So, my oldest got married a week ago, and my wife and youngest are in Mexico for a week helping to build houses for 3 families.....time to work on the theater again...

So a few days ago, I ordered up some more custom printed fabric for 2 more acoustical panels and to put a large star (Milky Way) image on my fiber optic star ceiling. I made 2 more frames, and then go down to business tonight...

I took the existing panels out of the room, removed the four M3s from the wall, and took down the 2 rear overhead M3s for Atmos.

I wasn't super happy with the results I was getting by trying a fairly new concept in placement for the rear overhead speakers to get them working well for 2 rows, so I said that heck with it, and am going to adjust them for primary 1st row coverage, and the back row will be a little less effective.

So that meant pulling out and re-running the rear speaker wires to move them back another 3 feet from where I had them before. This now falls within the official Dolby Atmos spec too. I also had to make new angled "blocks" for them to mount to in order to get a better angle on them as well. Not quite enough of an angle to justify ordering 2 more Axiom FMBs. The rear overheads will now pretty much be aligned with the middle of the side surrounds and the rear surrounds to "fill the gap" so to speak.

All initial drywall patching has been completed and I have a big box fan blowing air at the ceiling to try to speed up the first coat drying time since it is the thickest. Last time I put in a heater, but since it is summer, I don't want to be heating the inside of the house if at all possible.

I am also relocating the acoustical panels to make them a bit more aesthetic. Now with 4 panels per side, I will still have one at the front most FRP, but the 3 along the back of the side walls will line up under each wall sconce light. I think that this will look a lot cleaner, and I am still able to get good placement where it is needed. The 2 sheets of 2" OC703 should arrive tomorrow and I will get the insulation inside the frames, and the fabric attached to get them complete.

I also, as mentioned, needed to rip down my 4ft x 8ft fiber optic ceiling panel. Keep in mind that I had this back when very few people had any sort of star ceiling, so the more economical way to do it back then was to make a "window" to the stars. I did a test with some fabric and as long as I clip off the ends of the fiber optic strands (as they had a light coat of blue paint on them to "dull" them down a bit) to make them bright again, you can see them great through the printed fabric image. Also, the panel was made out of somewhat rough 2" styrofoam insulation, and the fiber optics were held in place with small globs of hot glue. You could see all of this before and it annoyed me for many years. Now that all gets covered up and you really can't see the texture at all due to the printed fabric. I am hoping that I can just wrap the styrofoam and have friction hold the fabric tight enough, but if not, a few light sprays with 3M 77 glue spray will do the trick. Tearing this sucker down by myself was a bit of a challenge as I used 3" long finishing nails shot in with my air gun at angles to, well, hold it securely. Good thing that the panel itself is light. It did make a bunch of spots that need a little bit of touch-up on the ceiling, but that is easy enough. I plan to put the star ceiling perpendicular to the way it was before, and parallel with the seats, positioned just in front of the first row.

Anyway, here are some pictures.

Wires in back pushed 3 feet rearward, star ceiling down.


Side wall panel hooks moved, or in the process of moving to be centered under the 3 wall sconce lights:


The other side. Notice the patch work on the closest wall sconce area showing where the panel used to be aligned with, and if you look closely, you will see two "nubs" lined up under the sconce edges to reflect how far I am moving that one. Maybe 8-10 inches forward:


And here is the Milky Way image draped over the 4ft x 8ft fiber optic panel when I was testing it. I didn't take a picture with the lights off, but you can easily see the fiber optics, trust me. Oh, and the printed image looks better than the photo depicts. The photo looks a little "washed out" but it isn't in person.

Farewell - June 4, 2020