| DIY Home Theater October 2005
 Two Projects for Your
DIY Home Theater
Like any other big project, building a home theater
can bring with it times of disappointment and frustration. These can arise for a number of
reasons, some of them from causes outside our control. A tough period at your job might
limit the amount of time you can work on the project, or the building inspector might fail
to meet you at the appointed time. At other times, you might be making progress overall,
but you’ll still feel that things are taking too long. You might simply not feel like
putting in another day of hard labor over the weekend. At times like these, it might help
to have smaller projects that can be completed in a couple of hours and give you a sense
of accomplishment.
In this installment I’ll look at two such projects: a
center-channel speaker stand and a projector mount. Neither is labor-intensive, and each
of them can be completed easily in an afternoon and costs just a few dollars.
Center-channel speaker stand
Your finished home theater may be elaborate when it’s
finished, but in the meantime, while construction continues but the room is still usable,
you might need a temporary stand. When my home theater was set up with a television, I
could place the center-channel speaker on the TV stand easily enough, but my new
projector-based system requires a center-channel under the screen. When everything is
finished, I may mount the center speaker on the wall, but for now I just want a stand that
I can use both with my own speaker and any review speakers that come along. You could, of
course, buy a ready-made center-speaker stand, but they aren’t easy to find, and when
you do, they’re pretty expensive. The plan I outline here costs less than $15 and has
served me well.
I poked around at my local home center to see what I could
come up with. In the shelving aisle, I came across small shelves of medium-density
fiberboard (MDF) that are intended to be used with vertical tracks and brackets. The
shelves are made by Rubbermaid and came in a variety of sizes and finishes; I chose black
shelves 24" wide and 8" deep. I knew one of these shelves would make a good
support for the speaker, but I hadn’t yet decided how to construct the stand itself.
Initially, I thought I could use threaded rods for the stand legs by drilling a hole in
each corner and connecting the rods with nuts and washers to the shelf. On reflection, I
thought that might not be stable enough for a heavy speaker, and that it wouldn’t
leave enough room on the top of the stand -- the nuts and washers would take up valuable
space. I put one of the shelves in my basket and continued browsing.
Sticking with the idea of four legs, I looked at some
wooden rods and considered screwing them into the shelf to use as legs, but I wasn’t
convinced that this would work very well. Thinking about the stands I use for my Axiom
M3ti speakers, I remembered that their speaker shelves are supported by a single, large
column affixed to a base at the bottom. Because a center-channel stand would have to be
wider, I figured I would need one big support at either end of the stand and a second
shelf for the base.
In the store’s plumbing section I found metal pipes
with threaded ends, in various lengths and diameters. There were also small metal plates
that would accept the threaded ends of the pipes, with screw holes around the perimeter of
the plate. I picked out two pipes 6" long and 1" in diameter, and
3"-diameter plates that accepted the 1" pipes. Screwing plates onto both ends of
two pipes, I made a mockup of the speaker stand right there in the aisle with two of the
Rubbermaid shelves. It looked pretty good. Looking back on it now, I might have chosen
longer, wider pipes (I suggest you do, too), but these looked fine to me at the time. I
put the four plates, two pipes, and two shelves in my cart and headed for the cashier.
Each shelf cost $3.79, each pipe $0.97, and each plate $1.19, for a whopping total of
$14.28 USD.
The parts
Partly put together
The finished product
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Another good thing about a project such as this is that,
unlike with framing or drywalling, I was happy to let my five-year-old son help me. When I
got home, I had him bring the materials down to the theater room. I got my cordless drill,
tape measure, marker, screwdriver, and some screws from the workbench. Here’s what we
did:
- Determine where the pipes should be placed by screwing the
plates on to the pipes, then placing them between the shelves where it seems right: not
too close to the edges, not too close to the middle. The centers of our pipes ended up
4" from the edge of the shelf and 4" from the front and back. Knowing where I
wanted to fasten the plates to the shelves, I marked on the shelves where they would go
and then took the whole thing apart. Because the shelf was black, the marks didn’t
show up very well, but they were clear enough for me to work with.
- Using the measurements from step 1, determine where the
plate will be when everything is finished and mark where you will screw it to the shelf.
The plates had four screw holes, so I marked each one with my marker and drilled pilot
holes. You can make the pilot holes for all four plates now, but don’t put the screws
in yet.
- Using the pilot holes from step 2, attach two of the plates
to one of the shelves with your trusty screwdriver. I used #10 3/4" wood screws,
which worked well. If your kid is helping, let him screw these in -- it’s easy going
and doesn’t take long.
- Screw the pipes into the plates that you’ve attached to
the shelf, then screw the remaining two plates into the pipes once they’ve been
attached. This is another kid-friendly step.
