rock in the future lobby:










Don't get too excited for me because I cheated...I moved 50 or so into the theater:










This shot was taken from just outside the pass thru that I have been using to bring the sheet rock in. I can pass the rock through my soundlock entrance at the bottom of the stairs but it's not as easy. Furthest away in the photo is where the IB will go, I will add the partition wall after the 3 layers of sheet rock is complete. You can see the IB ceiling and walls have 3 layers (that's why I brought the rock into the room). You can also see parts of the room that have 1 and 2 layers of rock.

This one was taken from the IB area looking toward the back of the theater room and into the sound lock area. Once again, I will add the back theater wall/soundlock wall once the 3 layer shell is complete:










The pass thru will be closed off next weekend and I will start working on the rest of the room until all 3 layers of rock are complete. Then I will put up the IB wall and the rear theater wall/soundlock room. I look forward to that day!


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## tjambro

*2 Layers of Rock Complete*

This weekend I got the 2nd layer of rock and GG complete for the entire room, which was pretty good considering the circumstances...see below for another non-theater related tirade. I have now used 5 pails of GG (25 gallons) and have one more left. I realized I will need at least 1 more pail for the room interior and I'm guessing at least 1 more for the yet to be built theater/lobby wall. I ordered 2 more pails and if they are here by next weekend, I will try to finish the 3rd layer of rock.

Here's a pic from the IB chamber looking back to the soundlock area:










The pass through wall has been blocked off and the only entrance/exit is from the door at the right hand rear corner of the soundlock in this photo. You can't really see the door, but if you look closely, you can see the 5 hinges on my 2" thick door. The door is a standard 1 3/8" solid core door and I added a 3/4" sheet of mdf to give it more mass.

Here's a pic looking the opposite way...from the soundlock, looking toward the ib chamber:










After the 3rd layer is done, I will put up the theater/soundlock dividing wall which will be a double wall with communicating doors. Each side will get 3 layers of rock just like the rest of the room. The IB chamber will obviously need a boundary also and it will get a wall of it's own. I'm not sure if a double wall, staggered wall, or a plain wall is suffice for this. Any suggestions?

Once all that is done, I can give Bryan (bpape) my finished room dimensions so he can perform my sound analysis and guide me on treatments. I will then start on the soffits and deadvent for fresh air exchange. If anyone has any experience with dead vents, please feel free to post your comments. I'm not sure if I should go with 6" or 8" flex in the soffits. I'm leaning toward 8" flex with two Fantec in-line fans for pulling/pushing the air in and out. I will install rheostats on each to control air flow. Most likely, I will need to buy a dehumidifier also. I want to build this in such a way that if the air exchange isn't enough, I can pull the inline fans and have a second small HVAC unit installed in my mechanical room. Should I install 2 seperate 4" or 6" inline fans for the equipment and soundlock area (same room) or can I tap into the theater flex?

After that, I guess I can move onto electrical which will be all in soffits or conduit to be placed under fabric frames as I want no more wall penetrations then necessary. So far the only wall/ceiling penetrations that I plan are the romex coming into the equipment closet and the supply flex and return flex for the dead vent.

Once the electrical is done, I'm not sure if I should tackle the riser/stage, columns, fabric frames, or the DIY 7.1 surround setup...at least there will be plenty to do. :bigsmile:

[Non-theater tirade]....As for the tirade I mentioned above, I could have gotten more work on the room done this weekend because I took off work on Friday but I didn't start working in the theater until 8PM. Why you ask? Well, Thursday nite, I logged into my VISA account to check our transactions, like I do once or twice a week. My password was invalid. Since I use a cryptic password, I figured I just typed it wrong...nope, still no joy. Did the "forgot password" deal and I got in. I immediately noticed a temp charge of $870 for a computer purchased the day before...I didn't order it! I checked my profile and my address had been changed. Yes Virginia, I am now officially an identity theft victim. :explode: I was not happy to say the least. Not knowing how deep the ID theft was and not wanting to take any chances, I decided to close my VISA and checking account. I first called the CC fraud dept and got that going but I figured I should change all my online passwords. Before doing that, I figured I better do a complete scan of the 3 internet enabled computers in the house just in case a key logger trojan was in place. I am pretty good at keeping up with virus scans but I have gotten a little lax with spyware and sure enough, there was a trojan with a level 10 threat on my system and my wife's laptop. 

I put a fraud alert on all 3 credit bureaus, changed all my user id/passwords, canceled my checking and have left a message with the financial crimes investigator in the area. If he doesn't get back with me in the next day or two, I will make another attempt to go to the local city police office. The first attempt was a bust as the address in the phone book is not where they are now.

Anyway, if you haven't checked for spyware lately, you may wish to do so. [/Non-theater tirade]


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## Space

It reads like you got in on the IDTheft early, so maybe that will work to your benefit. I hate it for ya' brother, that has to be a mentally challenging issue to deal with.

But deal with it you did! You da man!

Good luck, we will be thinking about you down here @Exit 4!


Brien


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## tjambro

Space said:


> It reads like you got in on the IDTheft early, so maybe that will work to your benefit. I hate it for ya' brother, that has to be a mentally challenging issue to deal with.


Thanks Space, you always have kind words to say. :bigsmile:

I was up Thursday nite until 1:30 trying to control the ID theft situation with intentions to get up at 4:45 like normal to go to work. Went to bed and we have a small dog that sleeps on the bed with us. It was thundering, lightning and raining cats and dogs. He doesn't like thunder and came up near our pillows and wanted to lay right between us. I don't like him that close to me...he stinks! :yikes: But I humored him since the storm was awful. With all that going on and the real first heavy rain since we moved here in June, I could actually hear the sump pump in the basement going on and off. It was now 2:30AM and figured, what the h e c k, I'm not sleeping anyway, I might as well go check the basement. Before I did, I looked in the back yard and there were large puddles everywhere! The sump pump was doing it's job but there was one small damp area in the little room under the stairs that houses the AC breaker panel. No real big deal since the floor is tiled in this room but I will eventually try to address it. I really couldn't check the theater since it is all drywalled in but there was nothing obvious...all the dust under the drywall was still dusty so that was a good sign. If a small amount of water seeped in, it would go under the dricore anyway. I have been thinking of getting a truck load of dirt and sloping it against the front and side of the house (theater side) and this event is more encouragement to do so.

I went to bed, got up at 4:45 like normal, got dressed, had breakfast and packed my lunch. My wife had to get up early that day also and she noticed I couldn't keep my eyes open. She suggested I stay home and I couldn't argue. I'm glad I did.


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## Space

No doubt I need a good woman like that! Mine has my lunch ready and the door open when I walk into the kitchen 

To the puddling thing, you seem like a smart man, have you looked into a french drain? I can't see your place from where I am, but it might be a case [piling up dirt] of raising the elevations and not really helping to drain off the overage.

You guys take care.


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## Prof.

Sorry to hear you've been a victim of credit fraud..
There is so much of that happening these days, that you can never be sure whether you're going to be the next victim..

I now do a full scan of my computer, religiously every Sunday, for spyware,malware,viruses and cookie riders..just to be on the safe side..So far so good..


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## bpape

Sorry to hear about that Tom. Hope you get everything locked down and taken care of with no further problems.

Bryan


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## tjambro

Thanks guys, so far I think the little perp only lifted my CC. I still haven't got my new card and it's been a week. If I don't get the new card by tomorrow I will call the CC company and make sure they didn't send it to my "new" Maryland address. :yikes:

Oh, one little problem I ran into. This was the first year I e-filed my taxes. I owe the Feds a couple hundred smackers and I allowed them to pull it from my checking on April 14th. Since I closed that account, that could be a problem. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with the IRS and while the lady was very polite and professional, she couldn't figure out how to change the account info. I'm leary of sending them a check through the mail as she said they will still try to pull the money from the cancelled checking account and I'm not sure if my bank would honor it by pulling it from my new checking. I need to go talk to the bank and see if I can reopen that account on April 13th and close it again on the 15th...good grief.



Prof. said:


> I now do a full scan of my computer, religiously every Sunday, for spyware,malware,viruses and cookie riders..just to be on the safe side..So far so good..


I think that will be my strategy going forward. Do spyware proggies like Ad-Aware detect and remove cookie riders or do I need a seperate app for that?

Bryan, I'm looking forward to getting the 3rd layer of rock done and the partition walls built so I can give you the final dimensions of the room so you can run the sound analysis. :bigsmile:


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## Prof.

tjambro said:


> I think that will be my strategy going forward. Do spyware proggies like Ad-Aware detect and remove cookie riders or do I need a seperate app for that?


Ad-Aware does part of the job, but I use four other programs just to be on the safe side..:bigsmile:
Widows Defender..Advanced System Care...Glarys utilities..and CCleaner..
That just about takes care of everything..along with AVG..


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## Space

I use Computer Associates, have been for almost four years. They have every angle covered when it comes to protecting your identity, email and your computer:

http://shop.ca.com/malware/internet_security_suite.aspx


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## tjambro

*Re: Malware*

Thanks guys. Today is Sunday and the first of many Sunday's that I will perform multiple scans on all my machines.

I got my new CC and debit card this weekend so the spending can continue. :bigsmile:


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## robbo266317

Another good one is SuperAntiSpyware.
I have had it detect things that my other programs didn't.
I was lucky, my wife used my PC to get mail as she couldn't open it on hers and ended up installing a keylogger/bank detail grabber.
Thankfully she realised quickly and turned the unit off until I got home from work. I ended up reinstalling windows completely to be sure.


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## tjambro

I got a lot done this weekend but I never get as much done as I would like. Oh well. I got the entire 3rd layer of rock done on the ceiling and all but 7 pieces on the walls. I got all the short walls done in the sound lock so the last 7 pieces should be fairly easy.

I am using a lot more GG than I figured. I originally ordered 6 pails (30 gallons) and got another 2 for this weekend. I have maybe 1 load left in the 7th pail and like I said, I still have 7 more pieces left and that doesn't count the double partition wall that I have to build between the theater and sound lock. That wall alone will take roughly 18 pieces (3 layers on each side of the wall). I still have another outer wall to build that will encase the lolycolumns that will also get 3 layers of rock and GG. So, I just ordered pail number 9 and 10. That's 50 gallons of GG! I guess I should have ordered a drum...

So, I started this project with 150 4x8' sheets of 5/8" sheet rock. I have used 121 so far. It looks like I will actually need to get a little more for that outer wall that needs to be built. I am saving that wall for last because once it's built, I won't be able to get into it to add more electric, etc.

Another thing I learned...when using 3 different screw sizes for 3 layers of rock, 15lbs of 1 5/8" screws is not the same as 15lbs of 3" screws. Sure, the weight is the same, but you get a lot less 3" screws in 5lbs than you do in 5lbs of 1 5/8" screws...and I graduated from college! :bigsmile: I have one extra box of 1 5/8" screws but I had to buy an additional 10lbs of 3" screws.

Here's something else I learned:










When adding the 3rd layer of rock to your soundlock, it would have been easier if the right wall still only had 2 layers of rock on it and if the 5 door hinges didn't protrude into the room. I purposely made the sheet a little shy of the actual dimension but it still hit the wall and door hinges when trying to put it up. I already had GG on the sheet so I really didn't want to take it down and cut it. It made it, but it was very tight and I damaged one edge slightly...

Ok, this is not build related but one evening a couple of weeks ago when I should have been working on the room I was browsing the net instead. I plan on building or buying back lit poster boxes and was just looking to see what posters and poster boxes are going for when I stumbled across cardboard people. I just got a VISA gift card for 10 years of service at work so I figured I should blow it on something totally stupid so here is what I bought:










I will put them in the sound lock or maybe the lobby. Frodo will guard the concession area, Austin Powers will say something like "Shagadelic Baby" when you enter the soundlock and Lara Croft, will stand right next to the doors leading into the theater proper...enticing us men into entering. :bigsmile:


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## tjambro

robbo266317 said:


> Another good one is SuperAntiSpyware.
> I have had it detect things that my other programs didn't.
> I was lucky, my wife used my PC to get mail as she couldn't open it on hers and ended up installing a keylogger/bank detail grabber.
> Thankfully she realised quickly and turned the unit off until I got home from work. I ended up reinstalling windows completely to be sure.


Sounds like she did good! Isn't it amazing what people will do to commit a crime? I forgot to mention, my CC bank already removed the bogus $870 charge so all is good...


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## Prof.

tjambro said:


> I got a lot done this weekend but I never get as much done as I would like. Oh well. I got the entire 3rd layer of rock done on the ceiling and all but 7 pieces on the walls. I got all the short walls done in the sound lock so the last 7 pieces should be fairly easy.
> 
> I am using a lot more GG than I figured. I originally ordered 6 pails (30 gallons) and got another 2 for this weekend. I have maybe 1 load left in the 7th pail and like I said, I still have 7 more pieces left and that doesn't count the double partition wall that I have to build between the theater and sound lock. That wall alone will take roughly 18 pieces (3 layers on each side of the wall). I still have another outer wall to build that will encase the lolycolumns that will also get 3 layers of rock and GG. So, I just ordered pail number 9 and 10. That's 50 gallons of GG! I guess I should have ordered a drum...
> 
> So, I started this project with 150 4x8' sheets of 5/8" sheet rock. I have used 121 so far. It looks like I will actually need to get a little more for that outer wall that needs to be built. I am saving that wall for last because once it's built, I won't be able to get into it to add more electric, etc.
> 
> Another thing I learned...when using 3 different screw sizes for 3 layers of rock, 15lbs of 1 5/8" screws is not the same as 15lbs of 3" screws. Sure, the weight is the same, but you get a lot less 3" screws in 5lbs than you do in 5lbs of 1 5/8" screws...and I graduated from college! :bigsmile: I have one extra box of 1 5/8" screws but I had to buy an additional 10lbs of 3" screws.
> 
> Here's something else I learned:


Wow!!..all those layers of sheet rock have really shrunk your room!! :rofl:


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> Wow!!..all those layers of sheet rock have really shrunk your room!! :rofl:


Good one Prof...my theater room will be small but that sound lock is even smaller. :bigsmile:


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## rickp

Your project makes mine look like a walk in the park and beleive me its not! You are the man! Lets see some more pictures.


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## tjambro

rickp said:


> Your project makes mine look like a walk in the park and beleive me its not! You are the man! Lets see some more pictures.


Thanks Rick. I would like to post more pix but unfortunately, 3 layers of rock looks just like 2 layers of rock which looks exactly like 1 layer of rock. :R

I hope to get the last 7 sheets of rock installed on the main "shell" this weekend. Yesterday I got pail #9 and #10 of GG so I have no excuse for running out. Once I get that done, I will start on the double wall which will divide the theater from the sound lock. I promise to post pictures. :bigsmile:

Do you have a link to your room?


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## rickp

Yup, here it is.

http://www.hometheatershack.com/for...n-construction/16240-lake-martin-theater.html


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## tjambro

rickp said:


> Yup, here it is.
> 
> http://www.hometheatershack.com/for...n-construction/16240-lake-martin-theater.html


Wow...your's is coming along nice and fast too! I bet it's pretty loud outside standing behind those IB drivers. :R


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## tjambro

*3 layers of rock done!*

Yep, the last 7 pieces of rock (for the "shell") are up. They still need to be taped and mudded but at least they are hanging. That makes 128 sheets used of the 150 I bought. I still need to rock the partition walls and build a wall outside the theater in the lobby.

Here's the 3 layers done taken from what is to be the IB chamber looking back to the door that leaves the sound lock:










Here's the beginning of the partition walls:









I am standing in the sound lock room looking through the theater space into the IB chamber. To the left of that short wall, is a nook where I will have my equipment rack. And yes, I know you don't need two 2x's for the baseplate...I don't know what I was thinking when I put that up. Had to use 4" deck screws to get into the dricore. :whistling:

Where that wall currently stops will be the 32" door which will be about 18" from the right wall. I assume bpape will want me to build a bass trap in that corner so I don't want to hit it with the door. There will be another wall in front of this one with another door but I ran out of time and wood!

Now that I got those 2 partition walls up, I was able to give Bryan (bpape) my final room dimensions so that he can do my acoustical analysis. The "unofficial unaudited" results are: 20' 11 1/2" x 12' 3" x 7' 3 1/2". 

This one was taken standing at the back of the IB chamber looking thru the theater space into the sound lock room:










Here's one looking from one end of the IB to another:










I ended up making the IB chamber a bit smaller than my last plans but I still have 9.1X raw VAS assuming I go with 4 Fi IB3 18's.

