Make Your Own Monitor Hood : DIY

Ok, so my old 19in Hitachi died after a long 12 year service, and so i was left with just my main screen. My Formac 2010, I've been using a dual screen (sometimes tripple) for a long time now and i've gotten used to being able to have Photoshop open on one screen and InDesign open on the other for page layouts.. I wanted to purchase another 2010 as I've been so impressed with it performance over the years, colour correct out of the box, the only thing i had to adjust was the brightness..

Over on POTN there have been a lot of threads about which monitor should I purchase etc. so I got reading a few and the same screen kept appearing the HP LP2475 after carefully scouring the web looking for all the information I could about this screen, I decided that the price direct from HP was just £60.00 more than I would pay for a new 2010.. So I the button on it last Friday, I received an e-mail from HP saying that they would have the screen in stock in 9 days and it would be delivered 2-3 days after that, well lo and behold I got a surprise on Tuesday afternoon, a nice man delivered the screen!

Having never suffered from screen glare with the 2010 (I guess Formac must coat it with a good anti-glare material) I was looking at purchasing a Hood for my new LP2475, the Pro Hoods retailed at about the £160.00 mark and the not so Pro looked to be around the £50-60 mark. So I had a little think, did a little phoning around for some black foamcore, used for model making and mounting, I couldn't find a shop around or online that had black in stock, I could have white if I wanted, but not black..

I was starting to think that I wouldn't be able to do it with foamcore, so popped down my local craft shop, Hobbycraft to get some Mounting Card, it's heavier than the foamcore would be, and quite flimsy when in large sheets, but cut down to the size I wanted, it should be ok, well I figured..

To my surprise when I was looking through the Mounting Card, right next to it was some white foamcore, well now I had a different plan! buy some white foamcore and then paste some black art paper onto the outside of it. So I grabbed the materials and started off to find the Velcro® I was going to use to attach everything to the monitor. HEY!! WOW!! look black foamcore!!! I couldn't believe my luck! they did black foamcore! (I had tried looking on the Hobbycraft website, but its useless for trying to find anything!) so back when the extra's I was going to purchase and out came an A1 size sheet of black foamcore! next stop Velcro®!

So many different options for the Velcro® in the end I went for a 2.5M strip of it, that way if it ever comes loose from the screen I can put some fresh stuff in its place. Next on the list as with any good Blue Peter host came the sticky back plastic (tape). With my list of things complete it was back to the office to plan the different sections needed.

part 2