Where to put the telly?

[magictime]

5 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Why do you assume the plywood on your cabin side is too flimsy?

Sheer ignorance. I hear 'plywood' and I think 'thin'. And then I look at the whacking great inch-long screws supplied with TV brackets and think 'hmm, if they need screws to go that deep...'. 

8 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

What weight is this enormous telly??!!!

About 4.5kg, I think.

Maybe I should just stop fretting and put something up on the wall...

[rusty69]

5 minutes ago, blackrose said:

I just put mine on top of a cupboard. 

I think your tv's melting. Turn that fire down. 

[MtB]

5 minutes ago, magictime said:

Sheer ignorance. I hear 'plywood' and I think 'thin'.

 

Ah. This is can be a massively wrong assumption. Not all plywood is thin. Your floor for example is probably plywood, 19mm thick. Is your floor all floppy and bendy? 

I'd suggest looking upwards under the gunwales to see if you can see the lower edge of the wall plywood. It is probably about 9mm thick which will be plenty strong enough to support a 4.5kg telly. 

[magictime]

7 minutes ago, Athy said:

My thought entirely; that's bigger than the one in our lounge at home. That's a 26" and we are thinking of upgrading to a 28" model. A 29" screen would look far too large in such a confined space as a narrowboat's saloon.

All I can say is that you're clearly looking for a completely different viewing experience from me, just as someone happy to listen to music on their phone is looking for a completely different listening experience from someone listening on a hi-fi system. 

[MtB]

Even 8mm ply will probably be fine. You could spread the load by cutting say a piece of 12mm ply a foot square and screwing that to the wall first, then screwing the telly bracket to that.

[David Mack]

8 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

I'd suggest looking upwards under the gunwales to see if you can see the lower edge of the wall plywood. It is probably about 9mm thick which will be plenty strong enough to support a 4.5kg telly. 

But it would be sensible to use hollow wall fixings which clamp behind the plywood rather than rely on screw threads gripping in the relatively thin panel.

[MtB]

Just now, David Mack said:

But it would be sensible to use hollow wall fixings which clamp behind the plywood rather than rely on screw threads gripping in the relatively thin panel.

 

No-one has ever designed a truly satisfactory hollow wall fixing. I'd prefer to either rely on lots of small screws all over the area of the reinforcing panel (one could easily use 20), or glue it on. Actually I'd probably do both.  

[Athy]

14 minutes ago, magictime said:

All I can say is that you're clearly looking for a completely different viewing experience from me, just as someone happy to listen to music on their phone is looking for a completely different listening experience from someone listening on a hi-fi system. 

Not a good analogy, as the size of the set surely does not affect the quality of picture or sound, but I take your point; you want a sort of home cinema effect, fair enough.

[Psycloud]

19 hours ago, magictime said:

I'm starting to drive myself slightly nuts here with what should be a pretty basic task! We've bought a nice smallish TV for the boat - a 29" ultrawide as it happens - and I'm now left wondering what to do with it exactly. The walls being ply, I assume they won't take the weight of a bracket and TV - which suggests buying some sort of unit to stand the TV on, but you're then (a) eating into valuable floorspace and (b) potentially leaving the TV teetering more than I'm happy with while out cruising and at risk of the occasional 'lurch'. Plus ideally we want it fairly central in the saloon, above the radiator, opposite the sofa, not off in a corner. The only reasonably thick, solid surface available to support anything much, if I'm right about the ply walls, is the skirting board/dado rail-type bit of wood just above the gunwales, which is only about 6cm high and won't fit a TV bracket. Best I can come up with at the minute is a floating-shelf 'mantelpiece' attached to that with the TV and blu-ray player standing on it, maybe with some fabric-type wall fittings attached to the wall behind the TV and to the TV's VESA holes, to prevent any falls. Any bright ideas? What does everyone else do?

We have a 40" TV screwed to our plywood walls - it's been living there happily for 5 years and endures the violent rocking from side to side employed when pumping the toilets out.  We used a hefty bracket and has about 12 screws holding it up.