This one is in the lobby looking at the theater:










There will be another wall built in front of this but that won't happen for a while yet. If you look at the low lying celing, you will see 2 holes. This is where I punched thru to remove and cap the 6" flex that used to supply what is now the theater. This lobby room has a drop ceiling with these soffits around 3 of the sides. Most likely I will remove the soffits and just lower the drop ceiling to make it more uniform. This will also allow me to build the second wall in front of the theater with better isolation. Since the lobby is where the stairs to the rest of the house is, more sound isolation is better.

I know it's way, way too early to do a sound isolation test but you know I had to do a highly unscientific check. I had my wife scream while in the theater room facing the wall that borders the lobby and I stood in the lobby opposite the wall where she was. Before I tell you the results, remember that the 3rd layer of rock still needs to be taped, mudded and caulked. The second wall in the lobby has not been built. The double wall with communicating doors that divides the theater from the sound lock room has not been built and the one and only door between the sound lock and lobby has been hung but has no weather stripping whatsoever and there is a large space between the door and floor. After her scream I had some thoughts but I didn't say anything to her and we switched places. 

The results? She had the same conclusions I had. Even though we were about 1 foot apart, separated by 1 of what will be 2 walls we couldn't hear each other...thru the wall...we could hear each other fairly easy but it was quite obvious that the sound was coming to the left of the person who was in the theater. So what is to the "left"...the unsealed door. I find this pretty encouraging although it does remind me that sound is like water, it will escape any place it can. The old cliche, "the chain is only as strong as the weakest link" comes to mind also.

While I await bpape's analysis I need to get more wood to finish the partition walls, hang the rock on those walls and try to nail down how to build the soffits. The soffits will house the supply/returns from the dead vent that I plan on building. I'm trying to figure out whether I should use 8" flex which would make the soffits fairly tall or maybe custom build the vents with duct board to make the soffits smaller in height but wider. I plan on buying a couple of Fantech inline duct fans for the job but don't know how many bends are too many for the baffle boxes. 

If anyone has any advice or experiences with exchanging theater air with the rest of the basement, please chime in. :bigsmile:


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## tjambro

Wow, I can't believe it's been over 3 weeks since I posted. The build is going slow but here's where I stand right now.

Here's a picture of the communicating doors that separate the soundlock from the theater:










You will notice that the wall is very deep. I did this to try to reduce as much sound as possible going from the theater to the soundlock. I will put more pink stuff in there but am holding out until I get the ducts and soffits built.

Here's the same wall but looking toward the left (from the soundlock) into what will be the equipment rack:










Where the ceiling and wall meets will be where the ducts will pass through from one room to the other. I am leaning heavily toward using ductboard instead of flex due to my low ceiling. My finished soffits cannot be taller than 6" or else they will interfere with the doors.

Looking into the theater from the soundlock:










This is looking into the theater while standing in the doorway:










I have my junk moved into the center of the room because I am getting ready to tape/mud the third layer of rock...I am not looking forward to this task. The unfinished wall in this pic is the IB chamber. I won't rock that just yet.

And finally, here's a pic from within the IB chamber looking back through the theater into the soundlock:


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## tjambro

I plan on taping and mudding the third layer next followed by building the dead vent (fresh air exchange) into soffits around both rooms. Here's a link including a layout of my proposed duct work for my fresh air exchange system.

I was hoping to pick up the duct board tomorrow as I am off for Good Friday but the forecast is 95% chance of rain and for some reason I don't think I should be moving fiberglass coated foam in the "******* Ranger" while it is raining.

After I get the duct board boxed in with mdf, I plan on putting these cans in another section of the soffit in both the theater and soundlock:










And here's the simple black trim I chose:










I have 12 total of these cans/trims for the theater and soundlock soffits.

I got six similar 4" cans...3 for shining down on the screen and 3 for lighting up the speakers behind the screen.

Here's what there trim looks like:


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## tjambro

*Wrong Trims!*

If there is anyone interested in the Elco 5" black trims I ordered...you might not want to order them just yet. I got them today and while the baffle is black, unfortunately the trim ring is white. The model number agrees with what I ordered but it is clearly not what was pictured on the website. I have an email into the company but I have a bad feeling the manufacturer (Elco) changed the model colors without changing the model number. 

I'll keep you guys posted. 

The black 4" eyeballs I ordered haven't arrived yet, they are supposed to be here tomorrow. Hopefully they are right!

I have two of these Fantech inline fans on order from them also, I hope that works out ok.


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## tjambro

*Wrong Trim Update*

Well, it is as I feared...the manufacturer (Elco) no longer makes the trim with a black ring. I'm gonna just use the ones they sent as I cannot find any other totally black 5" trims. They say they will give me "some sort of discount" on them. Hopefully, it will be enough to buy a can of black spray paint...


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## Prof.

I did the same thing with my exhaust fan covers and AC grill faces...
Couldn't find them in black, so I just sprayed them matt black...Turned out fine..


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## bpape

Yup - me too. Rings - just rough them up very slightly and then spray them black

Bryan


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## tjambro

Thanks guys. It would have been nice not to have to spray paint them, but oh well, it's not that big of a deal.


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## tjambro

*One Step Forward, Two Steps Back*

I'm making progress but it is most definitely slow. 

First, as most, I determined that I hate mudding and taping...fortunately, I only have to worry about the ceilings since fabric will cover the walls. I got the ceiling in the theater and sound lock room taped, mudded and painted. I went to Home Depot looking for the infamous "mouse ear black" but did not find it. I found Behr Black Suede which looks very, very black. For a picture of it, look below where I describe my soffit progress, or should I say lack thereof.

This weekend, I didn't work on the room much but what I did was good and bad. Here's the beginning of the good part:










This is a photo of the inside side of the ductboard that I am going to put in the soffits for my ventilation. Due to low ceiling height (7'3") I am only having soffits with a finished depth of 6" so flex duct would not fit. I decided to give ductboard assembly a shot. With the Amcraft tools sitting on the ductboard, the job is fairly easy. 

Here's a photo of the duct, ready to place in the soffits:










The ductboard comes as a 1" thick 4x10' sheet. This is a full sheet folded into a duct that is just over 5" tall. The finished area is about 17.5" x 3" giving me an area of 52.5 square inches which is about the size of a 8" round flex vent which is what I was shooting for. I have two 8" Fantech inline fans that will move the air in and out of the theater.

Here's the "two steps back" I was talking about:










This is the beginning of my soffit build. This photo isn't all that bad, I was too embarrassed to post a picture that shows how crooked this thing really is. I was afraid that this would happen. The soffits are going to be 28" wide, to fit the ductboard and my can lights, and will be covered with 3/4" ply that I plan on staining or dying (analin dye?) black. I was concerned that any small mishap on my part would make the soffits look crooked due to the width but my measurements actually turned out good. My room is not square so I didn't want to build the soffits off ceiling or floor measurements so I bought a cheapo laser level that made affixing the 2x2's to the wall a fairly easy project. 

My mistake was thinking that Lowe's sold wood that was anywhere near straight. I tossed aside some really bad 2x2's but even the ones that looked remotely straight were not when they were not affixed directly to the wall or ceiling. My second mistake was thinking I could affix crooked 2x2's to the ceiling with 5" lag bolts (remember I have 2" of sheetrock to go through) with liquid nails on the crooked 2x2 without smearing it on my newly painted ceiling. Oh well, what's done is done...

I was able to put cross members in place to straighten the soffit out somewhat but I can't do that where an actual duct will go because there won't be enough clearance for the duct to fit in the soffit. I think I will see if I can get some straight 2x2's from a local lumber supply place instead of the big box stores. I ran into the same problem with the 3/4" birch ply I bought for the soffits. I started off with Lowe's birch ply for $42.88/sheet but after bringing it home I knew I wouldn't be happy with all the knots so I returned it and got 10 sheets of much better birch at the local lumber yard for $62.xx/sheet. More expensive, but definitely better wood. Hopefully, the local lumber yard will have straight lumber!

I'm a bit bummed, but it will all be worth it in the end.


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## Ted White

Hi Tom,

So you're attaching the soffit frame to the decoupled walls and ceiling? Are you going to double drywall the soffit face?


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## tjambro

Ted White said:


> Hi Tom,
> 
> So you're attaching the soffit frame to the decoupled walls and ceiling? Are you going to double drywall the soffit face?


You know, I didn't really think of that...I was planning on affixing 3/4" plywood to the soffit frame that would be directly attached to the wall/ceiling. Inside was going to house lights and the ductboard for my deadvent ventilation setup. Insulation was going to fill the remaining of the cavity, leaving just a little bit bare around the light housings.

Do you have another suggestion? Due to low ceiling clearance, I really don't have enough room to add something under the 3/4" ply that I planned on staining.

I guess I should forgo the ply and do double drywall/greenglue on the soffits instead?

What does everyone think? Is there another way to keep the 3/4" ply without compromising the integrity of my triple drywall/greenglue room or should I just return the ply I bought and DD/GG the soffits and paint them the same color as the ceiling?


Wait a minute...wouldn't the soffit still be decoupled since I built a true room within a room? I have separate ceiling joists and separate walls so the soffit would not be attached to any of the original basement walls or the floor above.

Now I'm confused! Please help. :dontknow:


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## bpape

You're fine. As long as you built the soffit framing after the room drywall and it's attached to the decoupling part of the structure, you'll not get any transmission. Yes - there is a bit of a potential for a triple leaf but you're so different that I don't see it being a large problem - not to mention it not acting like a sealed cavity due to all the penetrations for the lighting.

Insulate it well and you should be just fine. If you want it a bit better, you could swap MDF for plywood. Not a ton of mass difference but a bit. Certainly is harder to get to look like a smooth finish though.

Bryan


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## Ted White

#1 The soffit frame would be decoupled. That's good.

#2 If you're running ventilation in the soffit, you will need to have the face and bottom of that soffit double drywall or comparable. Not single drywall.

#3 If you want the lowest profile soffit, you need to reduce the framing material depth. You do this by substituting the first layer of drywall with OSB or ply. If the first layer of the soffit were 7/16" or thicker OSB, that would act as a frame. Assemble the soffit and then attach the drywall.

#4 Line the soffit with a lower density duct liner. The soundboard and foams are not as absorbent as you'd like.

#5 The holes for the lighting will feed sound into the duct. Not advised.


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## bpape

Ted

The HVAC ducting is in it's own MDF box for isolation already due to the lighting holes.

Bryan


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## Ted White

Oh the lights and ventilation are in separate soffit systems?


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## bpape

There is a separate MDF box inside the soffit framing for the HVAC to maintain isolation

Bryan


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## Ted White

Man, that is a of a good idea Bryan. So a chase inside the soffit. I love it!


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## bpape

I recommend that to almost all of my design customers who have to do soffit lighting. Sometimes it makes the soffits a bit larger but it's relatively easy, effective, and a great way to also get some nice bends in the ducting. I usually have them do duct board or duct liner inside the chase and then fluffy inside the rest of the soffit.

That also allows a single layer of drywall - not only for headroom purposes, but also to let it give a little extra bass absorption all the way around the room up in the wall/ceiling corners.

Bryan


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## Ted White

Very creative. Really


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## tjambro

*Soffit Confusion*

Bryan and Ted, I'm glad "we", meaning you guys, had this conversation. I know Bryan did talk to me a while back about using mdf for the soffits but I guess I didn't understand fully and lost the significance of the dedicated mdf box over time. I thought the soundlock in conjunction with the ductboard and deadvent setup would be ok even with cans in the soffits. My latest plan de-volved into just having 3/4" ply over the 2x2's with the ductboard vent and lights sharing the same cavity.

Thanks for setting me straight guys! I don't have enough headroom to include 2" of ductboard (1" for top and 1" for bottom) within a 3/4" mdf box plus the 3/4" ply or drywall on top of that. I guess that's why a lot of people use veneer over the mdf shell? I really don't want to mess with veneer, I don't think I have the skills or patience to work with it. 

Back when I was painting my ceiling I even thought to myself, why was I planning to put 3/4" finished ply over the soffit frames and stain them. I think it would be a nice accent on a smaller soffit in a larger room but in all reality, I want the soffits to not be all that noticeable.

Maybe I should scrap the finished ply and stand alone 2x2 framing altogether and build the soffits from osb and drywall as Ted described but make an extra vertical partition to separate the duct from the can lights. Perhaps I could line the duct with 1/2" Linacoustic to re-claim the height that I will lose due to the OSB/drywall face and bottom. I could still use 2x2's to secure the osb to the wall/ceiling and as furring strips along the vertical duct/can divider to attach the osb/drywall to the bottom.

For the vertical duct/can divider, could I attach mdf to the osb instead of drywall since it will be internal to the soffit?

How does this plan sound? Is there anything else I'm missing or not thinking of?


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## bpape

Separating them with the vertical will be OK. You should be using flex ducting which is somewhat self insulating already. The other cavity with the lights should be damped - just pay attention for spacing especially if they're non IC rated cans.

Bryan


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## Ted White

I would build the ply+drywall combo. Forget the 2x2 frame to max on internal volume and minimize the headroom loss.

Separate the soffit into dedicated duct and dedicated ceiling can containment.

Try and leave enough volume for the ventilation run to have enough absorption, or it won't work. Duct liner is your friend here. Abandon other materials.


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## tjambro

bpape said:


> Separating them with the vertical will be OK. You should be using flex ducting which is somewhat self insulating already.
> Bryan


I can't use flex because it won't fit in the soffit. There's only 6" from the ceiling to the top of my door (not door frame, the door itself) and I really don't want a shallow soffit over the door and a taller one around the rest of the room. Plus the room is only 7'3 and the entrance to the room makes people walk under the soffits, so I want to keep them as shallow as possible.


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## tjambro

Ted White said:


> I would build the ply+drywall combo. Forget the 2x2 frame to max on internal volume and minimize the headroom loss.


Ted, I think this is a good idea, thanks for the suggestion. I like the idea of ditching the 2x2's to maximize headroom. I think I may go with osb+drywall as you recommended above. I may dip into that 10th pail of GG sooner than I thought. :R



> Separate the soffit into dedicated duct and dedicated ceiling can containment.


Would you recommend osb+drywall for this vertical divider or would a single piece of 3/4" mdf do the trick? If the osb+drywall is better, I'm not against doing that...



> Try and leave enough volume for the ventilation run to have enough absorption, or it won't work. Duct liner is your friend here. Abandon other materials.


Would 1/2" duct liner all around do the trick? I know 1" would be better but 1/2" would help minimize headroom loss.


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## Ted White

*"I think I may go with osb+drywall as you recommended above."*

I can send you schematics

*"Would you recommend osb+drywall for this vertical divider"?*

Yes. Less mass, but traded for damping.

*"Would 1/2" duct liner all around do the trick"?*

I would really try and shave elsewhere. Every 1/2" will help.


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## tjambro

*Soffit Construction*

Well, I changed my mind again...that's what happens when you are "winging it". :R

I don't want to speak for either bpape or Ted White but to me the common theme they both stress is isolation of the HVAC duct from the can lighting within the soffit. Once I get out of the, "I have a shell with 3 layers of drywall/GG and it doesn't matter what I do in the room" mode, it makes total sense to isolate the duct within the soffit. I looked back over my correspondence with bpape (he's my "sound guy" and has designed my sound treatments) and sure enough, he did mention isolating the HVAC duct from the can lights and he suggested mdf.

From that time on, some how I found an "easier" way to build the soffits without adding the middle vertical piece leaving the duct not isolated and I also decided to use 3/4" ply instead of mdf. Due to the large width of these soffits, I really don't want to accent the room with the ply, I think it's too much. 

So, having said all that, my latest soffit revision is to build the soffit frame with 2x2's, with the can lights in the smaller section of the soffit and the 1" ductboard in the larger section. The ductboard will be isolated with 3/4" mdf and the finished sides of the soffit will have 5/8" drywall over the mdf. I will throw some GG in between the 2 layers for additional damping.

This does make my soffit a little higher than I would like and I will not be able to maintain the same height over the door. I will try to make it as inconspicuous as possible, but the section over the door will have to be a little smaller in height to allow the door to open and close. Fortunately, there will be no ductwork over the door in the theater side so that will help. There will be ductwork over the door in the soundlock so that will pose a challenge. We'll cross that bridge when we get there...remember, we're winging it! :devil:

Thanks again guys for all the advice, please keep the comments coming!


