BillFitzmaurice.info

I'll take some pics later, but I just put the 2nd coat of primer on the fronts...hooray, they are getting painted. Nothing you've not seen before.

I guess I can hijack my own thread, right? A small router table (AKA Benchtop Router Table) is infinitely useful. Some things, like putting the edge roundover on bass cabs like Tubas or Titans, can only be done with a handheld router. But almost everything else you can do w/a benchtop router. The frames I've made for this facade are a perfect example. Even if you don't use pocket screws and the corners don't align 100%, you can still bring the rounded-over edges into alignment quickly and easily either with sandpaper or the sanding tool of your choice.

I mentioned above about the procedure when rounding over these frames using a handheld router. "Clamp, pass the router, unclamp, rotate workpiece, clamp, pass the router, etc." What a pain in the ass (spelled out for emphasis). I've used a benchtop router table before. Passing all the pieces for this facade, both inner and outer roundovers would take less than 5 minutes, total, vs. about an hour it took me doing it "the old fashioned way." I'm a huge proponent of "Work smarter, not harder." Rounding over the pieces before gluing/screwing them into a rectangle would save a lot of time and work.

I'm sort of doing three things at once...trying to get as much work in while I can. Here's a sneak peek at another yet-to-be-created thread. I bought some lights for dance-area lighting. I bought pairs, as to have equal lighting on both my light stands. The LED washes I bought have a non-standard mounting bolt pattern, and don't line up with the existing mounting bolt/hole locations on the light stands...probably b/c they are intended to be wall-washes/uplighting and not stand-mounted washes. But they are more than bright enough for that. So I am "repurposing them." The mounting holes in the brackets are 41-3/8" apart, on-center, which didn't quite line up with the upper bar on my light stands. So I drilled new mounting holes for the brackets. More pics of it all lit up later...someday soon. For now, just some pics.




Looking down on the bars, the two innermost bolts are the stock locations. There are two more corresponding holes (barely visible in pic) towards the ends. I wanted the LED bars facing/mounted on the front of the bar, so I drilled two new holes. Those two new holes are where the bolts that attach the lights to the bars are located.



Hope to have a few pics of the facade later tonight. I am planning on 3 coats of rolled primer on the fronts, then 2 sprayed coats on the fronts.

Nice going. Thanks for the lycra test btw Off to the material shop tomorrow as per your instructions

Found some opal plexiglass on eBay for a knock down price http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OPAL-PERSPEX- ... 4600a73097. Thinking I may go this route - the frames then don't have to be quite as sturdy and I can wipe down any crap that gets on it quickly and easily (there's a lot of crap at free parties!! )

I'd actually prefer plexiglass to the fabric due to damage/stain resistance. Designing the frame to allow for plexi removal/replacement is possible; just requires a bit of thought. I didn't go with plexi for aesthetic reasons. Out of all the pics/vids I looked at, I prefered the soft, diffused look of colored lights shining through the Lycra. Also, plexi needs to be cut to size and is fiddly when being cut; it likes to crack even when "you cut it right." I used plexi a lot for amp rack covers back in my car audio days. Still don't care for it. Stretchy fabric is simple. Stretch, clamp, cut, done. But it tears if a butterfly crashes into it. Six of one, half dozen of the other, I guess.

In other news, the fancy bar lights pictured above, that I worked so damn hard to jigger a mounting solution for, don't seem to play well with DMX. GRANTED, I have all of a few HOURS of DMX under my belt, and I'm still researching. BUT: I sure can read and follow directions. They work fan-freaking-tasic in stand-alone mode. They have a billion built in programs and they all work great. But plug into DMX and it all goes to pot. Adding to it, it seems that for some reason the DMX IN/OUT jacks on the bar light are reversed. DMX standard "IN" is a male socket that accepts a female plug. DMX OUT is a female socket that accepts a male plug or a terminator.. This bar light has the socket types reversed. I tried reversing the cables on the bar light's IN/OUTs (my DMX USB interface has both male/female outputs) but it didn't seem to make any difference. Damn thing don't work worth a shit (to put it in "Texan.")

