MY PROJECT DIARY: Steve Casey

Here are some parting shots in different lighting with some details of the unit. Everything worked out as expected and it looks even more dramatic than I had hoped. We are now enjoying state of the art images and sound and it is quite impressive. The cobbler finally has some really nice shoes!

I want to thank Matt Berger for inviting me to do this blog which got me motivated to finally do this project. I want to thank my #1 man Alex for all his help and 13+ years of loyal service. Thanks to my son Bryce for helping with the photography and hooking up all that new technology. Thanks to all my industry colleagues and friends who helped out with advice and great discounts on equipment. And most of all thanks to all of you who jumped in on the comments and the thousands of viewers (5466 unique visitors as of this writing) that followed along “looking over my shoulder”. 

I have an open invitation from Matt and the FWWNetwork to do this again anytime I have an appropriate project and the time to document it. I’ll keep my eye out for something interesting.

Till then,

Adios Amigos.

Steve Casey, March 28, 2006

PS: If you are just checking in this is the last post on the blog. Go to the sidebar and click the Archive button to start at the beginning. Start on the post with the earliest date and work your way back.

Pocket door open

Removable skirt

Media storage drawers

Rope light                                                                   

Cobblers really nice new shoes

5.1channel sound from one source

Every once in a while something comes along where you just know things are going to be very different from here on out when you see it . Or in this case hear it. Yamaha has some new technology that does for sound systems what plasma systems did for display technology. It changes the whole game. 

As mentioned I set this room up for a home theater experience and prewired it for a full 5 channel sound system. I pulled wire in the framing stage for the rears channels and fully expected to run a five speaker system with a sub to get the sound to go with the image I now have. I was dreading having to find speakers my jaded ears and wimpy pocket book could stand. Five well-matched quality speakers and a subwoofer are not cheap. And you must physically hook them all up and then tune them to the space. In my case as in almost every room I have been in, the space is not ideal. Far from it as I have no window coverings or soft surfaces other than the couch and carpet to absorb dreaded reflected sound. I figured we could get by with our old crappy cheapo speakers till I can come up with the budget for the good stuff and full-length curtains over all the windows. Maybe in 2008 I might be able to pull that off. 

That was until I talked to my buddy Brad Wells  http://bradfordwells.com/Tour_MJ.htm

who just happens to be one of the best A/V guys in the business. He told me about a system that from one speaker and a small support subwoofer you could achieve full surround sound in any environment that rivals anything but the very best true five speaker setups he has done.  Uhhh…. Yeah sure! He goes on to explain the technology of beaming focused sound originally developed for military purposes has been refined into one of the coolest products to come along since flat screen TV. From one speaker the size of a large skinny center channel you will hear full surround sound that will defy comprehension. Uhhh…. Yeah sure again! And not only that, it is self-calibrating to optimize any space it is in. It also retails for about one third of what the starting price for what I would consider good set of speakers to cost. And ….the best part is, all the lousy hard surfaces and parallel walls that give us fits in home theater environments actually make the thing work better.  Ok this guy is whacked cause if it’s true we just found the Holy Grail of sound systems. But I know he’s not because I have done several projects with the Bradman and he does not blow smoke about equipment. Long story short I demoed the unit at Shelley’s and got hold of one for myself right after I heard it.

As mentioned early in the blog I was in a quandary about placement of the center channel speaker. I decided to run it above the screen on the shelf with left and right speakers on shelves like in the drawing. This unit goes in the same space as the center channel speaker but there is no need for speakers on the side or in the back of the room. Brad hooked me up with a small high-powered subwoofer that I placed on the left side of the room visually hidden beside a nice old toy box we have there. The YSP 1000 is actually the system amplifier so you hook up your equipment directly to it. I had Bryce do all that and then run the calibration program. That involves placing an included microphone in the seating position then getting out of the way while the unit sends out sound beams then adjusts itself to optimum sound for your environment.