- Line up the plates you’ve just attached to the pipes
with the pilot holes on the remaining shelf and screw everything together. Two things to
remember: First, don’t make the mistake of screwing the plates to the shelf before
screwing the pipes to the plate -- if you do, you won’t be able to screw the pipes
onto the plates. Second, this last step is not very difficult, but was the hardest part of
the project for me. My screwdriver was too big to fit nicely between the two shelves, so I
had to screw in these last screws at a slight angle. This is not noticeable in the
finished product, but you might want to keep it in mind.
That’s it! A simple and attractive speaker stand for
just a little time and money. It might not get you much closer to your well-appointed home
theater, but it’s a quick and useful project.
Projector mount
For the first few months I had my projector, I was lazy --
I kept it on a small table in the theater room. This worked well enough, except that I was
a bit nervous when my son had friends over to watch a movie -- you might not want to trust
even a group of well-intentioned five-year-olds with a delicate projector within
arm’s reach. I also had a problem with my dog standing right in the way of a movie --
nothing kills the suspense of a good thriller like a giant golden retriever-shaped shadow
on the screen. I knew that I would eventually mount the projector on the ceiling, but that
seemed a difficult and time-consuming project. Again, a trip to the home center and some
careful thinking made it easier and cheaper than I thought it would be.
I’ll spare you the details of the trial-and-error
process and get right to the project. Here’s what you’ll need to get started:
- Two 2’ x 2’ handyman boards cut to a size
appropriate for your projector. You’ll want the boards to be slightly bigger than the
projector, which you’ll need to measure. You can ask the home center to cut it for
you, which they’ll likely do for free.
- Appropriate screws for your projector. If you look at the
bottom of your projector, you’ll notice screw holes for securing it to a mount. These
differ from model to model, so you’ll need to check your own projector. In all
likelihood, the owner’s manual will tell you what size screws you’ll need.
- Two small metal plates 2" in diameter and a 2"
threaded pipe like the ones we used in the speaker stand. You can use different lengths or
diameters if you want.
- Four 2" wood screws of 1/4" diameter.
- Four 1" bolts of 1/4" diameter.
- Four 3" bolts of 1/4" diameter.
- Four wing nuts to go with the bolts listed in step 6.
- 12 nuts and washers to fit the bolts in steps 5 and 6.
Ceiling-attached projector mount
Viewed from the side, opened up
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Here are the steps:
- Make a template of the screw holes on the bottom of your
projector. Tape the template to one of the boards and drill holes where appropriate.
- On the other board, position one of the metal plates at the
center of the board and mark on the board where the plate’s holes are. Drill
1/4" holes to accept the bolts.
- Drill holes in the four corners of each of the boards about
1" from the edges to accept the 3" bolts.
- Locate a ceiling joist where you can mount the projector.
Each projector is different, so you’ll need to determine where this is for your
projector and room. If there’s no ceiling joist where you need one, you’ll need
to build a brace for this mount to work. Do not attach this mount only to the
ceiling drywall, which won’t be strong enough to support a heavy projector. Once
you’ve located the ceiling joist, screw one of the small metal plates to it with four
screws.
- Attach the pipe to the plate on the ceiling and the other
plate to the pipe.
- Attach the plate to the board that you drilled the four
holes into in step 2 by putting the four 1" bolts into the holes in the plate and
putting washers and nuts on the bolts on the side of the board opposite the plate.
- Put the four 3" bolts through the four corner holes on
the board from step 6 and attach them using washers and nuts. If you’re sure where
the projector should hang, you could use shorter bolts, but I wanted to be able to adjust
the height, so I used the 3" bolts. Once you’ve tightened the nuts and washers
to the top board, put one of the remaining nuts on each of the bolts about 1" up from
the bottom.
- Carefully screw your projector to the board from step 1,
using the appropriate screws.
- Attach the assembly resulting from step 8 to the bolts from
step 7 by first putting washers on the bolts, then raising the projector-board assembly
into place and securing with the wing nuts. A second pair of hands is helpful in this
step, but you can do it yourself if necessary.
- Connect your projector to a source and line up the picture.
You can make vertical adjustments with the four wing nuts on the bottom of the completed
projector-mount combination. Lateral adjustments can be made by slightly unscrewing the
plate attached to the pipe, but be careful not to unscrew it too much. Anyway, if
you’ve done a decent job of lining it up, lateral adjustments shouldn’t be
necessary. Some adjustments can probably be made within the projector itself.
This isn’t as pretty as the speaker stand, but
it’s significantly cheaper than any projector mount you can buy, and later can either
be replaced or enclosed in a more attractive box. It nicely does the job of keeping the
projector away from the kids, and my dog can now stand wherever she likes.
...Eric Hetherington
erich@hometheatersound.com
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