I GUESS I'VE FOUND MY FACADE UPLIGHTS, EH?

This is TOTALLY a "n00b lesson learned moment." I stared at pics of the lights on EBay for hours before plunking down my money. Not once did I look closely at the in/out jacks. I just wanted to see and saw, that there WERE DMX in/out jacks and thought "OK, good. I can hook them into my DMX chain and all will be well." Um, how about "NOT"?

miked wrote:I'd actually prefer plexiglass to the fabric due to damage/stain resistance. Designing the frame to allow for plexi removal/replacement is possible; just requires a bit of thought. I didn't go with plexi for aesthetic reasons. Out of all the pics/vids I looked at, I prefered the soft, diffused look of colored lights shining through the Lycra. Also, plexi needs to be cut to size and is fiddly when being cut; it likes to crack even when "you cut it right." I used plexi a lot for amp rack covers back in my car audio days. Still don't care for it. Stretchy fabric is simple. Stretch, clamp, cut, done. But it tears if a butterfly crashes into it. Six of one, half dozen of the other, I guess.

In other news, the fancy bar lights pictured above, that I worked so damn hard to jigger a mounting solution for, don't seem to play well with DMX. GRANTED, I have all of a few HOURS of DMX under my belt, and I'm still researching. BUT: I sure can read and follow directions. They work fan-freaking-tasic in stand-alone mode. They have a billion built in programs and they all work great. But plug into DMX and it all goes to pot. Adding to it, it seems that for some reason the DMX IN/OUT jacks on the bar light are reversed. DMX standard "IN" is a male socket that accepts a female plug. DMX OUT is a female socket that accepts a male plug or a terminator.. This bar light has the socket types reversed. I tried reversing the cables on the bar light's IN/OUTs (my DMX USB interface has both male/female outputs) but it didn't seem to make any difference. Damn thing don't work worth a shit (to put it in "Texan.")

I GUESS I'VE FOUND MY FACADE UPLIGHTS, EH?

This is TOTALLY a "n00b lesson learned moment." I stared at pics of the lights on EBay for hours before plunking down my money. Not once did I look closely at the in/out jacks. I just wanted to see and saw, that there WERE DMX in/out jacks and thought "OK, good. I can hook them into my DMX chain and all will be well." Um, how about "NOT"?

Any reason you can't swap those plugs around?
Physically move them as in, so it becomes "standard"...

I'll have to open up the light to see if that is possible, Grant. Most probably the XLRs are soldered onto the PCB. If so I won't mess with it. They were $80 each and seeing as they work fine in stand-alone mode, I'd hate to break them. Additionally, my DMX interface has both male/female outs. I tried reversing the cable and even then the fixure didn't work correctly. I have a lot more testing to do though. As well as getting the facade itself finished!

*edit*
It didn't work correctly due to user error, as discussed in my next post, immediately below.

Well, some good news. I figured out the bare basics for the LED wash/bar light. It's this one, BTW: http://www.ebay.com/itm/320-10mm-DJ-LED ... 3ccc40d794

It has 6 different DMX modes. You must set each mode on the fixture directly. EACH MODE has either 2/3/4/5/6/7 channels, depending on the mode. Then from within each CHANNEL, you pick "green light, blue light, strobing, etc." These are all probably DMX basics, but it's pretty much Greek to me ATM. I'm learning. I happened to have a male/male XLR gender changer on hand and I turned the female DMX input into a proper male input. Working OK ATM. Will need to order a bunch of gender swappers to get everything working/terminated correctly. The expenses never seem to end. Anyway...

Got the 4th rolled-on primer coat on the frames this morning, then about an hour ago, sprayed the 1st of several top coats. Just a rattle can; no fancy sprayer. Pics later.

2nd sprayed final coat on. I went with flat black...thought about semi-gloss, but I wound up with some raised woodgrain after the first couple of coats of primer. Gloss would've just emphasized that raised grain. In hindsight, I probably should've bought the "premium select" boards at almost $7 each. That would've been $42 though, and that would not have allowed extra wood for mistakes. I did not make any mistakes when cutting these, but you know how that goes. Awesome wood = 32 mistakes. So-so wood = 0 mistakes.