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## tjambro

*Soffit Progress*

I can't believe it's been a month since my last post. I'm progressing very slowly but hey some progress is better than no progress. I returned 74 of the 80 2x2's I bought from Lowes at $1.97 each. I returned them because they were very warped and too difficult to find some decent ones. I picked up 50 from my local lumber yard. I figured they would be more expensive but it turns out they were actually cheaper than Big Blue. I paid $1.49 each and not only are they straighter, they are closer to being an actual "2x2". 

Here's a picture of my longest duct board length down the left side of my theater:










The can lights will be in the smaller section of the soffit with the pink fluffy stuff. The return ductboard is separated from the can light section with two 3/4" pieces of mdf with a layer of GG in between. After the mdf is complete I will apply GG and a layer of 5/8" drywall to complete the soffit.

Here's another view:










That square hole on the right is where the return vent will be exiting into my HVAC room. I will box the area off and the ductboard will exit through the hole into the HVAC room where I will built a dead vent. It will not connect to the main house HVAC...unless of course the dead vent doesn't work for me. I must say it was very, very hard to grab the reciprocating saw and cut through my 3 layers of sheet rock and GG. All my sound proofing is destroyed until I finish the dead vent setup.

Here's one more view with the first sheet of mdf on the bottom:










If you look where the mdf ends, you can see 3 beads of acoustical caulk I put along the 2x2 divider before putting up the mdf. Once I put up the mdf, I couldn't figure a good way to seal off the vertical center mdf from the two soffit chambers. So while installing the 2 vertical mdf pieces, I let them overhang the 2x2 bottom and used my router to make them flush with the 2x2. I'm hoping the 3 beads of caulk will ensure a good seal to the mdf bottom. I used many screws to pull the mdf up tight against the caulk and since caulk is oozing out the side, I'm hopeful that it will seal properly.

You can see I ran some romex through the soffit before putting the mdf up. There will be 3 cans in this soffit and 1 outlet in the bottom of my "dummy" column. When all is said and done there will be 6 5" cans in the soffits (3 on each side), 3 outlets (1 in each dummy column on both sides and 1 behind the screen), 3 4" eyeball cans in front of the screen and 3 4" cans behind the AT screen to light up the speakers. I still have more electric to run but it will not go through this soffit. I originally was going to run audio/video cables through the soffits but have since decided against that. My new plan is to run electric high (soffits) and audio/video cables low along the wall behind the fabric frames I will make. I will have lights in the riser to contend with and will have to work around the electric outlet in the dummy column but I figured it will be a lot easier to get behind the fabric frames which will most likely be velcroed to the wall then ripping down the soffits to add more audio/video cabling. I know many people use smurf tubing and I even bought some but since my equipment will be in the soundlock room, I don't want to leave an open tube connecting the theater and the sound lock room.

Once I finish these soffits, I will work on the smaller soffits in the sound lock/lobby room. I may see if I can get away with using less 2x2's in the sound lock. I wonder if I need to isolate the lobby cans from the ductwork?


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## Space

Hi Tom! Just wanted to drop in and say "Hi Tom"! This is going to be one of a fine job, when it is completed because you are not cutting corners or rushing or all the other things people seem to do.

You must have a big screen TV in another room?

Looking forward to what you and the Misses have picked out for the finish...should be fun!


Brien


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## Space

I said "one H E C K of a fine job"!


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## tjambro

Space said:


> Hi Tom! Just wanted to drop in and say "Hi Tom"! This is going to be one h e c k of a fine job, when it is completed because you are not cutting corners or rushing or all the other things people seem to do.


Thanks Brien, I appreciate the encouragement. I do at times get lazy and sometimes need a swift kick in the butt, so that is now your official job...kick me in the butt once in a while to get me moving. :R The 'ole wallet has been hit pretty hard lately so I have to build up more funds before I can buy any more materials/equipment so there's really no rush.



> You must have a big screen TV in another room?


Actually, I have no big screen in another room but I knew I would go insane without being able to watch movies. It was very hard for the first few months without a theater (sold the last one with the house) but I came up with this ingenious solution:

As posted early on in this thread, I present to you "Ambrosio's Drive-In Theater"...aka Xbox360 driving cabinet:










You can't see from this picture, but there's a 26" 1080p flat panel in there and the tips of my fingers can touch the screen when I am sitting in the '05 Neon car seat that I picked up at the junk yard...ahem, excuse me...Salvage Emporium.:bigsmile: There's a 5.1 HTiB with the itty bitty sub sitting right behind the car seat. Not IB quality, but not bad...for one...the misses is on her own. :whistling:

At first, I was playing Forza 2 and watching movies, but ever since I bought and hooked up the Popcorn Hour Media player up to the flat panel, I had to pull the Xbox optical audio cable and haven't been switching back and forth like I thought I would. I currently have about 400 blu rays ripped to my unRaid server that I stream to the PCH. Works very, very well. So well that I have scrapped my HTPC from the previous theater.

Thanks for making me dig up that old picture. It makes me feel like I have done a lot since then...wow...I miss that paneling!....NOT!!



> Looking forward to what you and the Misses have picked out for the finish...should be fun!


Once I get the soffits done, I will have to consider that more...the wife says I can do it any which way I please which is great! Even with all their limitations, having a basement is so cool, isn't it? :R I am leaning toward a very simple, clean layout. I like the fancy trim work and colors that some do, but they are too distracting while watching movies...at least for me. In my previous theater, the sconces and movie posters reflected light and drove me crazy...hence neither in this build. Since I will have a lobby this go round, I will put some lit movie posters in the lobby. As of now, I am planning to do the theater in GOM Anchorage #2045 (Cobalt) with a possible #2085 (Thistle) accent. Speaker columns will be finished birch stained black and the soffits/ceiling painted black. Theater seats most likely black. The lobby will have a bolder blue, most likely GOM Anchorage #2094 (Lapis). Both rooms will have fabric frames with beveled edges. The theater will be treated for sound and the lobby will only have fabric frames for looks, there will be no sound treatments in that room.

Oh, 7.1 speakers will all be DIY with 4 18" Fi IB drivers behind the screen. :hsd:


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## tjambro

*Arcade cabinets*

Space, here's another slightly better picture of the "drive-in":










This is also an old picture but at least you can see the screen a little better. It's funny how my nephews abandoned the "state of the art" X-box 360 driving cabinet with 5.1 surround and force feedback to play a game of Galaga circa 1981...:bigsmile: 
*Spoiler* 



In all fairness, they liked both and would have played all night if their mother would have let them.


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## Ted White

Hey Tom,

Looking great. That insulation in the lighting compartment won't be too compressed, will it?


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## tjambro

Ted White said:


> Looking great. That insulation in the lighting compartment won't be too compressed, will it?


I don't know, do you think it is? It's R13 that is folded in half and basically makes a "u". If I want to fill the entire compartment, I would have to cut two 7 inch pieces and stack them flat on top of each other. Instead of cutting 2 pieces, I just folded one R13 piece in half (the "u") and put it up there. Isn't that basically the same thing as cutting two pieces? The bottom is a little more compressed because it is up against two 2x2's. 

It wouldn't be that big of a deal to remove some if that would help. I would appreciate your thoughts.


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## Ted White

Generally for absorption you don't want to compact much beyond the point you would for thermal specs. So a 7" cavity would be great as long as you don't crush when installing lights
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## tjambro

Ted White said:


> Generally for absorption you don't want to compact much beyond the point you would for thermal specs. So a 7" cavity would be great as long as you don't crush when installing lights
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I left space for the lights but most likely will have to remove a little because I only left room for the can, not the electrical box. 

Thanks for your input.


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## Ted White

You know the score.


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## tjambro

*Build is gonna be EVEN slower...*

As if the build hasn't been slow enough, it's gonna get even slower due to my most recent purchase. My '98 Chevy Cavalier convertible has been showing its age and I decided it was time to replace it with this:




























It's a 2007 Pontiac G6 hardtop convertible and while it's not as fun as a brand new PJ and IB sub, I can't drive the IB sub to work and I need to work to buy the PJ and sub...well, you get the point. :R

I have enough materials on hand to finish the soffits in the theater and sound lock/lobby but after that, I will have to wait a few months to build up a little cash before spending any more on the theater. Oh well, it will get done when it gets done...

Now I'm REALLY having a hard time getting motivated to finish the soffits. :whistling:


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## bpape

That looks like a lot of fun Tom. 

As for the soffits, you'll be surprised. When there's no money for new toys, you work with whatcha got...

Bryan


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## tjambro

bpape said:


> As for the soffits, you'll be surprised. When there's no money for new toys, you work with whatcha got...


You're right. I already have the Fantech inline fans and some rock left so I should be able to completely finish the soffits, dead vent and put the last wall up outside the theater (theater/arcade boundary) before I need anything else. As slow as I am, that should keep me busy for awhile while funds are being procured. :R


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## Space

Hey Tom, just get a DVD player and put it in the Pontiac G6 raise the roof and call it a day 

Good choice!




Brien


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## tjambro

Space said:


> Hey Tom, just get a DVD player and put it in the Pontiac G6 raise the roof and call it a day


That would be cheaper, wouldn't it Brien?

Tomorrow is my last day at work for a week, so I'm gonna try to get motivated and work on the soffits in both the theater and the sound lock/lobby. Feel free to prod me every once and a while to make sure I am actually doing the work. :R


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## Ted White

Go man, go!


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## Prof.

You've just been prodded..:bigsmile:


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## tjambro

Thanks for the enouragement guys. I worked on the room 6 of the 11 days I was off. I know you die hard guys would have worked every day but I don't have that type of energy or resolve. Plus my inlaws came down for the weekend just before I had to go back to work.

While the pictures may look like much was not done, I felt that I did good, hey at least some progress is being made.

I continue to work on the theater soffits:










The big sections are complete with the ductboard and dividing partitions for the can lights installed. All romex to be installed in the soffits has been installed. I still need to work on the corners and transition pieces but at least the large pieces of mdf have been hung. I will eventually cover all in a layer of 5/8 DW with GG between the mdf and DW.

Here's the right hand soffit with the opening cut for my 5' linear diffuser (HVAC supply):










You can also see one of the can light openings.

I started working on the sound lock/lobby soffits also:










It may not look like much, but I had to run the romex before these soffits are closed up. The silver tape above the 2x2 is the ductboard tape that I used to secure the low voltage CL2 lines that will lead to a remote 4 zone switch that will connect to my 6 zone Grafix Eye unit that will be installed here:










The Grafix Eye will be installed in the backer box that I created just to the left of the door. This is the wall that divides the theater from the sound lock/lobby area taken from the sound lock side. The backer box is currently open on the right side near the door. The divider wall is large enough that I can work on the lighting controller after the rock is put up and then install the last piece of mdf for the backer box and caulk that last side. The 2 dial rheostats for the dead vent fans will be installed directly below the Grafix Eye.

At the top right hand corner of the photo you can see 2" bpape felt that I had left over that I lined the "transition hvac box" that connects the theater supply duct with the sound lock supply side. The main supply run will run above the door and cannot be installed until the drywall is up. The Grafix Eye backer box and the "transition hvac box" do not touch the opposite wall. The backer box is no problem, it's not even close to the opposite wall. The hvac box comes within 1/8" or so of the opposite wall and I caulked it up. I don't know if this was necessary, but I figured it wouldn't hurt. I probably could have made it 2 layers but I forgot and have since closed the wall.


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## tjambro

Here's the same wall above with the 1st layer of rock on it:










I know the piece near the door looks bad, I'll work on that.

Here's a photo of my new 65W incandescent pj:










Actually, before I entirely closed up the romex in the soffits I figured I should at least do some basic testing. I have installed over 700' of romex and I still have more to go! I don't have any of the romex installed in my breaker box yet but I attached a hacked extension cord to a line near the breaker panel, plugged the hacked cord into a switched power strip and hooked the 65W can light to the end of the circuit I wanted to test. That's why you may notice a lot of capped wires in the pictures. I figured if the last load on the circuit works, the others must also.

I did learn something valuable. Don't test the last circuit of the day when you are tired. Everything was working perfectly and I told my wife, "I'll be up as soon as I test this last circuit". Well, it didn't work. No problem, probably the bulb (nope), probably the wire nuts not on tight (nope), probably this last leg not wired tightly to the previous leg (nope)...now I'm starting to panic. I grabbed the 'ole tester and no juice at any of these points. Ok, let's test right where the romex enters the room. The orange light is on and while I haven't used this tester in quite some time, the light seemed a little dim to me. Forget this, lets go back to the panel...doh! Black goes to black, white DOES NOT go to the temporarily bypassed ground but to white. Oops, 2 minutes later, everything was working. Whew, that was scary! :bigsmile:

I plan on getting the 2 additional layers of rock up this weekend and perhaps work on the soffits in the sound lock. I only have 8 sheets of rock left and will clearly need more to finish the wall, soffits and the yet unbuilt wall that divides the left side of the theater from the arcade area. Need to replenish the check book before ordering more rock. I also need thinner rock for the arcade and utility room where the closets were removed and plumbing re-routed in the utility room.


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## Ted White

I am really loving those soffits. The split soffit (lights and ventilation) has never been so well documented.


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## tjambro

Ted White said:


> I am really loving those soffits. The split soffit (lights and ventilation) has never been so well documented.


Thanks Ted. It's not that it's well documented, it's that I am moving so slow and have nothing else to post pictures of. :R I'm looking forward to getting them done and putting up a layer of GG and DW over the mdf so I can move on with my life. :bigsmile:


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## Prof.

tjambro said:


> I did learn something valuable. Don't test the last circuit of the day when you are tired. Everything was working perfectly and I told my wife, "I'll be up as soon as I test this last circuit". Well, it didn't work. No problem, probably the bulb (nope), probably the wire nuts not on tight (nope), probably this last leg not wired tightly to the previous leg (nope)...now I'm starting to panic. I grabbed the 'ole tester and no juice at any of these points. Ok, let's test right where the romex enters the room. The orange light is on and while I haven't used this tester in quite some time, the light seemed a little dim to me. Forget this, lets go back to the panel...doh! Black goes to black, white DOES NOT go to the temporarily bypassed ground but to white. Oops, 2 minutes later, everything was working. Whew, that was scary! :bigsmile:


These little hiccups try the best of us at times..
I know that when something suddenly stops working in my theatre..the first thing I do is panic..:yikes: :no: :sweat: :crying: :R
Progressing nicely..:T


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> These little hiccups try the best of us at times..
> I know that when something suddenly stops working in my theatre..the first thing I do is panic..:yikes: :no: :sweat: :crying: :R
> Progressing nicely..:T


Thanks Prof.

OT. Hey, I thought of you the other day. You see, I am reading a book about the 50 worst decisions since man was on this planet. No, no, it wasn't your decision to build a theater. :R The book had a section with Australia's rabbit problem. I saw the city Adelaide mentioned and knew you lived near there. The book said that rabbits were introduced on Christmas 1859 by some guy who had 24 sent from England so that he can hunt them. They said they spread like wildfire and there were millions upon millions of rabbits in Australia. It also said some farmland had to be abandoned because the rabbits ate up all the fields. Is this true?


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## tjambro

Did some more soffit work:










This is not the theater, but the little room you have to go through to get to the theater. I call it the sound lock/lobby room. These soffits are much easier to build then the divided soffits I am building in the theater room. The theater room has can lighting so the cans need to be isolated from the duct work to minimize sound transmission. I originally was going to put cans in this little room but decided instead to build some shallow columns surrounding the lit poster boxes I plan on purchasing and put sconces on the columns. This room does have duct work, some of which you can see in this picture so I will be isolating it by enclosing it with mdf/GG/DW. Still, much easier that the divided soffits.

On the right side of the photo above the halogen lamp, you can see the cut out for the HVAC supply for this room. On the left side of the photo, you can see the exposed duct that is just a little smaller than a 6" round, this is the return side. In the photo, it looks like the duct runs into the larger duct but it doesn't. The return duct will snake around to the left into what will be my equipment closet. That larger duct you see is a little larger than an 8" round and is the supply for both rooms. It comes in from outside the closet, runs across the photo and tees above the halogen lamp. The larger volume goes into the theater and the remainder dumps into the cutout you see above the lamp. 