 

Edited March 2, 2018 by Psycloud
Heft-y

[magictime]

49 minutes ago, Athy said:

Not a good analogy, as the size of the set surely does not affect the quality of picture or sound, but I take your point; you want a sort of home cinema effect, fair enough.

Well, the size of the set affects the viewer's ability to perceive and appreciate the picture quality available at a given viewing distance. Sit 10 feet away from a 28" Full HD TV and it won't look much different from an old SD set, because you just can't see all the available detail at that distance. Sit the same distance from a 65" TV with the same resolution and the benefits of all those extra pixels become apparent. Perhaps a better analogy would have been listening to hi-fi  speakers 10 feet away in the lounge vs. 20 feet away in the kitchen; the audio quality is strictly speaking there, but the listener is in no position to appreciate it.

6 minutes ago, Psycloud said:

We have a 40" TV screwed to our plywood walls - it's been living there happily for 5 years and endures the violent rocking from side to side employed when pumping the toilets out.  We used a heft bracket and has about 12 screws holding it up.

Interesting! Maybe my bracket with six screw holes will be fine, then.

Edited March 2, 2018 by magictime

[TheBiscuits]

7 minutes ago, magictime said:

Interesting - but I'm going to have to ask what you mean by 'heft bracket'. (Google is drawing a blank!)

Hefty? 

[magictime]

Just now, TheBiscuits said:

Hefty? 

Dammit! I really hoped I'd edited my post before anyone noticed the stupidity of that question.

[TheBiscuits]

3 minutes ago, magictime said:

Dammit! I really hoped I'd edited my post before anyone noticed the stupidity of that question.

No such thing as a stupid question.

Ill thought out maybe

Seriously if you came across an unfamiliar term and googled it to learn more, you win the internet!

[Psycloud]

16 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

Hefty? 

Yes - sorry - frozen fingers

[WotEver]

1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

No-one has ever designed a truly satisfactory hollow wall fixing.

I disagree. (It’s about time I did, it’s been a few weeks...)

I have a range of hollow wall fixings that I use dependant on what the wall is constructed of. For plywood with a sufficiently deep and clear void behind it I’d probably go for spring toggles. If there’s not enough space for the toggles to operate then I’ve always found these to be highly effective: https://www.screwfix.com/p/rawlplug-hollow-wall-anchors-m5-x-37mm-20-pack/99201?tc=FT4&ds_kid=92700023382265953&ds_rl=1249481&ds_rl=1245250&gclid=Cj0KCQiAieTUBRCaARIsAHeLDCRrPTSscyur6aSf_Y6a4cG6ZLPS5IR37uOJp090vzvmoww16JfRJPwaAkBwEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CM-1sZC5zdkCFUqp7Qodow8IxA#product_additional_details_container

If the plywood is for instance 9mm then you’d require more screws than there are holes in the bracket for a secure fixing if simply using 10mm screws. 

Edit to add that those Rawlplug fixings above are good for 12kg each, so each one would hold nearly three of the OP’s TVs. 

Edited March 2, 2018 by WotEver

[nb Innisfree]

Do as Mtb suggests but you could  first inject PU foam behind ply to give added strength. (wait 24 hrs for it to cure) 

[TheBiscuits]

1 minute ago, WotEver said:

I disagree. (It’s about time I did, it’s been a few weeks...)

I have a range of hollow wall fixings that I use dependant on what the wall is constructed of. For plywood with a sufficiently deep and clear void behind it I’d probably go for spring toggles. If there’s not enough space for the toggles to operate then I’ve always found these to be highly effective: https://www.screwfix.com/p/rawlplug-hollow-wall-anchors-m5-x-37mm-20-pack/99201?tc=FT4&ds_kid=92700023382265953&ds_rl=1249481&ds_rl=1245250&gclid=Cj0KCQiAieTUBRCaARIsAHeLDCRrPTSscyur6aSf_Y6a4cG6ZLPS5IR37uOJp090vzvmoww16JfRJPwaAkBwEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CM-1sZC5zdkCFUqp7Qodow8IxA#product_additional_details_container

If the plywood is for instance 9mm then you’d require more screws than there are holes in the bracket for a secure fixing if simply using 10mm screws. 

