We arrive on site a bit later then Day One, but immediately get started with making all the remaining beams and before we know it they are all done. Rhiannon and myself ended up getting pretty quick at putting them together working as a little construction team taking on different roles. Richard was cutting the timber to size, I marked the timber up with the jointing sections and pilot drilled them whilst Rhiannon stitched them together.
The next job was to clear the area of chairs (seen above) and all the pieces so we could lay the floor cloth. First of all we had to make sure it was centre. Now the problem with the Studio Theatre is that the "Centre Line" isn't the centre of the room, its the centre of the lighting grid. Richard decided to measure across the back wall and find the actual centre point. When that was done we measured off each side to 3m so we could lay the floor cloth down. We used a mixture of panel pins and staples to keep the floor cloth down.
As we had another pair of hands to help us (the lovely Sarah in Second Year) we raised the first piece of structure! Richard and I put together some braces to keep is steady once it was up there and to reduce the risk of it coming down. We put a brace on the front of one leg and the back of the other to keep it nice and secure. We raised it by literally lifting the top end and walking it up the legs!
It's up! As you can see we put some extra bracing on there to keep it nice and secure.
The next challenge was to get the first leg on! Richard had to cut an angle into the horizontal pieces so it would fit correctly with the design and go off at the right angle. Not sure how he did that?
To raise this L shaped section we stitched the horizontal to the leg securely and then put an extra bracing on it so it would keep it in shape as it went up. To get the piece up, Richard went up the ladder holding the horizontal piece whilst Sarah, Rhiannon and I lifted and footed the leg into place. This is where my brute strength definitely came into it's own!!
To get the second horizontal underneath Richard and I took a piece of 2 x 1and attached it to the lower beam whilst it was on the floor. We then measured the 355mm distance between the two beams and placed screws where we could screw it into the top beam. This meant we didn't have to take the full weight of it whilst we were trying to get it into place. We put them in literally by Richard being up the ladder, me underneath lifting it up, then I run up the other side of the ladder and we both shimmy it into position. Quite often I was running up and down the ladder moving the legs out and getting screws and generally trying to be helpful!! I really enjoyed this process.
By the end of Day Two
I think we achieved quite a lot by the end of Day Two, especially if you take into consideration that everything is made and just waiting to go up. I have to say that I was physically exhausted by the end of this day but I was so motivated that it didn't matter! I'm learning so much and its such a great feeling of satisfaction having the set going up so quickly.
