Tag Archives: wood

The Making of the Props for The Making of a King

January 25, 2012 Eric Hart 2 Comments

I recently finished my first major gig down here in North Carolina. I was building props for the productions of Henry IV and Henry V at PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill. It was a lot of fun, and also an interesting change of pace to return to a job where I am building all day without any managerial duties.

The base for this chaise lounge was fairly straightforward. I began by building a nice sturdy frame out of oak. The design evolved later to a piece which was completely covered in moulding. The oak ended up being completely obscured by all the moulding. Ah, well.

The king’s headboard had a fairly intricate cut-out design, so the props shop sent a piece of 3/4″ plywood to the scene shop to be CNC routed.

When I got the CNC’d piece back, I cleaned it up and attached some other layers, moulding, posts and finials to make the full headboard.

Above is a nice trestle table base I built for the tavern scene. The feet and the pieces on top of the legs are made of solid wood; I had to laminate a few pieces together to get those thicknesses. The legs themselves are actually boxed out, with a two-by-four hidden inside for strength. The wedged tenons on the sides of the legs are just fake pieces glued on the outside.

The table top had already been built for the rehearsal piece, so I just had to attach it. The scene shop also added some metal diagonal braces, which were needed to keep the table from collapsing under horizontal forces.

Finally, the props shop was building a hammered copper bath tub out of some good old-fashioned papier-mÃ¢chÃ©. I jumped on this project in the middle, adding a few layers to what was already started and attaching the large Ethafoam rod along the top. The initial layers were done with an ordinary flour and water paste. The next few layers were done with strips of paper and a product called “Aqua Form” to make it harder and more water-proof. Aqua Form markets itself as a nontoxic water-based polymer which replaces resins for use in laminates; it worked great with the paper, but it also claims it can be used in lieu of resin for fiberglass. I certainly look forward to learning more about it.

Useful Sites

First links of 2012

January 6, 2012 Eric Hart

I’ve been checking out the site Make it and Mend it lately. It does have a lot of “I turned this coffee can into a piggy bank”â€“type projects, but if you dig around, you can find some great and useful ideas for repurposed materials and doing things on the cheap. Even if you don’t find anything that will help you in work, it can help you in your life too, since props people don’t get paid nearly enough for what we do.

So, episodes of the Woodwright’s Shop are online. In fact, PBS has a lot of their shows available for viewing online, like Craft in America. You won’t find these on Netflix or Hulu.

Wide Angle/Closeup is a site featuring interviews with filmmakers. Of particular interest are the production design and special effects categories (like talking about the blood effects in the GodfatherÂ movies).

The Textile Blog has been around for some time now. It talks all about the design, history and art of textiles from around the world.

How-to

Making a Cast Iron Park Bench

January 4, 2012 Eric Hart 2 Comments

First, I wanted to mention that I have redone and updated my online portfolio; it was in desperate need of an overhaul, especially now that I am freelancing again. I went with a free site at CarbonMade.com, because the thought of designing and coding yet another portfolio site was making me tired just thinking about it. I’ve seen some other prop makers who use that site to show their work, and so far, it seems to be working well. Let me know what you think!

Now then, let’s take a look at a bench I made back in 2006 at the Santa Fe Opera. I basically had to build the whole thing from scratch in less than a week, so it’s a bit rough.

They wanted a cast iron park bench. The only real requirements were the size, so I had to find my own research image. I showed the above photograph to Randy Lutz, the prop master, and he agreed it was a good bench to duplicate.

I drew a full-scale layout of the side on a piece of paper and spray-glued it to a sheet of plywood. You’ll notice the decorative parts do not match the photograph exactly. What I decided to do was pull some decorative resin castings and carved wood pieces from stockâ€”the opera has quite a good collection of these. I then arranged them to match the research as closely as possible. I traced them and cut away the extra plywood. You’ll see in a bit when I start gluing them on, it’ll all make sense.

I cut out and added some support runners on the insides of the two ends and began to attach the slats which would make up the back and the seat. It needed some extra support, so I ran a rod along the bottom; you can see it in the next photograph.

Now I began attaching the decorative resin bits. I also used some Ethafoam rod cut in half to make some curved half-round molding. I found a strip of upholstery fringe which added more texture.

Here’s a closeup showing some of the resin bits and Ethafoam, as well as some rosettes and even bits of yarn. If you look really close, you can even make out a bit of hot glue design work; though it’s practically invisible here, once the paint goes on, it will add just that extra little bit of texture that will make the whole thing seem like a single piece of cast iron from the audience.

The paint job is what really helped marry all the different materials together and bring the whole thing to life. The painter of this bench worked as one of the other props carpenters for the beginning of the summer, so none of us knew how good he was at scenic art until he did this bench.

So here it is, ready to go on stage. I even added some round bolt heads running down the middle so it looked like the slats were bolted to the legs. Overall, it was a fun piece for the short time frame I had to build it in.

Useful Sites

My Links Friday

November 18, 2011 Eric Hart

Mary Robinette Kowal tells us we almost didn’t have the Muppets, and lays out four ways the world of puppets would be different if not for Jim Henson.

Saul Griffith brings us a curriculum of toys. He categorizes the different ways a child can learn to make things and to interact with the physical world, then suggests toys and games which will help grow the skills in each of those categories. Looks like fun for adults, too!

The New York Times has a summary of the science, health and legal implications of e-cigarettes since their introduction. Giving them to an actor for use on stage of course raises additional concerns and considerations than when a private individual who already smokes uses them, but this article does a good job of laying out all the different governmental and scientific forces jockeying for a say in the future of e-cigarette use. If nothing else, this article should show you that the legality of using e-cigarettes on stage will probably remain ambiguous and evolving over the next several years.

Finally, enjoy this video of a wooden automaton who can pick up an arrow, draw it in a bow and fire it at a target:

Reviews

Review: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Joinery

September 7, 2011 Eric Hart

I got The Complete Illustrated Guide to Joinery a few years ago, but it’s such a great book I thought I’d give it a review here. Written byÂ Gary Rogowski and published by Taunton Press, this is a beautiful book just to look at and hold. Page after page is filled with crisp color photography alongside clean and clear text. But look deeper and you’ll also find a wealth of information.

This book attempts to break down and categorize many common types of joinery. First, into the two basic systems of box joinery and frame joinery, and then into a number of subcategories, such as mortises, miter joints, lap joints, and dovetails. Each chapter defines and describes a number of related joints, along with numerous variations and deviations. It then steps through a number of methods to create each one. For many joints, this means it gives a method to build it out of either hand tools or power tools depending on which you prefer or what the situation calls for.

In addition to the photographs generously peppered throughout, Rogowski also intersperses a number of diagrams and illustrations to give further clarity to how these joints come together.

Though some of these joints may look fancy and complicated, the joints in this book are really the more common workhouse joints used to solve the majority of carpentry problems. You won’t find the extremely complex and decorated types of joints used in previous centuries, or any of the exotic joinery solutions of Japanese and Chinese carpenters. This book deals almost entirely with joints where two pieces of wood meet; it’s when three pieces of wood come together that joinery starts getting really interesting (this book does have a few such joints toward the back, so it is not completely devoid of them).

Still, I love this book. It’s the kind of book you can buy and learn a lot from, then let sit on your bookshelf looking pretty for a few years, then pick up again and realize you still have a lot to learn.

Prop Agenda