MAKE | Make: Projects – Glass Bead Projection Screen

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By Sean Michael Ragan
Posted 2011/04/01 @ 6:00 am
Category Art & Design, Furniture, Home, Science

Here’s a method for applying a high-gain optical projection surface made from common, inexpensive materials—specifically, flat white interior latex paint and glass sandblasting media. This project began as a series of experiments to produce a DIY “screen paint” by directly mixing these two ingredients, which didn’t actually work, but did lead to the serendipitous discovery of this process.

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BY Sean Michael Ragan

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I write for MAKE, serve as Technical Editor for MAKE magazine, and develop original DIY content for Make: Projects.

In the Maker Shed

14 Responses to Make: Projects – Glass Bead Projection Screen

Christian Restifo on April 1st, 2011 at 2:09 pm said:

It’d be interesting to see this done with the glass beads they use for road paint. Those are specifically made to be clear spheres that are sunk part way into the paint to improve reflection.

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- Walter on April 1st, 2011 at 3:36 pm said:
  
  I’ve got a jar of the road paint beads. There was some spilled on the side of the road in my neighborhood. I collected them for a project similar to this one. I plan to coat a piece of glass in the beads to create a transparent projection screen.
  
  I got the idea from something similar that I saw at a shop in Disney’s Contemporary Resort. It was a sheet of glass with a video being projected onto it. The glass had a rainbowy effect to it similar to a puddle of water and oil. The road paint beads give off the same rainbow effect.
  
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Daniel Morgan on April 1st, 2011 at 2:24 pm said:

This is amazing, Sean.

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JamesW on April 1st, 2011 at 5:49 pm said:

I would think possibly using white paint as a base layer, then some sort of adhesive (spray or roll-on) might work better. After all, paint is meant to paint stuff, and glue is meant to stick stuff. As long as the glue dries clear, of course.

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- Sean Michael Ragan on April 3rd, 2011 at 5:39 am said:
  
  I tried that, first. The beads have to be halfway embedded in a white reflective material. See my notes and the comments on my notes from my first set of experiments:
  
  http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/02/diy-projection-screen-paint-tests.html
  
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David Smolkin on April 1st, 2011 at 8:55 pm said:

So what are we actually looking at? Is this a screen with a higher reflectivity, resulting in brighter pictures?

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Jared Boehm on April 1st, 2011 at 9:06 pm said:

Look up “retroreflector” in your friendly neighborhood search engine. That’s what this guy has done. Excellent work.

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Kris on April 1st, 2011 at 9:20 pm said:

Very cool indeed. One thing I notice though. There is no information about contrast. I would like to see how dark tones compare to the light tones.

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Kris on April 1st, 2011 at 9:21 pm said:

Very cool indeed. One thing I do notice though. There is no example how contrast works out. I would like to see blacks and whites in comparision in dark and daylight.

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Tim Harris on April 2nd, 2011 at 5:35 am said:

I did this a few years ago with my goped. I painted it and threw glass sandblasting media on it to make it more reflective when riding at night. Works great!

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Anonymous on April 21st, 2011 at 3:41 pm said:

awesome tips cant wait to try this. i guess i have to buy a projector

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Projector Screen Paint on November 12th, 2011 at 10:05 am said:

I like the pictures shown in this article! It looks real nice. But I am happy not to use a screen with glass. I like the pure colours of a wall painted with high-end-screen-paint.

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