Help With Mechanics On A Set Piece

[dlnfloral]

I haven't done a set piece in years for a funeral and now I promised a Rainbow to someone.
Just need a few words of thought on mechanics of going it. I was going to take to sheets of styro and make the shape of the rainbow but not to sure the best way to connect the two sheets together.
Any thoughts would help. Thanks much !!

 

[Joe Mioux]

I haven't done a set piece in years for a funeral and now I promised a Rainbow to someone.
Just need a few words of thought on mechanics of going it. I was going to take to sheets of styro and make the shape of the rainbow but not to sure the best way to connect the two sheets together.
Any thoughts would help. Thanks much !!

I did a sort of a three dimensional football a couple months ago.

It worked well.

forget the styrofoam. use Sahara.

make your frame work out of sahara and use sticks and glue to lock the basic arch in place.

Sahara works better than styrofoam because you can direct stick your stems into the media rather than toothpicking the flowers and then inserting the toothpick into the styrofoam.

If I could figure out how to link this thread to my thread with the picks I would, but i don't know how.

do a search on carlyle and football and you should find a couple pics.

joe

 

[dlnfloral]

I did a sort of a three dimensional football a couple months ago.

It worked well.

forget the styrofoam. use Sahara.

make your frame work out of sahara and use sticks and glue to lock the Sahara works better than styrofoam because you can direct stick your stems into the media rather than toothpicking the flowers and then inserting the toothpick into the styrofoam.
basic arch in place.

If I could figure out how to link this thread to my thread with the picks I would, but i don't know how.

do a search on carlyle and football and you should find a couple pics.

joe

So just the bricks of Sahara or can you get sheets of it? I'm brian dead at the moment

 

[Joe Mioux]

I can only find bricks, but you can cut the brick in half Height wise and get a little more out of the block.

glue, wooden picks will hold the blocks together.

for added security, you could brace the back with a double row of hyacinth stakes.

if you use light weight flowers you shouldn't have any problems

joe

 

[esm]

Now here's a question that, for a change, I can help you with. We've done rainbows for many years, maybe 2 or 3 a year. They are the easiest thing to do! Depending on price and size you want, we use a white styrofoam wreath, cut in 1/2. We green up the sides with foliage, usually boxwood and leatherleaf, mixed. Then we do 6 rows of sprayed (yes, you purists, we love our Designmaster!!) cushion poms: we've done bright rainbows (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) and we've done pastel rainbows, using tints of color. On the 2 ends of the rainbows, we do large puffs of babies breath "clouds", then add trailing streamers of #3 or #9 matching chiffon ribbons for accents on the ends. My customers always get great comments from these...

The first one I had ever done was for a handicapped wheelchair-bound friend whose father passed away who had always told her to "look for the rainbow" (she has the best outlook on life of anyone I know).
Elaine

 

[treen]

Mechanics freak!

I'm not sure how useful this will be to those of you elsewhere in the world as I know your materials are slightly different to ours in the UK. But here goes!

To me mechanics are as important as any of the elements of the finished design and if you don't take care all your hard work can end up in 2 pieces on the day so I'm a bit of a mechanics freak!

I quite often join designer sheets to achieve big tributes like the pics here. It depends a bit on the finished design how I go about it but in general I find the easiest way is to use wooden dowels pushed deep in to the oasis sheet at the join. I then hot glue and german pin the 2 pieces together (see pics). I don't like to be able to see the mechanics even at the back of a design and try to leave a "tidy" finish where possible (see other pic). The letter type tributes are then attached to a leg bar set which adds to it's stability.

The double base mechanics were a bit different. Although the tribute was cut from one whole piece of board I was worried that the funeral directors would naturally lift the tribute by the handle/arm whatever it's called. To prevent it snapping off at the weak point I nailed thin lengths of MDF along the full length of the oasis on the underside. I had to do this out to the edges to prevent it from wobbling when laid flat.
When it was finished you could lift the whole thing from the arm and it was sturdy enough to play it. Sadly it didn't sound great:musical::sblush:

 

[dlnfloral]

Thanks everyone !! I appreciate it.

 

[SpringCity]

Very nice pics, treen!

 

[Beth]

Treen,

Those are awesome!