Tag Archives: metal

How-to

Irma Vep Chandelier

Triad Stage’s production of Irma Vep opened last Saturday. Anyone who has ever propped that show knows it has a ton of tricks and unique pieces. On top of all that, our production also had a massive Gothic ring chandelier. Our scenic designer, Robin Vest, drew a four-foot diameter chandelier with nine candles. I knew I would never be able to afford such a piece (even if I could find it), so it was off to the shop to construct it from scratch.

Steel frame
Steel frame

First up was the ring itself. I bent two bars of steel using my ring bender, and welded them into a single wheel connected by short rods of steel.

Vacuum forming bucks
Vacuum forming bucks

I needed some bobeches for under the candles and some scrollwork around the ring. I decided to fire up my new vacuum former for the first time and make all those pieces out of plastic. I already had some bobeches and a carved floral scroll-y piece that I was able to use as forms.

Formed plastic
Formed plastic

Each sheet of plastic fit one bobeche, one scroll piece, and one smaller bobeche for some sconces I was also altering. I pulled nine sheets, and then cut out all the pieces.

Wiring the lights
Wiring the lights

The candlestick holders were wooden pieces I picked up at the craft store. I attached them to the ring and then wired the whole thing together. The candelabra sockets had small tails of wire, so I wired three together, than ran some lamp cord up the chain to the center hanging piece. With nine candles, this meant I had three pieces of lamp cord running up the chains, and those three were wired together inside the center piece to another longer piece of lamp cord that the electricians could attach a plug to. The bulbs were 7 1/2 watts each, so the whole fixture was only 67.5 watts, which made lamp cord totally fine for this.

Painted pieces
Painted pieces

I spray painted all the plastic pieces before attaching them. Once everything was assembled, I drybrushed some bronze acrylic paint over the whole thing, and then it got some gold paint highlights.

Irma Vep chandelier
Irma Vep chandelier

It’s the spookiest, scariest chandelier ever!

Useful Sites

Friday Prop Roundup

The Most Ingeniously Cheapskate Props And Sets From Classic Movies – Io9 takes a look at some well-known movies and how they occasionally used very low-budget means to get the shot, like cardboard cutouts of castles.

4 Business Tips From One Of The World’s Best Cosplayers – Forbes talks with Bill Doran of Punished Props about the business end of building costumes and props for cosplay. I didn’t count four distinctive tips, but the overall knowledge in this video is pretty helpful.

How to Choose, Cut, and Bend Sheet Metal – I always want to do more sheet metal work, but rarely find the opportunity. But it’s always amazing what you can achieve with just a few hand tools and basic power tools.

Three Friends Battle to the Death With Even More Iconic Movie Weapons in ‘Prop Wars: Prop Harder’ – This video is a bit nonsensical, but it’s mostly fun to watch three guys use a whole bunch of iconic props to fight each other.

Useful Sites

March Forth With Props

Over at HowlRound, Seth Tyler Black talks about career transitions from theatre to film. He interviews a few art directors and props people to see what skills are shared between the two fields, and what makes them different.

I loved this article and photographs about Syrian refugees building scale models of historical landmarks. As their homeland is destroyed by war, and ancient artifacts are being destroyed, these artists are coming together in their cramped camps to create a record of what is lost. They construct the models with whatever materials they can find, from rock, to MDF, to wooden kebab skewers.

Brendan Bernhardt Gaffney has been researching ancient methods of measurement, and has come up with the Rulers of the Ancient World. These wooden measuring devices come in several flavors: Ancient Egyptian, Japanese “Kanejaku”, and Ancient Roman. So if you’re sick of inches, but millimeters leave you cold, why not measure your next project in Pes and Uncia?

Bill Doran shows us how to make shiny metal prop finishes. The real trick he shares? Make your prop glossy before adding the metal spray paint.

Finally, Make Magazine has 11 tips for creating a good weld. Here’s a twelfth tip: welding is awesome.

Useful Sites

Friday Link-o-Rama

My shows have all opened for the season, but plenty of other people are still doing cool props stuff around the Internet. Let’s check them out:

Tested has teamed up with Punished Props and Smooth-On to document the construction of a replica alien assault rifle from the film District 9. Part 1 is up now, showing how Bill drew out the design and cut all the layers from MDF and styrene.

The most incredible parts of Carnegie Hall are offstage. As a theatre person, I’m more interested in the backstage and behind-the-scenes parts anyway, but Carnegie Hall has some especially interesting and historical details going on under the hood. Atlas Obscura takes us on an illuminating tour deep into the depths of this famous performance hall.

Dug North continues his 16-part series of automata tips with this article on cams and cam followers. A cam can give some pretty intricate movement to a prop just from a single spinning shaft.

We’re going back to Tested with this great article on creating the practical creatures from Gremlins. Videos and photographs show how Chris Walas and Joe Dante made dozens of ground-breaking animatronic puppets on a shoestring budget to bring the story to life.

Finally, Popular Woodworking tests out some methods for removing rust from steel using only lemon juice and vinegar. It’s a nice little technique to keep your tools in tip top shape, or when you need to spruce up that antique you just bought for a show.

Useful Sites

Links From the Wider World of Props

Credits sits down with Jason Allard, a carpenter for the movies. He talks about how he got started and some of the films he has worked on. He has built things such as the gazebos in 12 Years a Slave, and the treehouse in Moonrise Kingdom. You can also check out a short video showing him at work and some of the projects he’s completed.

Caroll Spinney, the puppeteer who has performed Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch for the last 46 years, sits down with Reddit to answer some questions. Careful, your tears will be jerked with some of the stories he tells.

Make Magazine has a nice video showing a simple but impressive technique for adding wire inlay patterns to wood. I wish they would ease up on the “out of focus” shots in the video, but it does display the technique quite effectively.

Finally, a whole range of desktop milling machines are coming out in the near future, and Tested has a nice roundup of some of the more promising ones. These machines can cut, carve and mill materials like wood, plastic and even metal, all for $2600 or less.