This shows the smaller duct vent coming up against the larger supply duct. Also in this picture, you may be able to notice that there appears to be two layers of mdf covering the main supply duct. This is a correction that I am not thrilled with but will accept. Due to my unlevel floor, ceiling and poor planning, the soffit frames for the soundlock did not line up properly with the frame over the door. The difference was too much to leave as is, so I inserted a small strip of mdf on the outside frame to bring the supply soffit down so that it is level over the door. The problem is that the soffits around the room will not come in level with the supply soffit. I think it will look ok when it is done because hopefully it will look like I planned the soffits to be different heights...yea...yea, that's the ticket! I really didn't want to remove all the soffits, wiring, and re-do it so this was the best solution I could come up with. Now, if this were in the theater itself, I may have ripped it down but this is just the room to get to the theater. :whistling:


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## Prof.

tjambro said:


> Thanks Prof.
> 
> OT. Hey, I thought of you the other day. You see, I am reading a book about the 50 worst decisions since man was on this planet. No, no, it wasn't your decision to build a theater. :R The book had a section with Australia's rabbit problem. I saw the city Adelaide mentioned and knew you lived near there. The book said that rabbits were introduced on Christmas 1859 by some guy who had 24 sent from England so that he can hunt them. They said they spread like wildfire and there were millions upon millions of rabbits in Australia. It also said some farmland had to be abandoned because the rabbits ate up all the fields. Is this true?


Yes, that is absolutely spot on!..

As a lad, I can remember going to a relatives farm, where the rabbits were so thick that you could fire a rifle in their general direction and hit one!!
They were like plagues of rats..and they consumed crops everywhere and a lot of the grass lands in the country areas..

The Governments then introduced Mixamatosis (probably not the right spelling) to the populations and virtually wiped them all out..But not all!

Some years later, they returned..This time they were immune to the Mixamatosis and started increasing in populations again..
You might have heard the term "breeding like rabbits"..Well a truer statement was never said!!

A new virus was introduced (can't recall the name off hand) which again started eliminating the hordes..and to this day has kept them pretty much in check..

Where I live, we still get a lot of seasonal rabbits which have to be baited on a regular basis, to keep them under control..

I would love to get my hands on the person who first introduced rabbits to Australia, as would most farmers!! :bigsmile:


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> Yes, that is absolutely spot on!..


Thanks for the confirmation Prof. We have rabbits here but they are not bad at all. You may see one or two every once and a while, but not like you blokes (did I use that term correctly? :whistling. I just can't imagine that many rabbits in any one place. The book said that your people would actually build fences to limit their migration and you could see which side of the fence the rabbits were on from space! That's a lot of rabbits!!

OK, time to get this thread back on track...I used all but 3 of my 150 sheets of sheetrock. I don't have enough to build the external long theater wall (3 layers) or the IB wall (2 layers on each side). So I ordered 46 sheets of 5/8" for the theater and 12 sheets of 1/2" for repair (plumbing move) and to replace the wood paneling. It will be delivered in a couple of weeks.


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## Prof.

tjambro said:


> , but not like you blokes (did I use that term correctly? :whistling.


Yes you did..That's an old "outback" Aussie slang name..not used much these days..like "Stone the crows" and "Starve the Lizards"...
Ah!..the good old days..Now everything is just "f"..:sad:


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> Yes you did..That's an old "outback" Aussie slang name.


I hate to admit it, but we have a steak restaurant chain over here in the States called "Outback" and you guessed it, it's based on an Australian theme. I think that's where I picked up the term blokes, it's on the door to the men's restroom....The woman's restroom is labeled Shielas. Ah, how deep we Americans are. :whistling:


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## Prof.

tjambro said:


> Thanks for the confirmation Prof. We have rabbits here but they are not bad at all. You may see one or two every once and a while, but not like you blokes (did I use that term correctly? :whistling. I just can't imagine that many rabbits in any one place. The book said that your people would actually build fences to limit their migration and you could see which side of the fence the rabbits were on from space! That's a lot of rabbits!!


Just OT again for a moment..
This article appeared this morning..Just when I thought everything was under control!!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/20/2661352.htm
It never ends!.:thud:


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## tjambro

*OT: Wabbit Season*



Prof. said:


> Just OT again for a moment..
> This article appeared this morning..Just when I thought everything was under control!!
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/20/2661352.htm
> It never ends!.:thud:


...$740 million in damages to agriculture, unreal. I hear you Aussie's banished the Easter Bunny too, I can see why.


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## tjambro

*Supply vent/Dead Vent Advice*

Wow, I can't believe how time is slipping by. I am making progress but it is slow. The first layer of soffit mdf is all but finished in both the theater and the sound lock "lobby". No new pics because it doesn't look much different.

After I got that done, I decided to quit working on the theater for now and finish the other half of the basement. I converted a storage room - complete with shop light - into a storage/exercise room by removing the shop light, installing cans, a drop ceiling and a lcd panel on the wall. I painted this room as well as two other little rooms: a nook where we put the chest freezer and the laundry room. It's amazing what a little color will do for a room.

My plan is to finish the rest of the basement and then resume work on the theater. The only non-theater room is the large room that I call the arcade. This room still needed a 3 layer wall to go near the theater 3 layer wall. Dad came down in October and we got this wall installed, put up a full drop ceiling...the old room had a partial drop ceiling with stucco covered drywall around the HVAC trunks. My wife and I decided we rather have one slightly lower all level ceiling than a multiple height/texture ceiling.

That work is all done and I am off for Thanksgiving week. I hoped to get this large room ready for painting but before doing so, I decided to build my closet sized HVAC supply baffle aka muffler or dead vent.

Here's a photo of where I stand:










At the bottom right of the picture you can see the 16x16 grill cover where air will be pulled into the Fantech 8" inline fan and pushed up and around indicated by the blue arrows to the mdf box that becomes my supply ductwork for the theater. This opening in the wall does not lead directly into the theater, it first goes into the soffit in the equipment closet which then goes through the soundlock/lobby wall that is adjacent to the theater wall.

I put the inline fan near the 16x16 grill cover thinking that I could remove the cover to service the fan if needed. The structure has 3 layers of DW/GG on all sides including the ceiling. I planned on using DD/GG for the baffle partitions and then lining it with some 2" cotton that I have left over from bpape.

Before I build the baffle partitions and close the box up, I figured it would be wise to at least test the inline fan. I wired it up temporarily and I must say I was horrified how loud this thing is. I hooked it up to a speed controller and even on the lowest speed it sounds like a jet engine spooling up. I think the noise will be stopped before entering the theater but with the unit so close to the 16x16 grill cover I think it will be nasty loud for people outside the theater. I adjusted the gain screw on the speed controller and I can slow the unit down to a dull roar but I don't know if it will be enough to move enough air through the theater and sound lock. I do plan on having another one of these units installed in a slightly smaller chamber at the other end of the theater in my mechanical room. The one pictured above is the supply side and the mechanical room one will be the return side.

...if you have made it this far, the question is finally coming.... Should I just leave the fan where it is, knowing that I can get to it for service and accept the loud noise, or should I move it further into the baffle to try and quiet the fan knowing that I will have to rip the 3 layers of drywall off the box to service the fan if it fails?

Should I attach 8" flex to the fan's output and snake it through to the supply duct in the wall or will lining the chamber with the 2" cotton be just as good?

I'd like to get this right before I close it up. If I need to rip down the 2x2's and start over, I will so any advice how to make this more effective would be most appreciated.


----------



## tjambro

*Fan is much better*

I'll post some pictures another time, but I just wanted to update you guys on the fan. After some trial and error, I came up with a configuration that works well for me.

In my original configuration, the fan was unacceptably loud, even at the slowest speed. I have changed the configuration and built the structure and I am happy to report that even on the highest speed, the noise level outside the theater is acceptable. When on high speed, in the room above (kitchen) you can barely hear the fan and it's not objectionable at all. If the fridge comes on, you can't hear it at all.

Needless to say, I am very happy that I spent some time messing with the fan layout to achieve these results. Oh, and even though my theater doors don't have jambs or seals of any sort, I can close the doors while the fan is on high and I cannot hear any fan noise or wind noise even with my ear right up at the supply vent.


----------



## bpape

:T


----------



## Ted White

Looking good Tom! You'll want to use duct liner, surrounded by some bat insulation


----------



## IDynamic

Absolutly love the basement........keep up the great job!!!


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## tjambro

*Supply Baffle*

Here's a picture of the supply baffle that I built:










12" flex is bigger than you think! I messed around with different configurations and for me, it seems that I needed to have several feet of flex before the fan to significantly reduce noise. Unfortunately, to do so, I had to relocate the fan higher above where the register is going to be. IOW, I will not be able to access the unit. I know this is bad, but right now, having it quiet is more important to me. When it needs to be accessed, I will swear at myself for not making it accessible and will at that time put in a access door. I didn't want to do that now, because I figured it would be hard to seal an access door for good soundproofing.

Here's a picture with pink stuff installed:










I hung 2 layers of DW with GG for the baffle partitions and 3 layers of DW with GG around the box itself. I originally planned on making a 16"x16" opening for the intake grill but I ended up going with a 12"x12" grill because I heard no whistling noises with the smaller opening with the grill installed.

I'm currently mudding the wall (especially the corner) and hope to paint this baffle along with the rest of the room on Saturday or so. I will post a final pic when done.

Hope everybody had a good Turkey Day!


----------



## uncle

bpape said:


> You're fine. As long as you built the soffit framing after the room drywall and it's attached to the decoupling part of the structure, you'll not get any transmission. Yes - there is a bit of a potential for a triple leaf but you're so different that I don't see it being a large problem - not to mention it not acting like a sealed cavity due to all the penetrations for the lighting.
> 
> Insulate it well and you should be just fine. If you want it a bit better, you could swap MDF for plywood. Not a ton of mass difference but a bit. Certainly is harder to get to look like a smooth finish though.
> 
> Bryan


Hello Bryan, 

Earlier on in this threat you said the aforementioned. Can you please explain to me why we want to build our soffit system after the room is framed and drywalled? If you're building a room within a room, why wouldn't you frame your soffit when your framing your room, then add your layers of drywall around the soffit system? Otherwise you'll have to drill through, cut holes through and attempt to securely mount the soffit over existing drywall.

I read in one thread that you and another fella (who was also in the sound isolation business) were instructing another poster to mount the soffit outside the drywall. But I never did hear the reasoning behind it.

I understand that this is the preferred method, I'd just like to understand why this is preferred over framing the room with the soffit.

Thanks for your time.


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## bpape

It's purely to allow you to cut holes in the drywalled soffit for lights, etc. without ruining the integrity of the sealed room.

Bryan


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## uncle

Gottcha, 

Between yourself and Ted I got my answers in the DIY soundproofing thread. thanks again. 

BTW - Keep up the good work Tom. Like another poster previously commented... your taking your time and building the room right. I'm enjoying your thread and am excited to see your end product and how it performs. It's threads like this that are so educational to the masses.


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## bpape

No problem at all. That's why we're here. Get everyone to really understand the design side of things.

Tom - make sure you fill the empty space around the flex duct with additional insulation.

Bryan


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## tjambro

uncle said:


> BTW - Keep up the good work Tom. Like another poster previously commented... your taking your time and building the room right. I'm enjoying your thread and am excited to see your end product and how it performs. It's threads like this that are so educational to the masses.


Thanks uncle. Sorry I haven't replied sooner, I just noticed your post today. I'm sure I'm not doing everything right but the help here has kept me from making some major mistakes.  I am currently finishing the rest of the basement and then I will get back to theater building. Hopefully in the next few weeks, which probably means 1 month..remember, I'm slow!


----------



## tjambro

bpape said:


> Tom - make sure you fill the empty space around the flex duct with additional insulation.
> Bryan


Thanks Bryan, I got as much as I could in that small space. I probably should have made the "closet" a little bit deeper than I did but I didn't realize I would be using 12" flex at that time.


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## bbieger

Dude, that is some serious sound isolation work. 3 layers of GG 5/8? I guess that what it takes to ensure marital bliss  Keep on trucking Tom!! I just painted my HT and installed some outlets, etc. It is really a huge motivation boost as it actually kind of looks like a theater now.


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## tjambro

bbieger said:


> Dude, that is some serious sound isolation work. 3 layers of GG 5/8? I guess that what it takes to ensure marital bliss  Keep on trucking Tom!!


My last house and theater had no isolation other than a "Safe -N- Sound" door which of course did next to nothing since there was no other isolation anywhere and my two DIY 18" subs drove my wife and the neighbors crazy so I am trying to preserve my marriage and a little civility between the neighbors and myself.  You mentioned the GG, I started with six 5 gallon pails and the count is up to 11 pails now. I think this will be it. I may have to buy a few tubes to finish up but we'll see. I should have bought the 55 gallon drum of the stuff. Who knew?



> I just painted my HT and installed some outlets, etc. It is really a huge motivation boost as it actually kind of looks like a theater now.


Yes, a little paint makes you feel like you are getting somewhere. I painted my ceiling way too early but it did feel good at the time. I will have to re-do it since I bumped into it several times and now I have decided to paint the soffits the same color as the ceiling instead of trimming them out with wood. MDF and drywall is heavier than wood so function over beauty...


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## Prof.

Any new pics. Tom?


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> Any new pics. Tom?


I've been working on the rest of the basement and I'm almost done. I have:


Converted a back room into an exercise room by removing a shop light, adding a couple of cans on a dimmer, a couple of coats of paint and added a flat panel LCD/DVD combo. I also removed the drop ceiling tiles and replaced them with the better ones that were above where the theater is now.

Repaired the drywall where plumbing and doors were moved, swapped out ceiling tiles and painted the utility room and little nook outside the HVAC room.

Put 2 layers of drywall and GG on the walls in the HVAC room and "nook" room that are the walls opposite the theater.

Demoed the "arcade" room removing the stucco type ceiling covering the HVAC ducts that were lower than the drop ceiling and re-did the entire ceiling at the same height. Put up the wall (3 layers of rock and GG) that divides the arcade and theater and added single 1/2" drywall for the remainder of the room...that was so easy btw.:bigsmile: Painted and did the baseboard thing.

Patched up the bathroom wall/door that was modified when the bathroom layout was flipped so that guests can walk from the arcade right into the bathroom without having to go thru the laundry room and "nook" room just to pee.  Installed new baseboard.

Put down 20 ceramic tiles (including pieces) in the arcade, utility room and bathroom which were bare due to large closet demo and door and wall moving.

Started working on the other deadvent in the HVAC room.


Do you really want pics of this stuff? It's pretty boring, but if anyone is interested I'll post some.

On a slightly more exciting note, I am to pick up six 4-bulb poster lightboxes tomorrow as well as the marquee lightbox. I know it may not seem like the most logical order to buy lightboxes now but since the arcade is nearly finished, I thought it would be nice to install the 3 lightboxes and slap a few posters up. Hopefully that will get me motivated again!

After I get the 3 lightboxes up, I will snap some pictures and post them. After that, I plan on finishing the return deadvent in the HVAC room, finish the return ductboard corner that goes through the theater wall into that deadvent in the HVAC room and add the mdf. Once that is all done I can put up the GG and drywall over the mdf soffits and install some can lights finally!

Once the soffits are totally complete, I guess I'll work on the IB sub chamber next to get rid of the last of the drywall!!


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## bpape

IB subs.... :hsd:


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## tjambro

bpape said:


> IB subs.... :hsd:


That's why I hired you...to help isolate the IB subs from the rest of the house. Don't you remember? :boxer:


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## bpape

Abzolutely! They just don't have a room and chair shaking emoticon...

Bryan


----------



## bbieger

*Re: OT: Wabbit Season*



tjambro said:


> ...$740 million in damages to agriculture, unreal. I hear you Aussie's banished the Easter Bunny too, I can see why.


being a wildlife biologist, I had to dig up the rabbit post. You have to hand it to the rabbits as they have kind of a tough life (not so much in australia) but they are one of the only species that really doesn't have a niche and they have allot of predators. Always hiding. Plus they use those big ears to regulate their temperature which is pretty cool. 

They have nothing on antelope though which have an amazing strategy for avoiding predators. They live in open arid regions so their "cover" is to stand in the middle of nowhere. Their eyes are on the top of their head so they have no blind spot. 360 degree vision without turning your head. pretty cool.

ok, so who has had a little to drink tonight? LOL


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## tjambro

Put down the beer and watch this Aussie Rabbit Documentary:


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## Prof.

:rofl: Good one Tom!


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## tjambro

I thought you would like that one Prof!


