What's up everyone? Welcome to The Durbin Compound! If we're meeting for the first time, my name is
Devin Durbin. Today we are going to mount a TV on the wall. I've probably mounted 50 or so TVs on the
wall using various mounts. My favorite mount is the Barkan mount from Menards. Nonetheless, get ready,
strap in, because this is one of those projects where you need a lot of patience.
And it's never going to go your way, no matter how many times you've done it. So
take it from me, I hope that you find value in today's content. I'm going to try to show you
guys everything that I know and just some tips and tricks along the way. Hope you guys enjoy.
All right, guys! So first things first, we're going to take this TV and we're going to mount it on
the wall behind. So this is right now sitting on a little wet bar kind of wine table. What we're going
to do is--everybody gets so excited about taking the TV feet off first, but it's crucial that you
just leave the TV on the stand while you work on the mount and get everything together. And then,
once we get the mount on the wall, we can take the stand off and place the TV on the mount. So
keep it on the feet. What we're going to do is we're going to spin it around
on our table here, so that we can work on the mount here. So I'm going to bring you
guys in close. I'm going to show you just how to do these screws on each mount so
that it has got the right amount of bite into the back of your TV and you're not messing anything up.
Okay we're going to go ahead and take our mount out of the box here. I'm going show you just
how to put this on the back of the TV. So every mount is going to come in a different shape or
style. And it's going to come with instructions. You can choose to read those instructions, or
you can go off of my video, but if you have any questions or concerns about the process, well,
consult your specific instructions for the mount that you bought. So in essence what happens here is
we have a standard plate like this and it's going to be about center in the back of the TV. Every TV
is going to have different mounting screws and a different pattern here on where it is. That's why
it comes with universal hardware. So we'll go ahead and get these universal arms out of the box here.
And they all come with these kind of slider looking pad with a nylon lock nut here in the
back. And that's basically to attach to our plate here. And we're going to fan these out
in a manner that will catch all of our screws and hold the TV nice and firm. So,
I'm going to go ahead and let's take the camera down to the floor. I'm going to show you how to
put this together. And then we'll kind of fit it up on the TV and I'll show you the next important
step. Okay, so now that we've built this crazy looking contraption, this X contraption that goes
on the back of the TV, we can go ahead and get it centered to the point where it's going to
catch all of our screws. Now the crucial part here is that you want to find the best screw
for the application. So your mount bracket will come with all kinds of different mounting
hardware. You want to pick the size that best fits the TV that you're looking at. So these holes are
a little shallow, and they are...they don't go in too terribly far, so we might need to put a spacer here.
So that's literally all that the shortest screw will thread in on this mounting bracket. So
I might need to go get different screws for this. Actually, for my purposes, this kit does not have
what I need to put it in the TV correctly. So these are really shallow holes and it only comes with
two of these short nuts, so, two of these short bolts here. So, good thing I have another set of
TV mount parts. It does come with four of these long ones. So it does have longer screws,
but of course these are going to stick out considerably further than what I need.
So all of that would basically be needing a spacer. So I'm not sure why my,
that my autofocus isn't working. Sorry! But see this bolt is sticking out considerable
amount and I'm not going to leave all that for a spacer to make up that distance. Now it does
come with four spacers and they're black plastic spacers and I will use those up here for the top
of the mount, but I'm going to get another set of screws. If you run into this situation where
the screws are too long for your application, don't run them down into your TV with excessive pressure.
Imagine that if you break the back of this metal piece here, you can damage your TV or damage
the mount. So you don't want to over- tighten these or strip these out because this is what's holding
your TV on the wall. So keep that in mind. If you need to go get longer screws, or longer or shorter
screws, then just take this screw to the hardware store and get the right size. Don't try to
rig it all up. I mean it is your investment that's hanging on the wall. So do it right the first time.
Okay, so now that we have the bracket on the back of the TV, this contraption with the arms, we're
going to go ahead and make sure that this is pretty much centered with where we want to be.
You really don't have to worry about it being level right now. We're going to go over
tightening up these bolts later, but we want to go ahead and snug them up, get them close
and snug them up, so that it doesn't flop all over the place. So, this is why I keep the TV
stand on, so that we can work with this while, you know, we're fighting with all of these little
things. So we're about halfway there. Let's go ahead and drop our TV out of the way, and we're
going to put the mount on the wall. So, ready for round two. All right! So here is the place that
we're going to mount the TV. We need to find a stud. So every home is usually built with
wooden framing and you have a stud which is a 2 x 4 running behind your walls every 16 inches
on center for the most part. Okay, so there are all kinds of different situations where
your specific situation might vary. So what we want to do here is use a stud finder. Now a stud
finder is an awesome tool to have in your toolbox. It can save you in a lot of different situations.
More than likely, the situation that you're going to be working with is drywall. So a drywall wall
may be easier to find a stud than this wall with all wood. You can even use a magnet to to find the
head of the screw on the wall. And you'll have a set of screws that go up and down the wall.