In a semi-dark or dark room you won't see anything "but black" especially when the window is uplight from the rear with color-changing-blinky lights.





I think they look pretty good now. There is certainly a solid coating of paint on them to defend against bumps and scuffs. Unless I see something glaring that requires another coat, I'll probably put the fabric on these once they are totally dry, which in this humidity could take a day or two. No pics, but I have sprayed the square dowels black. They aren't cut to size yet; I"ll do that tomorrow, probably. The dowels are 36" long and I need 48" and 23" pieces. Go figure.

I think the finish is as good as it's going to get. I am moderately happy with it. The fronts of the frames were glass-smooth before I painted, but the grain raised up a bit in spots. Not a biggie...just my OCD kicking in, I guess. So the paint is dry enough to handle, but not dry enough for me to lay the frames down and put the hinges and fabric on. That'll be tonight or tomorrow. I did get the feet on though.






The general idea.



I've scrapped the idea of installing the LED lights. Just too much trouble to wind up with a very delicate assembly with tiny wires hanging out. I like everything Mil-Spec and bullet proof. I should've thought the lights out more than I did before I started making sawdust. Live and learn. I will uplight them from the rear with some LED par cans. More flexibility with the lighting that way, anyway.

I haven't yet decided whether I'm going to use piano or take-apart hinges, but leaning towards piano, so the whole assembly can fold up into one piece. Should I ever need to make the facade wider, I can use take-aparts on the outer panels. Thanks for looking.

Got the fabric installed on the center panel. The outer panels were still a bit "sticky" and I didn't want to risk ruining the finish, so I'll do the outer panels in the morning.

First, I layed the frame down and cut a piece of the fabric to the size of the outer dimensions of the frame. This turned out to be a bit wasteful as I REALLY had to stretch the fabric in order to get it taught. That's one of the disadvantages of going with such a large center panel.


Knocked the retaining dowel into the dado. The dowel was actually two pieces. I had to cut the smaller pieces to length as I went...sorta like building cabs! LOL! The dowels were a very tight fit, but better too tight than loose. The fabric winds up stretched very taught and if the retaining piece is loose, your fabric will come loose.


Closeup of the left corner of that first retaining piece.


Basically, the idea is that after you have that first side anchored, you move to the opposite side, pull the fabric taught, then anchor that side down. I used a combination of spring-loaded squeeze clamps and just kneeling on the fabric to hold it down as I went. Mostly knelt on it, TBH. Eventually, you wind up with this (excess has been cut off already).


Pile of cutoffs that I'm not throwing away...they'll be useful for something, someday. The rubber mallet was used to get the dowel into the dado. In some spots, paint had dripped into the dado and I could not get the dowel in by hand. "If use of force fails, you aren't using enough force."


Finished panel. There are some creases in there from the fabric being stored folded. Stretching the fabric did not take them out. Hoping they go away in time.


Test shots backlit with one of my bar washes. I will be going with one of these to light it up. The "spill" from the center section should get the side panels a bit. You can't see it, but the bar light is mounted to the top bar of a light stand. This raises the bar light up about 3" off the floor. In normal usage, the light will sit well below the opening of the window at the bottom of the frame...it'll look better than this.

These pics are "just OK." This honestly looked better in person. I took about two dozen pics w/my cell phone and chose the best ones for this thread. But hey, you get a full RGB set of pics.




Some notes:

I do wish the fabric was more opaque (less see-thru). But how was I supposed to know it would turn out like this? I bought the cheapes Lycra I could find. The next "step up" was twice the price and looked like the same crap to me.

I wound up removing two sides of the dowels and re-pulling (is that a word? "Adjusting", I guess) the fabric again b/c it was too loose. We'll see how it works w/the smaller panels, but I can tell you on a panel this large you really have to pull hard to get the fabric taught. So far, so good.