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## tjambro

*Poster Lightboxes*

In my previous theater I had your standard flip open aluminum frames for movie posters that hung on my wall. I always said that if I ever build another theater, I would insist on having backlit movie posters. I was floored when I found out how much these things costs...until I found River City Theaters. They are also on eBay as River City Theater Lightboxes 

*NOTE: See disclaimer at bottom.*

I ended up buying 6 of his basic movie poster lightboxes with the 4 bulb upgrade and am very glad I did because they light the posters up very evenly. The boxes are made from wood not extruded aluminum but they are made well and look good. I also got a 5"x25" mylar lightbox that I use over the entrance to my lobby which has to be passed through to get to the theater. He sells larger marquee units but I didn't have the headroom for that so I asked him to scale down the marquee prints that he sells to fit a 5"x25" mylar lightbox.

From what I understand, he doesn't stock units, but custom builds each one at time of order. River City Theaters is located in my area but does not have a brick and mortar location but ships most of his orders from a shipping store a couple of miles from my house so he delivered them there and I picked them up at my convenience. It took about 2 weeks for me to get my units and they were packed very well.

I knew these things would be big, but I did underestimate their size with the packing materials included. The 6 movie poster boxes filled the back of the now infamous "******* Ranger".

Here's a picture of the 6 cartons in my basement:










I think UPS or FedEx would have a hard time damaging these units. The only other item I have ever purchased that was packed as well was a Stewart Filmscreen. I felt like Ralphie's dad in "A Christmas Story" opening up a "major award". The carton's didn't say "Fra...geal..E" on them but here's what the box looks like after you removed the outer cardboard box:










I should have posted this before but here's the wall in the arcade area before I put the 3 layers of drywall and GG on it:










Notice that I put 2 backer boxes in the wall for the power to the lightboxes. The boxes can be configured with a standard wall plug, an internal wall plug or like in my case, he just left the ballast wires bare so that I could hardwire them. I got a little lazy with the backer boxes and only made them out of 1 layer of 3/4" mdf but since these boxes are between the arcade and theater wall and no penetrations are made to the actual theater wall, I figure I will be ok.

Here's a picture of one of the boxes propped open with the included little piece of wood that is hanging on a string:










When open, the springs do have a bit of tension on them, so the included piece of wood on a string is very useful. The boxes I ordered are finished in a nicely textured black coating. I'm not sure if it's paint or not but I like the look of it. You should be careful when opening the side to insert the poster into the frame if the box is mounted flush to the wall because you can scrape either the wall or the lightbox. By the time I installed the 2nd box, I noticed I could pull the hinged portion out from the wall a little when opening it and it didn't scuff my wall. You will need enough room on either side of the lightbox to insert your poster which will be sandwiched between two 1/8" pieces of acrylic. I would imagine that if you have enough ceiling height, he can make the bottom/top side hinged instead.

Here's a picture showing how bright the T8 lighting is:










I was pleased to see the boxes came with four 36" 25watt T8 bulbs instead of the standard T12 shop light bulbs. I was initially afraid that 4 bulbs would be too much light but by the time you put the diffuser over the bulbs which is just a piece of 1/8" white acrylic, followed by your double sided poster and then another sheet of clear 1/8" acrylic, the poster looks great. The pictures don't show it well, but the posters really stand out, especially the orange and yellows.










Once again, the posters look a lot nicer in person and the camera flash really makes the small wrinkles in my posters appear much worse than they really are. I insert the posters from the left side of the left lightbox and the right side of the right poster box.



















Here's the 3rd poster box near the entrance to the lobby:










Here's the marquee over the lobby entrance which is at the bottom of my stairs:










The door and trim are not painted since it is my only entrance into the theater and it is sure to get banged up some more before I'm finished. This door as well as the other 2 doors (communicating) are on spring loaded hinges. The five 4" hinges do close the solid core door that is laminated with a 3/4" sheet of MDF fine but the problem is that when the door is closed the hinge springs are unloaded so the door doesn't make a good seal. If you look around the edges of the door you can see where I put some neodymium magnets that mate with the same magnets in the door jamb. Works well. Naturally, I will paint over these when I'm done.

Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase but there is one small item that I feel wasn't resolved to my satisfaction. He sells theater marquees for use with the smaller lightboxes and I asked him to change the text at the bottom and re-arrange the logos at the bottom. I told him that I would welcome a proof before printing it just to make sure I was being clear as to what I wanted. He didn't send a proof and the wording came back incorrect. The only thing missing was the word "AND" between the DTS and DD logos at the bottom of the marquee. It's not a show stopper but I think he should have reprinted it for me. He said that he could not since I wasn't clear that the word "AND" should be there. I disagree, but like I said, it's not a show stopper. Also, I knew his theater marquees look familiar and when it arrived at the house, I knew why...he doesn't design or print the marquees himself, he has an arrangement with a large MAME marquee printer on the 'Net that I had already bookmarked for when I want to decorate my cocktail arcade cabinet you saw in the pictures above and the stand up MAME cabinet I plan to build. When I contacted him, about the error, he was never rude and was always quick to reply to my emails. He first told me that he couldn't add text in areas that didn't have text in the original design but I found that odd since he was able to delete 2 logos in the design and re-arrange the other 2. I asked his vendor if he could print it the way I wanted to and he said sure but unfortunately, he forgot to change one block of text. He has agreed to re-print it free of charge but I haven't received it yet.

Anyway, I am happy with my lightboxes and can't wait to get the lobby done so that I can add the other 3 lightboxes. I would not hesitate to purchase more lightboxes from River City Theater Lightboxes in the future. I'll just leave the marquee printing to someone else.

_Disclaimer: I am not being paid to write this review nor do I get anything if this review generates sales to River City Theater Lightboxes but the owner did promise to give me 10 free posters if I posted a review of his product. I planned on writing a little review anyway so I agreed. I feel that I posted an honest review but it is ultimately up to you to decide whether these lightboxes will be suitable to you. YMMV, some settling of contents will occur during shipping and nobody but you is responsible if you stick your finger in the bulb socket and turn the power on._ :cunning:


----------



## Prof.

They look really classy Tom.. :T
How many are you planning to put in the actual theatre?


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> They look really classy Tom.. :T
> How many are you planning to put in the actual theatre?


3 in the arcade
3 in the lobby
1 marquee over the door to the lobby

0 in the theater


----------



## Prof.

tjambro said:


> 0 in the theater


:T


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## tjambro

Yep, theaters are for watching movies...lobbies are for looking at movie posters and getting popcorn. I'm not even gonna have sconces in the theater because in my last theater they were a distraction to me.


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## Prof.

I'm with you..The less distraction the better..
Even my acoustic panels are starting to annoy me!!


----------



## tjambro

*10 Months to kill a de-humidifier and an unscientific isolation test*

I bought a de-humidifier for my basement last April. It will eventually end up in the mechanical room where the return baffle/muffler dumps the theater air but currently it is in the theater which as you know, is very much a work in progress. I usually have enough sense to shut it off when mudding drywall or cutting mdf with the router but apparently I didn't shut it off enough because it quit working the other day. It doesn't come on much this time of year but the other day the fan came on but it never would shut off because it couldn't pull any moisture out of the air to reach its humidity setting. The air filter was recently cleaned out but I figured some dust made it past the filter so I took it apart and was amazed how both coils were covered in fine sheetrock dust on both surfaces of each coil. I blew it out and it filled the room with dust. I put it back together thinking that fixed it but no joy. I took it apart again and put my hand on the compressor when I turned it on and sure enough the compressor is not coming on. I found no in-line fuses or circuit breakers to reset. I unplugged it overnite and tried it again this morning. No dice. It's under warranty so hopefully I can get it fixed and I will keep it outside the theater area until I am ready to turn on the return baffle/muffler.

Here's the cool part albeit very unscientific. To blow the dehumidifier out, I brought in my 6 gallon Bostitch pancake compressor which is subjectively very loud. While it was filling up, I closed the two communicating doors to the theater and the one door that leaves the lobby/soundlock area to the rest of the basement. Note that none of these doors are totally sealed yet. The two communicating doors to the theater have no jambs whatsoever and the one door in the lobby/soundlock is sealed on 3 sides, I just didn't install a threshold yet and of course there's no carpet so there's a pretty big gap under the door. The ventilation ducts including both the supply and return baffles/mufflers are finished and all have at least 3/4" mdf on them and most of them have the additional layer of 5/8" drywall and GG but it's not totally complete.

Anywho, with the doors all shut, I walked to the back of the basement which means the compressor was only 10 feet from me but in the enclosed theater and I could just barely hear it....remember this is very unscientific. It was quiet enough that I couldn't tell if I was hearing it through the walls/ceiling or through the unsealed doors at the other end of the basement. I put my ear directly up against the return baffle/muffler and the sound wasn't any louder so I'm thinking (and hoping!) that it is from the unfinished doors. I then walked upstairs (stairs start directly in front of the lobby/soundlock door) and asked my wife if she heard anything, she said "no". I could barely hear the compressor but was pleased at how little made it upstairs with the unsealed doors.

I know this is a very limited test and only a small range of frequencies were tested and I know bass will travel through my isolation efforts much easier than noise made from a compressor, but I was pleased and it made me think that maybe all these isolation efforts are going to be worth it!

BTW, I just opened my 12th 5 gallon pail of GG and I have 1 sheet of 5/8" drywall left out of the 200+, which includes the non-theater portion of the basement remodel. Looks like I'm gonna be short 12-14 sheets which I will most likely carry down the basement myself because I don't think it will be worth paying delivery charges for such a small order.

Oh, my four Fi IB3-18's should be here Tuesday.


----------



## tjambro

Subs have been rescheduled for delivery on the 15th and regarding the dehumidifer, I called the local Frigidaire Service Center and they said I should return it to the retailer since it was still under warranty. I found that hard to believe but after talking to 2 people at the Lowes return desk, they took it back without the manual or box. I had my receipt so they credited the full amount back to my credit card. That was WAY too easy. They have no new units in stock since it's not exactly dehumidifier season now. I'll buy a new one come spring.

I still don't have any real exciting pictures, but here's a picture of the finished supply baffle/dead vent:










I'm standing at the bottom of the basement stairs and to the left of the dead vent is the arcade. Just to the right of the supply baffle is the wall dividing the arcade and lobby.

Here's the nasty box I had to build to connect the horizontal return duct (left side of the theater) to the opening in the wall to get to the vertical slot into the return baffle/dead vent which I put in my small mechanical room:










The ductboard cap in not on in this photo so you can see the double layer mdf insert I made to go through the 2 walls. I didn't want sound to escape up into the walls when going between the 2 rooms. The stud wall on the right is the IB chamber wall.

Here's a filthy room with me standing at the doorway in the rear right corner of the theater with the nasty return box in the front left of the theater:










The reason the box ended up being so big was due to connecting the horizontal and vertical ducts. I couldn't go horizontally into the mechanical room because I would have been half in the mechanical room and half in the little "nook" area where I have my chest freezer and the water heater. I'm so glad when we moved the water heater we put it outside the mechanical room instead of inside or I couldn't have built the return deadvent at all. I didn't want to move the theater return exit any further behind the screen because I would have been in the IB chamber so this was the best I could do. Fortunately, the nasty box will be behind the screen and it will be treated with 2" OC703 or equivalent.

In the foreground of the photo is the large projector box. It is large since I have a Panamorph UH480 with the power sled so I wanted to make sure I have plenty of room to slide in and out of the light path.

Not shown in the pictures, but the theater soffits now have a layer of 5/8" drywall and GG over the 3/4" mdf in this photo. I knew the drywall was going to be a tight fit over the standard sized door leaving the theater. I put the piece up over the door and I couldn't get out of the room.  I had to pull on the door a little and the door scraped a small piece of the drywall paper off closest to the doorway. I was dreading taking the 32" wide solid core door with the 3/4" mdf that I affixed to it off it's 5 hinges to route the top off but it wasn't bad at all. It was much easier than I thought. I routed and sanded about 1/8" off and it is now back up.

After being pleased with how easy it was to modify the door, I think I will change my plans for the soffits in the lobby. If you look back at post #100, I mention that the soffit over the lobby door ended up being a tad lower than the rest of the soffits and I was just going to put up a piece of molding or something. I think I will now add another layer of mdf on the other soffits to match the low soffit before adding the 5/8" drywall and GG. I will have 2 doors to take down and trim but I think I will like that better than the original solution.

Here's the return baffle/dead vent in the mechanical room:










The 8" Fantec fan is on the left and the flex is 12". This deadvent is designed just like the supply deadvent but only has 2 chambers instead of 3 due to space. Also there is the mate to the nasty return box on top of this deadvent.

Here's the deadvent before putting the 3 layers of drywall and GG on it:










To the left of the deadvent is a garden hose that will connect to the dehumidifer and the house A/C condensate line that drains to the sump pump in the laundry room.

Finally, here's the deadvent after completion:










This room is so small I had to stand outside the doorway and take the shot. It's hard to tell from the picture but the little box on top of the deadvent is the mate to the nasty return box in the theater. I put the deadvent's 3 layers of rock on the top and built this box on top of that. It too has 3 layers of 5/8" drywall with GG. I know you're not supposed to put 3 layers on any one surface before completing the other surfaces but I couldn't figure out how to do this for this structure. 

Building this box was very, very frustrating and time consuming due to space restrictions. I struggled getting screws in and had to caulk the top box and the right side of the deadvent by applying caulk with my finger because I couldn't get the caulk gun anywhere near the seams.

I will put the dehumidifer in this mechanical room with the return deadvent.

Next up is applying the extra mdf to the lobby soffits and drywalling those and trimming the 2 doors. Then believe it or not, I need 12-14 more sheets of drywall. Yuck! It won't be worth paying to have them delivered so I will have to struggle getting down the basement myself. Can't wait...

After talking with Bryan (bpape), I decided to put 2 layers of 5/8" with GG on both sides of the IB chamber. That will take 12 sheets and I'll probably need 3 or 4 sheets for the lobby soffits. I currently only have 1 full sheet left of the 200+ sheets I had delivered. Must keep going, must keep going...

Once both rooms are completely finished drywalling, I will build a curved front soffit over the screen for the screen lights. It will tie into the soffits. I nixed the idea of building a matching one on the floor due to height restrictions. I'm trying to keep the screen above the IB manifolds and below the curved ceiling soffit and it will be tough but I think it will work.

After the IB wall is done drywall will be complete so I will then mud it all up and paint the soffits and add the trim. I can't wait to do something else other than drywall and GG!!

I have decided to basically do nothing while my wife and I watch the Olympics starting tomorrow. We're not sports fans at all, but for some reason, we enjoy the Olympics.


----------



## rickp

Since I built my HT room by myself also, I found a neat little tool for carrying plywood and dry wall. I don't know what its called but its made out of orange plastic and is about 12" long and has a handle on one end and a hook for carrying 2 pieces of drywall on the other. (2 pieces if your man enough, I wasn't) you can get them at any big box store and it saved my bacon on many occasions.


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## tjambro

rickp said:


> Since I built my HT room by myself also, I found a neat little tool for carrying plywood and dry wall. I don't know what its called but its made out of orange plastic and is about 12" long and has a handle on one end and a hook for carrying 2 pieces of drywall on the other. (2 pieces if your man enough, I wasn't) you can get them at any big box store and it saved my bacon on many occasions.


Thanks Rick. My father-in-law lent me something similar. It is made of metal and two pieces can fit in it. I have used it and it is helpful for moving pieces around but I don't know how well it will work trying to negotiate the 90 degree turn to go down the stairs. I will see after the Olympics. :R


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## Prof.

Tom,

I take it that you're planning on building a screen wall, out from the nasty box!
Is this going to take much out of the length of your room?


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> I take it that you're planning on building a screen wall, out from the nasty box!
> Is this going to take much out of the length of your room?


Yes, the screen wall will be in front of the "nasty box". My plans were not altered due to the box. I always planned a screen wall before knowing that I would have to build a box that big. I will have to be careful with speaker/IB manifold placement.


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## rickp

I remember when my project was at the same stage as yours is now, I was very discouraged. I remember thinking " will I ever be finished? ", It only took me 2 long years.:rolleyesno: Your project is way over the top compared to mine and I enjoy watching your progress, keep up the good work and just know it will all be worth it someday soon:sn: To bad we don't live closer I would come over and help.

PS; the reason I was discouraged was because I was (and am still) building my 3600 sq ft house at the same time pretty much by myself, and thats way to much work for 1 man. I am pretty much finished on the inside and can't wait to get outside and redo the landscaping.


