Just made a 60" rear projection screen

[Chkurgrnd]

The youth pastor that I am interning with and I just this last week needed to make a screen for a new youth room. Very, very low budget deal so we were looking around and brainstorming... came up with a very cheap but very well done screen for rear projection for $9.04 @ Lowes!

1- White PEVA shower curtain (maybe $3 or so), 4- 1.5"x2" furring strips and a spray can of flat black paint for the wood frame.

Very pleased with the result that we attained in the room. Now I wish that shower curtains were bigger... lol

[FlamHappy]

Pics please

[bpalermini]

Congrats, good work!

[Chkurgrnd]

Pics up after wednesday night. Have a youth excursion to an amusement park wed nite but will share when possible!

[Chkurgrnd]

Sorry so long responding...

We began with 1.5 furring strips bought at Lowes, we bought 4 of them (8' long) and cut them so the corners would overlap after we attached the shower curtain. The shower curtain was a white color. We bought cheap flat black spray paint, painted all sides of the strips first and let them dry.

We stapled the curtain down to the backside of the front frame. We laid cardboard down first so we didn't get the front of the screen dirty and doubled over the edge so it was going thru 2 layers of PEVA instead of just one and the risk of ripping was lessened. After we did the top corners and one in the middle, we stretched it down and stapled it at the bottom, then did the sides. After it was stapled, we predrilled holes in strips for the back frame so we didn't splinter the wood and used 2 1" drywall screws, coming from the backside in each corner to attach to the front frame. Weighs maybe 8lbs total.

Used cup holders to temporarily hang it for pictures but the plan is for eye hooks and wire. We used a hair dryer to try to shrink out the wrinkles in the corners, which helped some but not too much... don't notice them too much when the room is dark and the picture is on the screen.

Projected picture is bright and vibrant! Very clear and distortion free! Viewing angle is dependent on the placement of the screen but is not bad at all. I apologize for the quality of the pics but all I had was my phone.

If we could go back and do it again, would have probably stretched it more but we didn't know how much tension would hold over time. We'd also add 90 degree braces to the corners and a couple more screws in the center of each side of the frame.

[Gracetech]

Ingenuity FTW!!!!

Nicely done. You can actually pick up the shower curtain material in larger rolls at specialty fabric stores. Most fabric stores list it as Vinyl or PVC. You can generally find the 54" wide at local stores but any wider will be sold online. Although you can actually purchase your own screen material from Rosebrand and make your own screen for alot cheaper. Their cost is usually wrapped up in the edging and grommets which equates to labor.

crt