Those work much better if you have the puller tool for them.  It flattens the cage evenly rather than twisting it.

[WotEver]

1 minute ago, TheBiscuits said:

Those work much better if you have the puller tool for them.  It flattens the cage evenly rather than twisting it.

Yes, they should always be used with the (very cheap) setting tool. 

Although even if you don’t use the setting tool the teeth on the outside resist rotation. 

[Richard10002]

On my boat, the ply between the floor and the gunnels has a solid feel and a drill goes quite a way before coming out the other side, so my assumption is that it's fairly thick, and well secured. The ply above the gunnels has a less solid feel, except where the battens are, actually "gives" a little when pressed, and a drill is through before you know it... so my assumption is that it's fairly thin, and less well secured, (possibly more to do with the size of the panels and distance between the battens where it's pinned, than the actual thickness.

My TV bracket is fixed to the ply below the gunnels and is solid as a rock. There is space to fix the bracket to the ply above the gunnels, which would raise it about 8" before interfering with the window. I could easily fit a nicely varnished panel between the battens, and under the window, to provide better support.

In fact, I've been thinking about a bigger TV....... 

[TheBiscuits]

2 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

In fact, I've been thinking about a bigger TV....... 

Get a little HD projector and adjust the size of the projection to suit your mood

 

[Athy]

50 minutes ago, magictime said:

Well, the size of the set affects the viewer's ability to perceive and appreciate the picture quality available at a given viewing distance. Sit 10 feet away from a 28" Full HD TV and it won't look much different from an old SD set, because you just can't see all the available detail at that distance. Sit the same distance from a 65" TV with the same resolution and the benefits of all those extra pixels become apparent. Perhaps a better analogy would have been listening to hi-fi  speakers 10 feet away in the lounge vs. 20 feet away in the kitchen; the audio quality is strictly speaking there, but the listener is in no position to appreciate it.

 

Yes, it would, that makes more sense.

65" T.V? Is that a misprint. Now that WOULD be the size of the screen in one of those small sub-divided cinemas!

[magictime]

1 hour ago, Athy said:

65" T.V? Is that a misprint. Now that WOULD be the size of the screen in one of those small sub-divided cinemas!

No, that's actually one of the commonly available sizes for modern TVs - 42" to 65" is roughly the range of sizes I'd expect to see marketed as 'main'/living-room TVs by the big manufacturers nowadays (smaller sizes usually being sold as 'second'/bedroom TVs). It's also just a wee bit on the small side (!) in terms of the recommended size to appreciate maximum picture detail, and achieve an optimal viewing angle, at viewing distance of 10'.

[Athy]

3 minutes ago, magictime said:

No, that's actually one of the commonly available sizes for modern TVs - 42" to 65" is roughly the range of sizes I'd expect to see marketed as 'main'/living-room TVs by the big manufacturers nowadays (smaller sizes usually being sold as 'second'/bedroom TVs). It's also just a wee bit on the small side (!) in terms of the recommended size to appreciate maximum picture detail, and achieve an optimal viewing angle, at viewing distance of 10'.

Ludicrous - the T.V. will dominate the room, and not in a nice way - just as, for example, furniture which is too large can spoil a room's proportions and appearance. Remind me not to get a "modern" TV (though we do now have a flat-screen one in the lounge, but a reasonable 26" screen size).

[MtB]

3 minutes ago, Athy said:

Ludicrous - the T.V. will dominate the room

 

I suspect that is the whole point of these gigantic tellys one sees in the chav shops.

(Not that I would ever go in one, obvs!)

[WotEver]

1 hour ago, Athy said:

65" T.V? Is that a misprint.

Nope. See...