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## tjambro

Rick, thanks for the words of encouragement! I do get discouraged from time to time. My biggest problem is I'm usually optimistic so I think "how hard can that be" but when you team that up with me being slow and easily distracted, things take forever.  It will get done. I think it will go quicker or at least be more fun to work on once I wrap up the rest of the drywall and get my soffits totally finished, painted and trimmed.

I helped my dad build the house we lived in when I was in high school. It was 2700 sf and that was a big project, I can't imagine building a bigger one by yourself without any help! Of course, I was just a kid and I didn't have to do any planning, I was just a young gopher, lumper, whatever. :bigsmile:


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## tjambro

*Updates*

Well, I like my poster boxes enough and decided to buy 2 more. I added this one in the "arcade" on a bare wall between the laundry room door and the bathroom door:










It is not on the Grafix Eye "poster circuit" due to poor planning and I am not about to cut into 3 layers of sound isolation nirvana (drywall and green glue) so I tapped into another circuit. I also added an outlet since that was fairly easy to do since I was in the wall already. If you look closely at the bottom left of the frame, you will see the push button used to turn it on.

It's currently loaded with:










The mdf/drywall soffits are hung in the lobby but still needs corner guard and mudding:










The photo was taken in the doorway between the theater and the lobby. The rock took longer than it should have because I changed my column and poster layout of the room. I originally planned on two columns on the short right wall with a poster in between. The larger opposite wall was going to have 2 posters and 3 columns in a column/poster/column/poster/column configuration. I was never happy with just 1 poster on the short wall and I didn't like that the room would not have symmetry. I am now going with 2 columns on each wall and 2 posters next to each other on each wall. I think this design will look much better but I'll have to make sure the columns are as thin as possible because one is going to be right next to the door to the lobby which is pictured in this photo.

Since each column, which in reality, won't be much of a "column" per se but more of a slightly raised, stained piece of birch, will have a sconce on it and since I already pre-wired for the sconces in the closed mdf soffits, this set me back a little. Since, I had to remove the bottoms of the soffits anyway, I decided to correct the issue I had with the one soffit right over the door to the theater. This soffit was going to be lower than the other 3, so I was going to put a piece of molding on it and I doubt I would have ever liked it. Now that the soffit bottoms were down, I put mdf strips along the other 3 soffits and when I re-attached the soffit bottoms, it's all level now. Naturally, the liquid nails made the process of removing the mdf a little tricky but it worked out ok. After the soffits were lowered, I had to remove the 2 doors and trim them but once again, I think it was worth it.

Now for the theater:










The mdf/drywall soffits with a separate chamber for the supply/return vents are done but need some mudding and caulking. I plan on putting some corner molding on these soffits, unlike the lobby soffits. I plan on staining the molding and the lobby "columns" the same color. I am shooting for a flat black stain like you would find on speaker boxes. I understand transfast dyes are the way to go and will have to learn about this. The theater soffit will have crown molding with blue led rope in it.

This photo is taken from the back of the theater room looking toward the yet to be built screen wall. BTW, the screen wall will be built in front of that nasty box on the left. Behind the studs you see is the IB chamber and I have been working on the 2 IB manifolds. Each manifold will have two Fi 18" IB3 drivers. The braces you see are not secured yet, I will remove them when I put 2 layers of drywall on the interior of the IB chamber and two layers on the outside. 

Here's a picture of a manifold that I am getting ready to cut the driver hole out:










Don't tell Ted, but I found another purpose for Green Glue. It makes for a nice weight to keep the brace from falling when cutting out the hole. That "brace" is simply a piece of OSB that I used to make sure the 16.75" hole I made was the right size...it was. Like everything else I do, things always get a little more complicated than initally figured. It would appear that most people mount their IB drivers from outside the manifold which means you would need an access door into/out of your IB chamber. I didn't think designing an access door that would have to go through 2 layers of rock on both sides of the IB dividing wall sounded like fun so I decided to mount the drivers from the inside of the manifold. With this configuration, I can remove any one of the drivers, and squeeze through the hole to get into the IB chamber. Yes, I have tested it, and I can get through but I won't lie...it's not a doorway I want to pass through every day! :R 

It would appear that Scott at Fi Audio doesn't think many people will mount these drivers the way I did because the drilled holes in the aluminum basket were partially filled with glue that holds the foam edge of the driver in place. The SS drivers that I used to have had notches in the foam edge so that you can get to the screw holes from the top of the driver, not so with the Fi drivers. On top of that, I wanted to use beefy 1/4" bolts and 6-pronged t-nuts to hold the drivers in. The Fi holes were less than 1/4" so I had to widen those. I was a little nervous at first, but it wasn't really that hard to do, it just took time. I test fitted the drivers in the manifolds and they all fit fine. I won't install them until the rock is up and I paint the insides of the manfolds black.

Here's a weird picture:










It was taken from within the IB chamber looking through both IB manifolds. You may have noticed that I built my boxes a little different than most. It seems that most people build an outer box of mdf and put a layer of OSB in the inside of the box. Since I am mounting my drivers on the inside surface, I needed the outside surface to hold the t-nuts which we all know is better suited to OSB. So, the interior of the manifolds are 3/4" MDF and the exterior is 19/32" OSB. I would have used 3/4" OSB but Big Blue only had 19/32" which is about 0.6". The mdf box is a little deeper than the OSB box and is held to the studs with liquid nails and screws. I have 3 pieces of 2x4's under each manifold that is glued and screwed to the dricore and the manifold themselves. I don't think they are going anywhere!

It will be "fun" putting the drywall up on the inside of the IB chamber. I disconnected the bottom of the center stud just to get these boxes in and will leave it free as long as possible to aid getting the drywall into the 5'6" deep chamber. I will put R-19 on the walls and ceiling of the chamber but I will have to test my exit method for real once the first layer of interior rock is up. I may make sure that my wife is home at the time or at least bring a sledge hammer in the chamber or at the very least, an extra battery for the screw gun. :gulp:

Once I get the IB chamber done, I think I will work on the screen wall and the curved soffit I plan on installing over the screen for the can lights. I guess I'll have to finish the mudding of the soffits in both rooms also, that will be fun...NOT!

Then, can I move onto something else??


----------



## Prof.

Tom..that T nut on the left of the photo looks very close to the edge of the cut out..Is that going to hold alright?


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> Tom..that T nut on the left of the photo looks very close to the edge of the cut out..Is that going to hold alright?


Prof, yes it is pretty close but I think it will hold. If I remove it, I won't be able to re-drill it. I guess I could seal the hole with some wood putty and try again? 

I think I may just install the drivers and check it out. If it's no good, I'll re-do it later. In all honesty, I think if one doesn't hold, the other 7 will be enough, what do you think?


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## Prof.

With a total of 8 fixings, you should be ok..
I just wouldn't over tighten that one!


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## tjambro

*Long overdue update*

Slowly making progress. The IB sub is done but not hooked up yet. The theater and lobby soffits are done and have been painted and re-painted where I scuffed them all up. Columns and sconces in the lobby are done and the LED rope light and soffit cans are up in the theater.

Here's the inside of the IB sub:










Since I put two layers of rock on the inside and outside of the box, I had to crawl out of the box once the 2nd inside layer was up. It got hot in there pretty quickly and fogged up the camera:










This is all the I pitched out while finishing up inside the sub chamber:










The sub monkey was quite surprised when he saw all the junk upon exiting the sub:










Looking toward the sub with the curved soffit above the screen area done:










It's hard to tell from the picture but you are looking at (4) 18" Fi IB3 subs, 2 in each manifold.


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## tjambro

I should have paid more attention in geometry class. You physically cannot bend crown molding in an arc and expect to be able to install it properly. I had a piece of mdf crown (all to be painted, not stained) and I could physically bend it but the ends would curve up when trying to install it.

Luckily, I found "flextrim" online and was able to order both the crown profile and the outside corner profile below it to the radius of my curved soffit above the screen area. Instead of using crop circles, a large basketball court, or even my driveway, I used a very simple method to determine the desired radius for my curve. I simply screwed three 2x2's to the dricore (1 at each end and 1 in the middle) and bent a piece of 1/4" drywall to fit these 3 pieces. It took me a couple of tries to get it the way I thought it should look.

The flextrim ended up costing about $100 for both profiles and it came coiled up in a box. The crown was a little tricky to install since it was well...flexible and I only secured the bottom portion of the crown. The top part was left open so that I could use it as a light tray.

Here's the flextrim before painting:










You may notice that I put fidelio velvet on the underside of the curved soffit and on the first few feet of each of the sidewall soffits to catch any light spillage from the screen. 

There are many ornately trimmed theaters in these forums but I decided I wanted to go with a very basic trim since I easily get distracted and don't want to be looking at pretty trim when I could be looking at movies. 

I put wood putty between the crown molding and outside corner molding and painted it all black. Dropped some blue LED lighting in the crown:










Here's what it looks like standing in the front of the room looking back toward the pj box:










Yes, I will have to eliminate the stray light in the pj box. I'm also not sure that I like the LEDs. They are very directional and even though I tried to put the rope in the crown with the LEDs facing up, the light is still not uniform. I ended up pointing the LEDs down but I'm still not entirely happy with them. I am gonna grab a 12' piece of blue incandescent rope and see what that looks like and go from there. I'm not sure if the LEDs will dim properly on the Grafik Eye anyway? I think I can set the GE to not dim the LEDs if I want...is that correct?

For the lobby, I decided I did not want any molding or rope on the soffits due to the narrow width of the room. I painted the ceiling and soffits black just like the theater but decided to stain the 4 columns instead of painting them black. I also wanted no vertical molding on the narrow columns so I ended up cutting the 3/4" birch with 45 degree edges and gluing and clamping them together. I am not a wood guy and I struggled with these! They are not perfect in any shape of form but with the dim lighting I think they will be ok.

Here they are waiting to be installed:










Each column gets a sconce and 3 of the 4 get an outlet. I ended up with 3 coats of transtint dye and 3 coats of shellac.

Here's a poor picture using my PHD camera of 2 of the 4 sconces:










Between the 2 columns will be 2 backlit poster boxes just like the ones pictured in my "arcade" in this thread. The opposite wall will also have 2 sconces surrounding 2 more poster boxes. The 4 sconces are camera, popcorn, movie ticket and stars. My wife and I really like these sconces.

Lights out:










Here's the popcorn one with the lights out:










I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not, but I plan on putting fabric frames in both the lobby and theater. The theater will obviously have sound treatments behind them but the lobby will just be for aesthetics. I plan on going with GOM Anchorage for both rooms. The lobby will be 2094 Lapis which is a fairly bright blue and the theater will be 2045 Cobalt which doesn't look cobalt at all to me...more of a navy blue. My 4 surrounds will be in columns wrapped in the ever so ubiquitous GOM FR701 black.

I have my IS300 on hand and plan to start building the 4 corner traps soon and after that I will move on to the 4 surrounds that I will be building and maybe get my romex hooked up to the GE and my breaker box. It will be nice to have lights!


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## robbo266317

Wow, you have put a lot of effort into it.... It looks good.


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## bpape

Nice stuff Tom. Love the pics of you in the IB.

Bryan


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## Prof.

Looking very nice Tom..
Good idea with the black velvet under the curved soffit..:T
Those IB's are going to be awesome!!


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## tjambro

Thanks for the kudos guys and Bryan, are you insinuating that the sub monkey and I are one and the same? If so, I resemble those remarks! :R


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## bpape

I would NEVER do that Tom :innocent:

Bryan


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## tjambro

*Submonkey*

Ok Bryan, I changed my avatar, just for you!


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## sparkymt

Tom

you may not be a wood guy, but your columns turned out very nice. I also like the look of the blue led lighting in the crown molding. It gives it a really nice look. Oh...and that sub monkey avatar is something else!


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## bpape

*Re: Submonkey*



tjambro said:


> Ok Bryan, I changed my avatar, just for you!


Oustanding. That's how I'll always remember you. :clap:

Bryan


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## tjambro

sparkymt said:


> Tom
> 
> you may not be a wood guy, but your columns turned out very nice. I also like the look of the blue led lighting in the crown molding. It gives it a really nice look. Oh...and that sub monkey avatar is something else!


I appreciate the comments, thanks. My wife says the same thing about the sub monkey but she says I'm something else. :coocoo:


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## tjambro

*Re: Submonkey*



bpape said:


> Oustanding. That's how I'll always remember you. :clap:
> 
> Bryan


At least my avatar isn't sticking a violin bow up his nose. :rofl2:


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## tjambro

*Insulsheild Installation and DIY Surrounds*

I put up some of my IS300 recently. Here's the frontwall:










I will put a piece of muslin cloth over this to make sure any yellow color isn't seen through the AT screen. There are no screws, brads or nails holding the 2" IS300 up. I used 3M 90 adhesive. It's pretty sticky and my wife says pretty stinky! If I had to do it over, I would have installed the IS300 on the wall first and then build the corner bass traps.

In addition to the 2 corner bass traps, Bryan's (bpape) design called for a horizontal trap across the top of the wall behind the screen:










I couldn't go all the way across due to my soffits being terminated behind the screen and the "nasty box" but I made the trap a little deeper than the design called for. I used just one 2x2" secured between the 2 soffit ends on each side of the room to wedge the pieces against the rear wall and ceiling. 

OBTW, I found this stuff a lot easier to work with then I thought. The table saw worked great cutting these things with no fuss. I tried a little battery powered hand saw with the blade on backward but it wouldn't cut deep enough and there was no way I was gonna use the utility knife for all the pieces. I basically used the utility knife to score the pieces so I had a line to follow when cutting. I left the blade on normal and let her rip. It's a little eerie not hearing the cut being made but it worked like a charm!

Here's the rear wall with some more corner traps:










Note the cheapie 22" 1080p LCD LED TV in the corner. If I want to listen to music or select a movie from my catalog before turning on the projector, this display will come in handy. It had to be 1080p and accept a 24fps signal because I will be feeding multiple displays from one source so they all need to be the same resolution and deal with a 24fps signal.










Dummy me made my cable pass through (orange tube) the 24" wall before I built the bass trap. :hissyfit:










Close up of bass trap with some "corner wedges" removed (boo-boo area) to get access to the cable pass through and the outlet for the 22" TV. This will all be covered with fabric and I will most likely make this bottom portion a removable panel so I won't have to remove the entire bass trap fabric just to get to the outlet or cables.










Started building my 4 surround speakers. The design I am following (In-KhanNeatos...cute huh?) calls for a box size of 9"W x 24"H x 10.5"D. Since I will be placing these behind some shallow floor to ceiling columns, I kept the baffle width of 9" and made them 50.5"H x 6.75"D.










Standing on chair looking down at the unfinished tower.










Close up of the 3-way design. You are looking at (from top to bottom): Dayton RS150 mid, Dayton RS28A tweeter and Dayton RS180 midwoofer. I will most likely cross the surrounds over at 60Hz or so depending on how they work out. The mains will be the Khanspires, design also from HTGuide Forum.

I ordered the crossover components for the surrounds yesterday and $4.80 worth of parts are on backorder so I may not be able to test them out soon. :hissyfit:

I put in some quotes for GOM fabric tonite and will continue to work on the surrounds and build the column frames to go over the speaker boxes. Once I get the fabric, I will have plenty to play with including building at least a few fabric frames in both the lobby and theater. I need to lock in my fabric frame size in the lobby (no sound treatments, just for aesthetics) so that I can wire up and permanently mount the 6-zone GE and my lighted poster frames. FUN!!

PS - I am so glad to be done with drywall!!


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## Prof.

Nice job on the surrounds Tom..They should sound great! :T


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## tjambro

Thanks Prof. I almost have all the crossover components and I just took delivery of an Emotiva UMC-1 pre/pro to mate with the 7 channel amp I bought from them last year that I have yet to be able to hookup. I have an Oppo blu-ray player on order so maybe I can at least confirm that they will work in a week or two?

I ordered my GOM fabric a couple of days ago and am looking forward to getting my surrounds finished so I can put the fabric over the column frames that will cover the surrounds. I'm also looking forward to being able to put up some fabric frames with acoustical treatments on the walls so I'll at least have some portion of the room "finished".


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## Prof.

Tom,

Did you get your crossover components as a complete kit or as individual components..
Also, are they from Parts Express?