Looking forward to completing this thing. Been building stuff in the garage non-stop since August. Ready for a break. After this facade, I have one more storage box (not another roadcase!) to build and that's it for awhile, hopefully. More updates tomorrow.

OH! Just got an idea for a dead-simple "case" for this thing. Would take an hour to build and it would be ox-strong, too.

2'x4' frame with 3/8" hardboard front/back panels. Ugly as sin but who cares? The top edge would be open and the folded facade would slide down into it. Of course, I'd like a lid for it. I'll think on that part. But methinks I've got my case built already! And this thing NEEDS a case. That fabric is like an accident waiting to happen. I can't believe people pay $400+ for these things and they don't come with a case. The box it shipped in will only last so long, you know?

Mwuahahah! The brain is working well tonight, amazingly enough. LID = channel routed into the sides of the top opening, and you slide another piece of hardboard in there. Oh, I'm damn good tonight. If I had the materials I'd go make sawdust right now. Hopefully I remember all this crap in the morning.

Way to go, Mike! It really feels good when inspiration hits, doesn't it?

You could try doubling up on the cheap lycra, two layers may work better.

I've put diffusion gel on my LED strips to make them less beam-y...I used Light Hamburg Frost, taped to the inside of the plastic bezel. It's not a huge difference but it helps. If you're willing to lose a little bit of light output you could use the heavier frost gels. One sheet is about 15-20$ shipped and was enough for all my strips.

whines wrote:You could try doubling up on the cheap lycra, two layers may work better.

I've put diffusion gel on my LED strips to make them less beam-y...I used Light Hamburg Frost, taped to the inside of the plastic bezel. It's not a huge difference but it helps. If you're willing to lose a little bit of light output you could use the heavier frost gels. One sheet is about 15-20$ shipped and was enough for all my strips.

Thanks for the tips. Funny you should mention doubling up the fabric. Now that the facade is done (pics below) and I can see two panels back to back, doubling of the fabric is exactly the look I would like. However, I really had to stretch the crap out of this Lycra to get it wrinkle-free and taut. Doubled up fabric would be very difficult to stretch properly, IMO. Though I've never tried it, TBH. I just don't THINK it would work well...though it would look PERFECT if I could pull it off.

Allrighty. So here we go. It's all done, folks. I even built a transport case for the facade. I lived in the garage the entire day, basically.

Piano hinge attached to the middle frame, right frame to the right.


Center and right frames attached.


Right frame folded on top of center frame.


Did the same for the left frame and here's the final result. Various pics from inside the garage and in the house.





Facade folded onto itself. This is when I realized "Wow, a double layer of fabric would've been perfect."


The fabric in the window is an accident waiting to happen, TBH. Transporting it..heck, picking it up is asking for trouble. This bothers me A LOT. It goes completely against my MILSPEC way of thinking. So I had to build some kind of transport case for it. This case was not designed to be "a flightcase" or watertight or dust-proof or anything like that. My intent was simply to protect it during normal usage/storage/transport. So the bottom line is that I built "a giant, enclosed picture frame on wheels" for it. Yeah, that's it.

1'x4" boards. Exact same material the facade is built out of. This is the frame.


Frame with one side of 3/8" hardboard added. That center piece is only there to support the hardboard while I screwed it down around the edges. It is NOT in the final product.


Second hardboard side added with 1/2" ply reinforcement strips at the top. It was a bit wobbly for my tastes.


Before assembling the frame, I routed a groove in the top of the side panels.


Then added these little cutoff pieces of scrap.


And they hold in the hardboard "lid/top" that closes the box.



This big, skinny box needs feet. So I fabbed up some little caster dollies.


Marked where they go on each end of the bottom of the box.


And PL'd and screwed them in place. I actually did not want to PL them but got caught up in the moment. Oh well, too late now.
Mandatory PL-Squeezeout pic.






The facade fits inside with room to spare. I built my facade, and sized the case, to the seemingly industry-standard 4'x4' size (folded or whatever). That way, if down the road I decide to buy one of the fancy, perfect, aluminum-framed-plexi-window models, I already have a case for it. Thanks for looking.