So another tip, if you need to, and you don't have a stud finder, you can find a switch or
an outlet in the wall and you can determine whether the stud is on the left or right hand side
of that outlet or switch. Now you can just take off the cover. I'm going to show you that right now
and we can identify which side the stud is on. Okay this is a decent way to find out where the stud
is in your wall. You can take off your electrical cover plate here. Take your outlet cover plate off
and you can usually look in the left or right side of this box and you can see where the stud
is along the side here. So just looking in through here I can see that there's a wooden stud to the
right of this outlet box. So I know that is running vertically, from my sill plate, all the way up past
my box, and all the way up the wall. So we're going to base that off of here. So we don't even really
need a stud finder for this specific situation. If you don't have any switches nearby, well, or outlets
nearby, well, you might have to use a stud finder. You can also find the closest outlet and measure
over 16 inches on center to your next one, 16 inches on center to your next one, and you can
base that off the room with a little bit of tape measure. So, we're going to take a tape measure here
and we're going to measure to our nearest wall this way and then I'm going to find the center of
the stud. We're going to rise up to where our mount goes and we're going to measure from the same wall
over to our stud. Piece of cake! Okay, so we have this beam here that we can measure off of. So
that's what I'm going to do in this specific situation. I could use my stud finder but
a good old tape measure will show me exactly where that is. So I'm going to go ahead and
measure down to my outlet here and it looks to me that 21 & 7/8 is going to be center of the stud.
So somewhere up in here I'm going to be at 21 & 7/8. I'm going to get my pen out of my pocket
and I'm going to do a rough mark here about where the center of my stud is.
So now, the next step is to figure out, well, I want my TV to sit at a certain point on the wall. I want
the bottom of the TV, you've probably held the TV up with your significant other or someone say, "Hey,
does this look good?" Well then you've marked the wall and you know where you want it to be, but now
we have to figure out, hey, the bottom of my TV we want on this line here in the wood. So now we have
to measure up from that line where the mount goes. So we're going to bring our TV back over and this
is why we leave it on the stand. We're going to attach the wall bracket and then measure
exactly how far from the bottom of the TV to the wall bracket we are and then that's where we will
mark our hole. All right! So now we're going to come over here with our mount here and we are going to
set our screws up into place to hold this where it would normally sit. Okay, shove our screw here
and that will hold our mount to where it would usually sit. Now what we want to do is, some
mounting instructions do come with the dimensions from the bottom hole to the bottom of the TV,
but everything varies. Okay, so, what we want to do is just take a measurement with our tape measure
and we want to measure from the bottom of the TV to our first hole. So this is just an eyeball
estimate and it looks like this one's going to be right at 5 & 1/4. So we've measured from
the bottom of the TV to the bottom hole. So now we want to mark our bottom hole on the wall.
So let's go over there and do that. Remember 5 & 1/4. All right! So this is where
our line is going to be. We're going to measure up. What was my measurement? 5 & 1/4
Okay 5 & 1/4 is going to basically be on the next seam. Okay. So what did I say it was
from the wall? 21 & 7/8. Mark 21 & 7/8 and right there where my first hole is going to be. So now I
will take my mount back off the TV, the actual wall part. The thing you're probably telling yourself at
this point in time is, I did not know it was going to be this involved. So, of course these things
never go as planned. And okay so I will roll in a little clip here, but you want your drill bit...
Wow! That was hard to get out! You want your drill bit to be just smaller than your lag bolt so that
it basically paves the way for this lag bolt to go in the wall without creating an excessive amount
of stress outwards and that will split your 2 x 4 or split anything that you're drilling this into. So
the drill bit would probably be given in the instructions, what size to use, but if you need
to know, just line your drill bit up there. You want it just showing the threads.
Get the right size drill bit! All right, let's go ahead and put our first hole in the wall here.
Now you want to drill the, almost the entirety of the lag bolt, so that you get the best amount of
depth for this specific anchor. So we're going to go ahead and put our bolt in the bottom of the
bracket. So in the case of this kit, these bolts came with a lag bolt that had a Phillips screw
in there. You can use a Phillips screwdriver. That might take a little excessive force, but if you
don't have a socket set or don't have an impact, that's something that still can get the job done.
So what we're going to do is go ahead and run our lag bolt in here a little bit here.
And then we're going to drive it the rest of the way in the wall.
Okay, I've got it snug and now we can level it here. So
what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this directly out so that we can level it.
So I'm going to bring you guys in close. I'm going to use a level on my phone just because
a lot of people don't have levels. No big deal! You can use an app on your phone. Here we go.
All right! So I'm going to measure off this bracket, just to show you how accurate that is.
Of course going from our wall over to the bracket looks like
20 & 13/16.
And the top comes in...Wow! That's pretty darn accurate! That's within
1/32 of an inch! So in a pinch, and you don't have a level, that phone app will get you darn close.
So...All right, last step of the project. Let's go ahead and pick up our TV. Once again this is
why we left the mount, or the TV stand on here, so that we could just pick it up. And we bring
it up into our mount and we set it down on the grooves. So now that...All right...see we've left our
mount loose here so that we can now position the TV here. So, let's go ahead and put our
screws in here that keep this on the mount. So now this part of the project we are going to set our
tilt and tighten our bolt and nut down so that the TV doesn't tilt. Go ahead and tighten this side down.
Seriously? Seriously you did not want to focus?
Sorry it was out of focus, but we're going to go ahead and bring our TV back
into the wall and these mounts all have adjustment screws on them so that you can
adjust how easily they turn and move around. So don't think that it always has to be that stiff
to where it is. And then you can shore up your TV and voila! We've mounted the TV on the wall.
So I hope you enjoyed today's video. I hope you got some value in the content. It is going to be
a pain in the butt. You are going to need to have a little patience for this project, but
nonetheless, it's something that you can do with a little bit of know-how and hopefully this video
brought value to you in your life. I hope to see you guys click that subscribe button. Give
me a thumbs up, or a thumbs down. Whatever you guys are into, and we'll see you guys in the next video.