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> Tom,
> 
> Did you get your crossover components as a complete kit or as individual components..
> Also, are they from Parts Express?


Individual components from Parts Express and Madisound. Most from PE. The designer listed all the PE and Madisound part numbers so all I had to do was open my wallet...


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## Prof.

Thanks..I'm looking for the easy way out with pre-made crossover units..


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> Thanks..I'm looking for the easy way out with pre-made crossover units..


You probably know this but just in case, Parts Express does sell some premade crossovers. I know they're a lot cheaper than the individual components that my design called for.


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## Prof.

Yes..unfortunately all their 2 ways crossover at a higher point than what I'm looking for..
I need a two way 12db. xover at 350hz.!


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## tjambro

Did some work on the surrounds:

Closeup of the crossover installed in the box:









I must say I actually enjoyed building the crossovers. I was surprised they all worked the first time. 

Surround just before putting baffle on:









I used some of my JM IS300 1" insulation for the sides and acoustastuff for the fill.

Surround after surgery in ICU:










This surround is under the projector box:









You may have noticed that I painted the silver screws black so they don't show through the GOM black fabric.

Here's a couple of the column frames that will cover the surround speakers:










Here's the back view of a surround column frame just before installing over the surround speaker:










And here's the semi-finished product:









It's hard to tell in the picture but I painted the wall black where the frame meets the wall to make sure no "white" shows through when finished. The columns still need to be trimmed and fabric frames will go along the walls.


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## tjambro

*More column updates:*

More column updates and Grafik Eye installation...

In my last theater I didn't have any way to hook up an impromptu device such as a camera, xbox, etc other than fiddling behind the ceiling mounted projector which of course would cause it to move. This time I decided to build a fairly extensive "jack pack" to be installed inside the left surround column.

I used 6 keystone inserts for one plate and a dedicated AV plate. They came in every color with only the 2 cat6 keystone inserts black. I took them all apart and sprayed the black. Did the same for the white Grafik Eye cover:









...and no, I haven't tried my Oppo bluray player yet. 

Side view of one of the columns with the "jack pack" in it:










Closeup of the jack pack:









The top plate contains 6 keystone inserts. The top red and white jacks are analog stereo RCA jacks, the middle row contains a coax digital audio on the left and a throwback to yesteryear...S-video connector. The last two are cat 6 ports.

The bottom plate consists of an HDMI port, component video and finally an optical digital audio port. I hope this will cover just about everything I could possibly hookup. I decided not to install a "channel 3/4 RF box" for an Atari 2600. :rofl:

I may have chose poorly to run all my 120V romex in the soffits leaving the low voltage stuff along the walls behind the fabric panels. This sounded like a good idea but I underestimated how much wiring there was. Here's the worst section that feeds the "jack pack" column:









You will not see any of this once the fabric frames are up. If I ever need to get back into the wiring, I will be glad that I chose to do it this way. The fabric frames will just be velcroed to the wall so it will be easy to get at the wiring. It's just a little extra work right now.

Remember when I was a little perturbed at myself for having the AV closet (in the lobby) passthrough to the theater right where the back left bass trap is located? Now I'm quite glad it worked out that way. Here's why:









If the passthrough would have come through on the back wall where I originally planned, I would have had to contain all these wires within about 2.5" behind the fabric frames. The back wall gets 2" IS300 and the side walls only get 1". It would probably have been possible but it would have been a PITA.

Here's the same shot with the IS300 wedges in place:









Fabric will cover all of this and I may decide to make an access door or something to get to this area. If I don't, and something goes wrong, I will have to remove all the fabric panels to either side of this corner bass trap and unstaple the fabric covering the bass trap. 

What do you think...access port or not?


Now that all my circuits are completed except for the riser circuit (riser not built yet) I decided it was time to install the GrafikEye 3106 6 zone controller. I decided to install it on the lobby wall, left of the entrance to the theater. This is a deep double frame wall. It's about 22" from the outer sheet of drywall in the lobby to the outer layer of drywall in the theater. Before drywalling these walls I built a fairly large mdf box internal to the wall that could hold two 4 gang boxes. It's sealed up all except for one side which is accesible between the entrance doors for now. Once I'm sure it's good, I will seal it up permanently. It did make installing the unit much easier.

Once I got up the courage, I got the reciprocating saw out and went to town:









I decided the 2 gang box method would be best for me considering I am using 20A 12 gauge romex and am also installing two variable speed controls for the supply and return muffler fans.

Anybody know where all these wires go:










The two fan controllers are on the left and right of the bottom 4 gang box:









I will have to fashion a center cover to contain the wiring between the fan controllers.

I like the GrafikEye now that I got it working correctly but I did have 2 issues, well 3 actually. First issue and most important to get resolved: one of my scenes is blue led rope light in the soffits. The rope dims fine but it would not go off all the way unless the entire GE was shut down. Even if the zone wasn't on at all, light would leak through. I tried different load types and tried adjusting the trims to on avail. I did some research and discovered that the GE has minimal load requirements. The rope draws so little power that these requirements were not being met. To test this theory, I temporarily added a desk lamp to the rope zone and sure enough it worked great. With the lamp still plugged in and the zone dimmed to "off", just for kicks I turned the lamp switch off even though the light bulb was off and low and behold, the rope started leaking again.

I temporarily jury rigged a 25W 6Kohm resistor into the circuit and removed the lamp. Works great! I just need to get another electrical box and wire it up safely. Mission accomplished.

Second issue: I installed a remote switch outside the lobby to control the GE. Without this, I would have to walk through the lobby to get to the GE to turn on the lobby sconces. Not acceptable. I had 2 switches with intentions to only use one. Naturally, I decided to try the fancy switch that lets you select any of scenes 1 to 4. Wired the 18 gauge PELV2 wire (expensive!) and turned it on. Power to the switch was there but all the scene lights were blinking and nothing worked. The instruction manual talked about contol link termination and to see the LT-1 instruction sheet. I have no such sheet. After a while I decided to try the more simple switch that only lets you turn on scene 1 and turn everything off. It worked great without termination. That's good enough for me! I contacted Lutron just to see what was up and apparently my 4 scene switch was not made to work with the GE systems. Oops....

Last issue is minor: I have the remote switch in a 2 gang box with a standard decora light switch for the 7 posters I have in the lobby and arcade. The included wall plate is only single gang. Once again, I jury rigged something up and while functional, it's not pretty. I did some more research last nite and found that Lutron does make a 2 gang wallplate that will work with this NovaT switch and a decora switch. Cool! $13 plus $8 shipping, but it should be worth it.

Congratulations if you actually read all this...


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## tjambro

*Lobby fabric frames and posters*

More updates, this time fabric frames and poster light boxes in the lobby...

Here's the first two fabric frames in the lobby:









They are GOM Anchorage...cobalt I believe. I like the look much better than the standard GOM FR701. I'm using FR701 black just for the surround columns in the theater as well as the screenwall because FR701 is much more AT than Anchorage. The anchorage cost me $1/yard more than the FR701. Only about 58 more to go!! Believe it or not, this little lobby will require about as many panels as the much bigger theater room, probably since the screewall will be mostly screen and not panels!

I decided to make bevels on all sides of my frames:










This is a bad example as it only has 3 beveled sides. I decided not to use bevels in the corners of the room. The frames consist of two 5/8" layers. The bottom layer is OSB and secured with screws inserted into the pocket holes that I made with the very handy Krell Pocket Jig. The second top layer is particle board. All seams are staggered so that no seam will have a similar seam below it. The 2 layers are glued together and held in place while drying with some brad nails.

Here's two more in the corner:









When I installed these, I didn't realize that I would be better off not beveling the corner side (left in this case) so that when I go to install the other side, even with a non-beveled side, there will be a slight visible gap. I encountered this already in another part of the lobby and instead of re-doing it, I just stapled a small piece of fabric to the wall behind the offending area and nobody accept me and anyone of you forum readers will ever know. :whistling:

I added some 2x2 support under the frames where the posters will go and now this is starting to look like something:










Another shot:










...and another:










Ok last one:










Ok, that's it for now...


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## the colors

*Re: Lobby fabric frames and posters*

I like the idea of having the extra ports available cause you never know.. Also were those speaker boxes a diy kit or did the speakers come with the dimensions needed cause they look good, blend right in. Looks great.


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## Prof.

Nice job all round Tom..:T It's really taking shape now..
Were they 18db. crossover units?


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## tjambro

*Surround Speakers*

The surrounds are not from a kit but instead a very detailed free design that you can find here: http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=32111 The design called for a deeper box but I kept the baffle width and made the boxes much longer to keep a similar volume.

18db crossovers? No idea...I just followed the schematic.:dontknow: Check the above link out, there's probably more info on the crossover there. There's also another link there to a matched much bigger LCR speaker that I plan on building. They're called the DA Khanspires.

I still have a ways to go, but I finally feel like I'm making some headway!


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## the colors

*Re: Surround Speakers*

Very cool thanks for the link. Gives me some ideasonder:


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## tjambro

*Re: Surround Speakers*



the colors said:


> Very cool thanks for the link. Gives me some ideasonder:


If you look in their Missions Accomplished section, you will see all sorts of freely available designs.


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## the colors

*Re: Surround Speakers*

Thanks again, enjoying the build you have there starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.lol


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## tjambro

*LCR Speaker Building*

Here's some pics of the "Khanspires" that I built:





































And here they are waiting for their stands to be complete:










Each one weighs 110 lbs according to my bathroom scale and has (2) 8" woofs, (2) 6" mids and (1) tweet. They use the same mid and tweet as the surrounds. The woofers are from the same Dayton RS series as all the drivers and are the bigger version of the surrounds 7" woofer.

Behind the speaker stands you can see the left IB sub manifold with it's two 18" Fi IB3 drivers. The right IB sub manifold is visible but you can't see either of the two drivers.

Here they are behind the 10.5' wide 2.37 Seymour screen frame:


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## tjambro

*Grafik Eye and Riser*

My 6 zone GE is finally fully installed with all 6 zones working! The last zone was waiting for the riser to be done. 










I put the GE in the lobby to the left of the doors to the theater. The 2 dimmers below the GE are for the supply and return inline fans. The GE was originally white but I sprayed it black. If you look closely you will not see any IR mouse or any other way to control the GE from the theater.

I forgot to take a picture but I inserted one of those thin "naked" mouse leads into the empty "7th zone" section of the GE. It's a 6 zone controller but it's clearly the same form factor as the 8 zone unit with 2 empty zones. The "7th zone" is very close to the IR eye on the front of the unit and the naked eye fit in there great and the faceplate still closes with no troubles. It works great with my Xantech IR distribution setup.

My room is going to be pretty tight and I spent quite some time trying to get the riser right. I used the online theater calc and it worked pretty good but I also used my ******* riser calculator:










At one time I was going to put 4 seats on the riser but my soffits protrude too far into room for even the average guy not to hit his head so I ended up with a 14" riser that holds 3 steps.

Here's some pics:









The two 2x6's at the back are for the lag bolts that will secure the chairs to the riser.









Two layers of 19/32" OSB liquid nailed and screwed together in my garage and trimmed with a router trim bit. It was heavy but I managed to get it installed and trimmed with some simple molding. I hope the molding is curved enough for the carpet installers.

I didn't take a picture but it is stuffed with insulation. Here's one of the steps and step light:









I was originally gonna put the step on the outside of the riser because I thought putting it inside would interfere with the feet of the person sitting in any seat other than the center seat. However, putting it all outside the riser was not going to work due to the columns proximity to the step. So, I ended up making an inboard/outboard step which I think worked out fine. Unfortunately, I did this after the main riser was built so that's why it looks hacked.


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## tjambro

*Theater Seats*

Theater seats have arrived:








Some assembly definitely required!

Side view with end cap:









Front view:









View while holding seat cushion down:









All 7 temporarily installed:









They will all have to come out before carpet installation but I wanted to get the floor holes drilled before the carpet guys come. They may not like me for that but I didn't want to get concrete dust on the new carpet...and let me tell you drilling the (20) 3" holes for the anchors was not fun at all! I had to go through porcelain or ceramic (I'm not sure which it was) tile and it was not easy. I ended up using a Bosch Blue Granite Hammer Drill bit and after struggling with 3 holes I came up with a simple but highly effective idea...I don't care about damaging the tile beneath the dricore so I drilled a 3/8" hole in the dricore and then used a punch to crack the tile and the bit went through the tile much, much easier.

It still took me all day to drill these 20 holes and about half way done I got up and heard the dricore squeaking when I walked on it. At first I thought I damaged the tile more than I had expected but quickly realized that it was the anchor sleeves rubbing against the dricore. After struggling to remove the anchors, I made the dricore holes a little bigger and all is good now. I'm not sure if I should leave the anchors as is (remove the nuts and washers) for the carpet guys or remove the anchors entirely and insert long nails or something so they can cut the holes out as they go. I guess I could ask the carpet estimator when the time comes.

What do you guys think?


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## tjambro

I'm hoping to take my 3 doors down in the next couple of weeks so I can build the mdf door stops and insert the neo rare earth magnets into the stops and door edges so that the doors will stay shut when the spring hinges fully unload so that the doors make good seals. I will also take that time to paint the finished sides of the doors and make fabric frames for the flat mdf side. I need to fabric behind the side door stops (jambs?) that I build. 

Once this is all done I think I will be ready to order carpet!


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## bpape

So, for the $64 question - how do they sound?

Bryan


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## tjambro

*Speakers*



bpape said:


> So, for the $64 question - how do they sound?
> 
> Bryan


My first speaker impressions were, "Wow, they actually work".  No seriously, I am very pleased with them. They sound very clear (detailed) to me and am happy with them. They don't seem to dig super deep by themselves but they weren't designed to do that and I don't haven't anything tuned at this point. The boxes aren't ported but like I said, they don't have to dig that deep with the IB. I'm currently crossing over to the sub at 60Hz but that is all flexible with the Emotiva pre/pro.

I have listened to the speakers with the IB but nothing is tuned. I have an HDMI cable coming out of the Oppo bluray running to my new Emotiva UMC-1 processor which then sends the 7 channel signal out to the Emotiva amp and a balance output to the Carvin HD1800 amp that powers the IB. Nothing is EQ'd or tuned but so far I am happy with what I hear. I have had all 7.1 channels running at the same time and the speakers play well together...they should they use the same tweets and mids but for some reason the IB is much more subdued when taking 2 channel and feeding it through Dolby PLIIx into 7.1 channels. It's probably just a setting I'm missing but I'm not gonna mess with that right now, don't want to lose too much focus.

Let me say this about soundproofing, it is definitely worth the effort as long as you have realistic goals. If I didn't have the IB, you would hear next to nothing. Even with the IB, I'm still impressed with what I hear (don't hear) upstairs. However, if you have insane levels of bass, some bass does make it upstairs. I had a couple of friends over yesterday and one brought one of those cheesy 80's MTX bass test discs. This was not a "scientific" test disc but one where they made some "songs" that were basically playing boomy bass that makes your ears hurt just because they could. We played a couple of tracks but could only handle 60 seconds or so of each track. Like I said, it was the boomy type bass that I don't like...but the IB had no problem pressurizing the room even though my doors still aren't sealed (no door stops either...just slabs on hinges). With that playing we shut the doors the best we could and went upstairs. At the other end of the house from where the IB is, you could hear some bass but it sounded like it was off in the distance. But the room directly above the IB chamber (we have wood floors) you heard a bit more bass and felt the floor shaking. But, even this is much, much better than the large subs I built in the other house with no soundproofing. Sure I would have liked to stop everything, but you told me from the start that that would not be practical in my environment with such large subs and you were right! :whistling:

When we had the "crazy bass" playing, I didn't think to turn on the SPL meter but the other day I was playing some actual music and it had some tight chest thumping bass (my type of bass!) and I turned on the meter. I was getting peaks of 100dbA (112dbC) with no troubles and the IB drivers were just laughing at me hardly moving at all. Now this wasn't a movie track, just music so I do know more movement will occur with a decent LFE track but having said that, I was pleased with how little sound and bass made it upstairs. I went outside and walked to the side of the house where the IB lives and standing a foot away from the house, couldn't hear anything. I would feel comfortable playing music this loud at 3AM!! That was a goal of mine. I'll have to make sure the movie tracks will pass this test also.


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## Prof.

They look like bought ones!! :T Very nice job :clap: :clap: :clap:


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## phodee6

holy smokes, great job!


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## Fortin's H.T room

Looking really good.Keep up the good work.