With that all done, we got to demo the system. Amazing is all I have to say. Hearing crickets in Xbox 360 games five feet out and six feet over to the side from one speaker in the middle of the unit is downright… amazing. And movies!!! sound fills the whole room as well if not better than anything I have heard. You can also run this unit in several other modes like conventional two channel stereo with several different recreated sound environments like a jazz club.   I am loving that I just had to hook up a couple of wires then run a simple calibration so there is absolutely no guesswork on setup. Thanks Yamaha for the new A/V Holy Grail. This unit will change how I design systems at least as much as the flat panel displays have changed things as explained in my recent Fine Woodworking article. I am looking forward to being able to simplify my designs even further and the possibilities that this new technology will present.

Yamaha YSP1000

http://www.yamaha.com/yec/YSP1/idx_ysp1000.htm

Another review

http://www.i4u.com/section-viewarticle-117.html

Before

I set up the service stand and quickly make some simple square legs to support it. The removable front skirt makes a good support for them on the carpet to spread the weight. I roll it in to position and then rotate it for access. We decide on where the equipment belongs  and then set up the shelving to fit. Each piece goes in place then we can hook everything up.  We put the TV in it’s space and it doesn’t seem to stress anything. I sight the front edge of the platform and there is no visible sag. Good deal.

Roll out rack and stand

Installing the wall mount cleat

It’s D-Day and we will know for sure if things will go as planned. I built this space specifically to have an entertainment center on this wall but did not know at the time that I would be hanging the thing. If so, I would have put in some blocking to hold the lag bolts.  I had Bryce take pictures of all the walls in the framing stage right before we closed them so I could see what we had in the future. He found the pics, printed them out and we hung them up on the wall. Now we know what size the studs and posts are and where everything is. I laid out the cleat and bolted that in. I have ½” x 5’ long lags through the cleat and into the studs to hang the bottom mount on the wall. I check level with the mating cleat mounted to the center backboard to make sure things are correct. Once that is done I put the 5/8” threaded L hooks to catch the eyebolts on the outer edges.  It takes a while to get everything done and predrilled so we can just hang it up and through lag the unit when it goes in place.

Mounting system preassembled to backboard

Everything looks good so we go back to the shop and assemble the backs to the boxes. While we are at it I knock together some spacer boxes out of scrap to put on top of a couple of carts. The carts and spacer boxes will allow us to assemble the entire unit then just roll it back and drop it on the cleats and hooks.

Assembling the unit on carts

Alex and I drag the preassembled sides over to the house. They are heavy and awkward and make us realize we are not spring chickens anymore. Once set up on the carts we assemble the center back to the left side and then connect the right to that.  It goes easy and as planned. Everything comes together and fits tight. Yeah! I love when that happens. I put in the eyebolts and then install the rope backlight. By now it’s pushing 4:30, normal quitting time. We can’t quit now so I ask Alex to stay and we keep going. 24 is on tonight and we got three hours to finish up so we can watch. We were going to take video of the hang up for your viewing pleasure or (America’s Funniest Home Videos if it fell down) but I didn’t want to stop everything to set up the camera. Bryce used the video feature in the digital camera and took a few seconds of the hang. It was pretty anticlimactic though. We pushed it back to the wall, located the eyebolts on the hooks, and then pulled the spacer box off the left cart. It dropped right into place. Now to the right and pull that spacer. Miracle of miracles the hook lines up and with a little push the unit drops home. Nice! Alex takes a seat where the TV goes and I was going to join him to test the weight. I thought better of that and figured I should through bolt the piece to the studs before trying that stunt. Four more ½”X 6” lags through the unit into the studs secure everything. It is the Rock of Gibraltar and I save the embarrassment and all the extra work if it failed. 

I am not an idiot

Frame-web.jpg 70 K

frame

The raw TV frame

It looks like the TV manufacturer is NOT going to give me a TV for this project. Bummer, it was close but no cigar.  I decide to go with their best 62” even though I will have to pay for it. I'm still smarting from the hot ticket 386 computer setup I bought in 1986 that cost $8000.00 (that’s like $16K today) and was shot dead and absolutely worthless with the Y2K thing. As much as I hate to buy electronics that cost a fortune and are out of date before you get them out of the box, I write the check. It will serve us for many years to come and it should get the kids off my back about our old weak setup. It’s also an incredible value these days considering that a 62” screen with lower resolution cost $25k just a couple of years ago. I go to Shelly’s where Alon cuts me a great deal and then drive over to the warehouse to pick it up. The box is HUGE! Maybe I overdid this!!??  Nahhh…anyway it’s to late now, the unit is committed. Bryce gets home from school and sees the giant TV box in the truck. He is a very happy camper. I tell him to break down the old system and clear the space so we can set the new TV up to get the measurements I need to build the frame. We have it out of the box and temporarily in place and it is… HUGE. But it looks good and from where the couch sits it turns out to be the perfect size for the space. I get the dimensions I need and off to the shop I go to build the frame.

