Screen Making: Texas

When we moved to Texas, we had more space to take advantage of. I decided to build a permanent screen.

Big Sky Theater, TX

New projector tower

Screen V1

V1 with screen attached

V2

V2 going up

V2 mounted

Patching and sanding

Finished

Audio upgrades

Old cases, new guts

V3

V3 finished

Broken leg

Close up broken leg

Splicing the broken leg

Leg splices

We’ve gone through three iterations of our screen in Texas.

V1 is made with electrical tubing, from which I hung blackout cloth as a screen. This was difficult to put up and store, but it was our biggest screen.

V2 is solid construction. I used 3/8″ ply for the screen, because I was concerned about weight. It started warping almost immediately.

V3 is 1/2″ ply, and is the biggest I’ve ever made. It’s heavy (the whole family on pulleys was needed to put it up). It’s heavy enough that in some of our more aggressive weather, one of the legs failed. I spliced a support onto it rather than replace the leg outright, and it’s a much more stable structure.

You can also see here the sound system. I installed new speakers into old cleaned up drive-in cases, and wired that up. They’re tied in using large audio jacks, so I can pull them in off season.