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## patchesj

Is there a reason for the L and R to be so close to the center? Have you taken any frequency response measurements yet? You seem to have done an excellent job with absorbtion. Room looks great!


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## tjambro

Thanks for the kudos guys...



patchesj said:


> Is there a reason for the L and R to be so close to the center? Have you taken any frequency response measurements yet? You seem to have done an excellent job with absorbtion. Room looks great!


I would like to spread the speakers apart a little more, but if you look closely at the pictures, you will notice that the left speaker is about 1" to the right of what I call "the nasty box". If the box wasn't there, I would move them probably about 12-18" further apart to stay within the 8' 16:9 ratio that my 10.5' scope screen will be masked down to for 16:9 content.

No FR curves yet, want to get everything built first and I still have sound treatments to put up.


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## tjambro

*Fabric Panels and Carpet*

I've been working on the fabric panels and had the carpet installed today. Now that the carpet is installed, I really feel like something is getting done. I'm hoping to be done by Christmas but it's gonna be close.

The first pic is of our dog Abby in the theater. This is an important photo because this will be the last time she's in the theater.  










The door you see leads to the lobby. You may notice that there is fabric stapled to the left side of the door. I did this because I plan on putting a 2" fabric panel on this door and can not bring it anywhere near the edge due to the door being recessed in the frame and there's a bass trap to the left of the door. I plan on putting the fabric frame as close as I can to the left hand edge of the door and I thought the matching fabric would look better than paint so we'll see how that works. 

Here's the completed riser:










Notice the anchor bolts for the front row of seats. The riser has lag bolts installed for the same purpose. The installers were nice and did a good job but it took the two of them 6 hours to complete the theater and lobby. The riser took a long, long time and me having the columns installed didn't help either. But they did a good job and I really like the carpet, I think it goes good with the rest of the room.

On the right you can see the other rear bass trap with the yellow JM IS300 insulation and all the wall mounted AV wiring passing through the wall into the lobby AV closet. I will install a fabric access panel at the bottom of this trap.

Looking toward the screen:










I need to hang the screen and cover those speakers!

Here's the left wall with the two top rows of panels installed (although you can really only see the one row):










I made my main panels with two 5/8" layers glued and brad nailed. The bottom layer is 5/8" osb pocket screwed together with a Kreg pocket hole jig. The second layer is 5/8" particle board that I put a 45 degree bevel on before assembling the frame. My frames aren't much different than a lot of the frames out there, but if anyone wants some pics of them before stretching the fabric, let me know. BTW, I've used 10,000 staples so far and am about 2/3rds done for the theater and lobby.

Here's the AV closet in the lobby, I hope I remember what all those wires go to!










Standing in the theater looking through the door into the lobby:


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## Prof.

Looking very nice Tom..
I particularly like the way you've done your panels..very classy..:T


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## tjambro

Prof. said:


> Looking very nice Tom..
> I particularly like the way you've done your panels..very classy..:T


Thanks Prof! Did you see the picture of my beagle? Maybe you can borrow her to alleviate some of your country's rabbit problem?


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## Prof.

Haha!..I have two SA Ridgebacks and a Labrador and none of them can catch the rabbits!! :rolleyesno:
All three dogs have the speed but can't turn as quickly as the rabbits can..and they give up in disgust!


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## tjambro

*Automatic door closing*

So now that the carpet is in, I decided to load up the spring hinges and see if they would close properly. I have 3 doors: 1 from the rest of the basement into the lobby and 2 about 14" apart that separate the theater from the lobby. I loaded up the spring hinges on the door to the lobby quite some time ago before the room was sealed but unloaded them awhile ago because it got tedious to have to prop the door open all the time. But what I did find at that time was when I loaded enough tension to get the door to close, the door would bounce off the door stop and stay propped open a little since there was little tension left at that point...the spring was unloaded. I alleviated that by putting neodymium magnets in both the door stop and door face.

But once the lobby and theater progressed, I was doubtful that the spring hinges and magnets would entirely do the job because of the back pressure. Since the rooms are for all intense purposes, sealed, there is a lot of pressure when the door gets near the door stop. I found out today that 2 of the doors work, which I was actually pleased with since I thought all 3 would fail. The two doors that push air toward the theater when open work, the one that pulls air from the theater stops about 1 1/2" from the door stop. This was done with the supply fan and return fan running full speed since that's most likely how they will be when I am using the theater. I shut the fans off and opened the door from the lobby to the basement and the door that failed now closes. Of course this doesn't help me, but I wanted to confirm that their wasn't an issue with the tight tolerance of the door to the carpet.

I wish all 3 doors closed but at the very worst, I can put a small handle on this door that failed and ask people to pull it shut when they enter the theater. The handle would be between the two door faces to the theater so it wouldn't stick out as "funny looking". I'm still hoping to avoid this. I just ordered a professional automatic door closure (like in office buildings) from McMaster Carr and hope that will do the trick. If not, the little handle will have to do.

I must say it's pretty neat to walk through the two doors that are automatic and just let go of the door and it closes itself. This was a design I wanted when I started this theater because I didn't want to use door knobs and I didn't want to rely on guests to close the door fully. In my last theater, I didn't have a soundproof room but I had a Safe-N-Sound solid core door (relatively light btw) with no threshold so it definitely wasn't air tight. It didn't have seals either so that when the bass got going, the door would rattle at the latch area. I was able to alleviate the rattle by installing foam tape on the door stops making a seal but then the door was hard to close. I would pull the door closed and make sure it latched, but my guests would just pull the door to where they thought it should be closed and let go, leaving the door open a bit.

Just to give you an idea how tight the new rooms are, if I pull open the door quickly that failed (at the theater end of the lobby), the other door at the other end of the lobby that goes to the rest of the basement will pop open a bit and then re-close, even with the magnets installed in the door stop and door face and the 5 spring loaded hinges. The spring hinges were not to exceed 4 holes of tension, I went 5 to get it to work.


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## tjambro

*Wabbits*



Prof. said:


> Haha!..I have two SA Ridgebacks and a Labrador and none of them can catch the rabbits!! :rolleyesno:
> All three dogs have the speed but can't turn as quickly as the rabbits can..and they give up in disgust!


I guess that's why you have so many rabbits mate!


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## Prof.

Yeah..I think the word has spread that these dogs can't catch them, so they're all moving on to my property.!!:R


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## moggieuk

Tom, I'd love to see some pics of your automatic door closers and attachments. Originally I was planning the same for my one theater door but abandoned it when I thought the mount of spring pressure I would need would make it too hard to open. You are right about how much pressure the HVAC system can put on a door in a well sealed room.. I nearly got stuck in my room after covering my return vents.


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## tjambro

*Automatic Door Closures*

Moggie, the two doors that currently work properly are just spring loaded hinges. They look like normal hinges, but without hinge pins. On top of the hinge is a hole that you put an allen wrench in to turn (tension) the spring. Once you get it where you want, you slip a small pin in another hole on the side of the hinge body to keep the tension on the spring. I'm telling you this instead of taking a picture because the hinges are hard to see and they are partially buried in my 3 layers of drywall. If you would like me to give it a shot, let me know.

The one door that doesn't fully close is the door that I plan on using a "professional" door closure. I ordered it Sunday nite and it actually showed up today. It's still in the box, I installed the screen and 7 theater seats instead.

I'll post a picture and report back on whether it works or not.


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## moggieuk

*Re: Automatic Door Closures*



tjambro said:


> Moggie, the two doors that currently work properly are just spring loaded hinges. They look like normal hinges, but without hinge pins. On top of the hinge is a hole that you put an allen wrench in to turn (tension) the spring. Once you get it where you want, you slip a small pin in another hole on the side of the hinge body to keep the tension on the spring. I'm telling you this instead of taking a picture because the hinges are hard to see and they are partially buried in my 3 layers of drywall. If you would like me to give it a shot, let me know.
> 
> The one door that doesn't fully close is the door that I plan on using a "professional" door closure. I ordered it Sunday nite and it actually showed up today. It's still in the box, I installed the screen and 7 theater seats instead.
> 
> I'll post a picture and report back on whether it works or not.


Ah, ok. I know the hinge you are talking about. Typically they are code for garage doors (for fire reasons). I'll wait for the 'professional' door closer results, which is what I was interested in.

Cheers.


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## tjambro

*Re: Automatic Door Closures*



moggieuk said:


> Ah, ok. I know the hinge you are talking about. Typically they are code for garage doors (for fire reasons). I'll wait for the 'professional' door closer results, which is what I was interested in.
> 
> Cheers.


I only had a little time but I got the "professional" door closure installed and it works! I need to mess with the sweep and latch speeds a bit and more than likely, I will unload the tension on the 5 spring hinges discussed above because the door is a bit tight to open as it is now. I may end up removing the neodymium magnets that I have installed in the door face and the door stop for the same reason. Either way, it works and I think that is great! I'll try to get you a picture or two and give you a little more detail in the next couple of days.


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## moggieuk

*Re: Automatic Door Closures*



tjambro said:


> I only had a little time but I got the "professional" door closure installed and it works! I need to mess with the sweep and latch speeds a bit and more than likely, I will unload the tension on the 5 spring hinges discussed above because the door is a bit tight to open as it is now. I may end up removing the neodymium magnets that I have installed in the door face and the door stop for the same reason. Either way, it works and I think that is great! I'll try to get you a picture or two and give you a little more detail in the next couple of days.


After the closing tension is set, the door is not too heavy to open? Do you have good seals (including bottom)? I ask because typically this requires a lot of force to close the last 1/4".


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## tjambro

*Re: Automatic Door Closures*



moggieuk said:


> After the closing tension is set, the door is not too heavy to open? Do you have good seals (including bottom)? I ask because typically this requires a lot of force to close the last 1/4".


Yes, I have a good seal including the bottom. When the door closes, it's so airtight that it makes the other door that is about one foot in front of it, "pop" off the door stops even with the magnets and spring loaded hinges. Naturally it closes after that.

The tension is not bad. Of course it is not as easy to open as a door that is not spring loaded but it isn't bad at all. I am very pleased with how it works. I will try to remember to take a picture of the door closure tomorrow for you.

I like that it has two adjustments. One adjustment sets the tension to close the door most of the way and the 2nd adjustment adjusts the tension to close the door the last couple of inches. I think this is the trick to keeping the tension reasonable. If there wasn't a separate setting for the last bit of door closure, which is much slower by the way, the first adjustment would have to be set so high that the door would probably hit you in the butt when you went through it and would make the door much harder to open...IMHO.

Actually, there's a third adjustment called backcheck which sets a limit on how far the door will open. I haven't messed with that.


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## tjambro

*"Complete"*

I guess the room is "complete". We all know these projects are never truly complete so I will say it's 99% complete:

Walking down the basement stairs, this is what you see first:










Standing in the arcade looking toward the lobby entrance door:










Walking through the above door leads to the lobby:










You can see the door you just walked through on the right. The flash really highlights the fabric stretch marks. You can't see these in normal light.

Closeup shot of the door:


















Once again, the door leaving the lobby is in the corner (to the left of the trash can)

Lara Croft tries (succesfully I might add) to entice you into the theater:









The GrafikEye and HVAC rheostats are to the left of this communicating door.

This is my equipment closet (in the corner of the lobby to the left of the GrafikEye) with the doors closed:










Doors opened:










My passively cooled Emotiva amp is very sensitive to heat whereas the Carvin 900 wpc pro amp for the IB sub had no problem with heat since it has a high speed thermally controlled fan. I have solved the Emotiva amp thermal issues by adding a cheap 8" inline fan to my HVAC return ducting which already has a much nicer Fantech 8" inline fan that runs the deadvent. The lobby is "downstream" from the theater and I had a 4" passive return vent in the closet but it needed a little boost to move enough air since I didn't want to reduce the return capability in the theater.

If you look closely you can also see that I added (3) 80mm computer fans on top of the Emotiva amp pulling air across the unit. The 8" inline fan and these 3 fans weren't enough to solve the problem with the doors closed. I added (2) 120mm computer fans that literally sit face down on the amp pulling air out of the amp housing and this did the job. I doubt I need the (3) 80mm fans but they are quiet, so I just left them there.

If you look at the picture with the doors closed you can see a vent at the bottom that allows cool air to be pulled into the closet.


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## tjambro

*Theater Pics*

Once you walk past Lara Croft through the communicating doors you enter the theater. If you walk down the aisle to the screen and turn around, this is what you will see:










This is the right hand side of the theater, while looking at the screen, and you can see the door next to the bass trap in the corner. The doors have panels on them but I had to end them short so they wouldn't hit the bass trap when the door is opened. All 3 doors close automatically btw.

Other aisle looking toward back of the theater:










Note the jack pack at the bottom of the column.

Standing in the left hand aisle looking across the riser to the right hand wall:










Opposite wall:










Rear bass trap is visible in the corner.

picture of the pj box:










Once again, the flash lights up the fabric frame crossmembers and even the scrim behind the back wall panels. These can't be seen in normal lighting and if you turn on the pj, you can't look back without seeing a beam of light! 

I should paint the inside of the pj box, but once again, if the pj is on, you can't see in here, even if you try. Since the pj is off, you can see a portion of the Panamorph UH480 sitting on it's sled (left side of opening) and on the right you can see the sled housing. When I select stretch mode on the JVC RS20, the sled automatically slides into the light path. Very neat IMO.

Self explanatory shot:























































I added fidelio velvet on the curved soffit in front of the screen and black GOM on the wall panels immediately to the left and right of the screen. I'm glad I did this as I am very pleased with the contrast of the pj.


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## tjambro

*Arcade*

Arcade shots:










The white door in the distance leads to the lobby.

Driving cabinet:










The large box behind the driving cabinet is a 27" RGB CRT monitor that will be installed in a standup arcade (my next project!) that will go on this wall:










The standup arcade cabinet will be centered on this wall and once complete, I have some Asteroids stickers to compliment the Space Invaders that you now see.

MAME Cocktail cabinet that plays vertical games only:










I added Austin Powers so my wife wouldn't get too mad when she sees Lara Croft in the lobby, although she does turn her around quite often.  Behind Austin is the supply deadvent. The return deadvent is in the mechanical room.










Door on the left leads to the laundry room, excercise room and mechanical room. I need to get an "Employees Only" sign for this door. The door on the right is the bathroom and needs a restroom type sign. I just leave it open now when guests come. There's a flat panel monitor in the bathroom btw, in addition to the monitor in the lobby and one on the back wall of the theater. So far, guests get a kick out of going to get popcorn, candy or sitting on the crapper and still being able to watch and hear the movie. 

It's official:


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## bambino

Nice room, i wanna come watch a movie:bigsmile:. You have done a spectacular job!:T


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## Prof.

Wow!! VERY nice Tom..:T
I particularly like the signage over the entrance door..Well done..:T


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## bpape

Nice job Tom. Now sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor. What are you going to do with all your time now that the room is done?


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## tjambro

Thanks for the kudos guys, I appreciate it. The first few days of having no real work to do, I felt guilty for just sitting back and watching a movie. I find it amazing that after just a few days the guilt is all but gone which of course is good and bad because there are little things still left to do like fully program the Pronto remote - I have just the basics done which will cover 90% of what I intend to use the theater for - and make sure all the aux inputs on the column work properly, etc.

Of course there's the garage to clean and things around the house that have been neglected over the last 2 years, I'm sure you guys know the drill. 

Bryan, next project will be my 3rd arcade cabinet. I plan on building a standup MAME arcade machine with a 27" CRT arcade monitor which is that large box you see behind the white driving cabinet. It will most likely have a rotating control panel...a simple control panel would be...wait for it...too simple. :devil: I will probably wait until the fall to start that. For now I just plan on watching lots of movies with friends and as often as I can get my wife to watch. If neither are available, I have a (mostly) soundproof room so that I can watch by myself any time of day partly thanks to you! Thanks!


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## tjambro

*Arcade Signage*

Added a couple of signs in the arcade:










The left door leads to the rest of the basement that guests don't need to see.

And here's the door to the little room under the basement stairs:










I still need to test all the aux jacks that are installed in one of the columns in the theater, finish labeling the inputs on the Emotiva pre-pro, finish programming the Pronto (Marantz actually) remote and reposition the IR receiver under the screen to try to get a better range of operation.

These things should have been done quite some time ago but I have been to busy watching movies and playing Forza 3 in the driving cabinet. 

Come fall, I will probably start the stand-up arcade cabinet to complete the arcade.


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