In the beginning of this affair I purchased what I thought was enough solid wood to do the entire job. That is important when you use wood that varies in color as much as mahogany does. Unfortunately on close inspection one of the boards I was counting has grain that is not up to grade. I need to get a replacement. That’s not too big a problem but it is  a big hassle nonetheless. I figure I’ll go to my local supplier Conejo Hardwoods to save me the long drive to Far West Plywood. They always have nice stuff and do again on this trip. I grab what looks like the right color and grain then head back.

I am mitering the frame together to have it look like a picture frame. I have the new Delta 12” 36-412 dual compound miter saw that will cut the 5” parts pretty close. I will hand fit each joint afterwards by trimming them in on my 20” disk sander. I get that all done then look closely at the piece that I just bought… and the color is way off! Mahogany varies as mentioned but the main stock is red and this piece is gold. I put water on it to see if the thing will fly and it’s not doing it. Not good. I go back to the original stock I first rejected and fit that in hoping that it will look better. I hassle with the fit then get it done. The color is good but the grain is way inconsistent with the rest of the job. Of course that is why I first rejected it but I was learning to love it especially after all that work and expense.  My wife happens in and takes a looks at it. She tells me what I already know but was justifying in my mind. “How come that piece doesn’t match?” Much swearing, cursing (not at my wife, at the wood) and a dreaded trip to the original supplier Far West and back ensue. An hour and change later I was cutting the third piece in for that part! It wasn’t as perfect a color match as I would like for all that trouble but it’ll do just fine dagnabit! The good news about mahogany is in six months all this wood will look close to the same color and a lot darker to boot. I glue it up and call it a day. Time to get out of the shop and go for a ride.

The next day I fit the inner trim. It’s a little tricky and I have to model the frame to the TV. It’s a short walk to the house but I have done it a million times. One of the worst things about having a shop seventy-five feet from your house is that it’s not that hard to double check things or take parts back and forth to make them fit perfect. And so I do.  I think I have walked a couple of thousand miles seventy-five feet at a time working on our house.

I find a nice piece of figured maple in my rack that will do the trick for the inner trim. I mill it all out and then do the final fit before I break it down for finish. Everything is complete and we can now install the unit.

Next up is Dday, the big install, where the rubber hits the road. We will know for sure after that if I’m a hero or an idiot.  

Alex oils up the panel

We get everything except the frame for the TV done. At this point I am still in the air on the display model  I am going to use. I am trying to work a promo deal with the manufacturer but am still waiting to hear back from them. It’s expensive and they have to figure if it’s worth it. If it’s not I will have to buy the dang thing. I’ll get a good deal from my buddy Alon at Shelly’s but it will still cost some real money. I made my inner box flexible enough to accommodate a 70” screen if I want to go to a bigger format in the future. With this design a new TV will only require that the trim frame be changed or remade. I’m thinking that the 62” is big enough since we are going from a 27”…but you never know.

The piece is broken back down into components. I weigh all the parts to see how much it weighs, as I am still concerned about it being too heavy. All the parts less the frame come to 435 pounds. Not bad, with the TV at 150# and the equipment at another 50 we are only hanging about 635# plus media in the drawers and cabinet. That works out to about 55#s a lineal foot. That doesn’t scare me so much cause I think when we bolt this up to the wall the backboard essentially becomes the wall and only the weight hanging on that is what I need to worry about.

Component parts are way easier to finish than a big piece. We oil everything up with Minwax clear oil to bring out the color of the mahogany. I use mahogany for the color it will become not what we are seeing now. In time it will be way darker and richer than the “green “ finish that we will see as we work it. After it cures Alex sands it and topcoats it with clear precatalyzed lacquer.

Reassembling after the finish is complete

The next day we reassemble the boxes and all the rest of the parts to make sure everything is aligned and working. It looks good. I’ll leave the backs off for now as I think that I will initially mount them on the wall by themselves. It will be a lot easier to handle the ¾” back to get the position and mounting right. When I do then I can attach them to the boxes, bring each side in separately and then assemble the whole unit in the house. All we have to do now is the TV frame and we can get this unit installed

Mounting cleat from the back view. I have a piece of 3/4" hard birch on the face side to sandwich the back for extra strength.

From the beginning of the design process when I decided that I wanted to have this unit float off the floor I was creating a problem for myself. How do you hang a twelve-foot wide unit with all the equipment in it on the wall? Good question. I have hung a few heavy things on walls before but nothing on this scale. I am taking a risk here that I will be able to engineer a workable solution. In my mind I have the weight handled but real life may not cooperate with me.

The fact is until we install this unit, I don’t know for sure if it will work. I think it will... but I have been wrong before. So I am going to take a “beef the hell out of it” approach. I don’t have any formal engineering training but I do have thirty years experience putting things together to give me a feel for things. I think that since I can spread the weight out over those 12 ft. I will not stress anything too much.

What I need to do is convert the weight of the unit from it wanting to peel itself off the wall to a straight up and down sheer force. My whole connected box design is a structure that I believe will accomplish this. I think it would be easy with a full-length cleat across the top and bottom with half through bolted to the unit and the mates lagged to the studs on the wall. There are other concerns though. The space that the cleat occupies is also my convection chimney and cable chase.

I have to strategically place the cleats to allow airflow and cables to go unhindered, those are a couple of the main objectives of this design. So I have to break up the cleat on top and bottom. I knew this going in and go ahead and make the cleats. I uses good quality dried Douglas fir studs glued up to make the 2-1/4 in. space I want behind the backboard. Actually I want 2-1/2 in. but I figure the wall will be out at least the extra ¼ in. and so I make the cleats smaller to compensate. I use a 15-degree angle so that the unit will go tight to the wall as it goes down on it. I mount half of it to the back of the unit and screw into it from the birch nailer on the inside of the TV box through the ply back and into the Doug fir with ten 3 in. drywall grabbers. I will lag through that again into the wall studs when things are in place.

Since the top cleat does not go all the way across I am concerned that I need more support across that top line. I do not want to restrict air as mentioned and need to bolt through or attach to some of the structure and not just the ply back to feel good about getting the strength I want. There is not much space for a cleat on the other side of the openings, and if I did mount one on each side of the unit there is no guarantee I would catch a stud where I want it. After I get it together my gut tells me I may need more top cleat than what I have. I could be wrong though and will probably hang it up like it is to test it. If it flies I am done, if it looks scary I need a way to add strength to the top mount. Hmmmmmm?????. I look and think....... and come up with an idea that I believe will work. I can screw ½ in. L-bolts into the studs on the outer edges and then screw an eyelet into the unit at the top shelf that will drop over and capture it. I can adjust the depth of the L and eye to be nice and tight and put two on each side of the main cleat if it needs it. I can even place them directly over the openings with no ill effect.

I will probably just go ahead and do this as it works with my “beef the hell out of it” concept. The bottom cleats will be installed to carry some weight but are more to balance the force against the wall the top cleat will create as the weight is redirected to the bottom of the boxes to push in on the wall. Anyway, I hope it works. We will all find out when I do the installation.

You might think this is a little more than nutty to not know for sure and still move forward with all the work. But I do it all the time. I never know that anything is going to work or fit for sure until the day we install a project. There are so many things that can go wrong and Murphy says they will, so I go in with an open mind. I don’t want to have to do things over and I do everything in my power to do things right but I have been doing this too long to think I am infallible. Far from it, I am still amazed when everything goes without a hitch.

I do have a plan B if all fails. I can stand the thing on a conventional base and then reconfigured the TV space to move the TV up to proper height. I don’t want to do that but I could if I had to. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.