The build for A Soldier's Tale started at 8:30am this morning, over in Studio 3 in Poole. The first thing we did was to start putting together a few of the pallets for the thrust stage and also to decorate the stage. On my drawing I initially did a 50mm space in between the pieces of 6 x 1, but it would be safer and looks better to decrease the spacing down to 20mm, or the thickness of the 6 x 1. This meant the width of the pallets were 660mm instead of 750mm. Rosalie didn't mind as she said the choreographer would prefer a smaller thrust!
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| Making a Pallet |
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You can see from this picture that we use a piece of 6 x 1 to measure the space in between planks, and also the piece of
3 x 1 to keep a uniform distance from the edge. |
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| Three Pallets |
Richard sent me a CAD drawing of how he was going to be making the pros, and in all honesty I didn't understand it. Once Richard showed me the CNC cut ply plates I started to understand, and watching him put it together it started to make sense. Because of the complex nature of the obtuse angles on Rose's pros, there was no way of actually measuring and cutting these angles, so what Richard had done is pre cut the angles onto these ply plates, and using as many parallel lines as possible, was able to build up the structure.
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| For example, piece 1 is cut at a 60 degree angle like the pros. |
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| We then attach the 3 x 1 on Edge |
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| "Can you see what it is yet?" |
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| Working on the parallel |
As I was the main instigator for snack buying, I made sure than a lovely range of consumables was on offer. Always important in keeping your team motivated. As you can see from the below image, I actually went for a higher quality range of biscuits as opposed to your generic custard cream. Yum!
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| Possibly the most important thing on site... |
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| Ply plates |
Whilst Richard got on with this, I thought it would be good if I got to work on making the pallets, as it was something I could do independently, and Richard didn't need both Rose and myself working on the panels with him. They worked quite quickly, and I was always aware of the techniques being used and exactly how Richard did it for future reference.
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| You can see the concept with the parallels |
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| Keeping busy with the pallets |
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| Looking great guys! |
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| Not sure what this was.... but it didn't work. Richard looked quite cross. |
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| Drawing on the angles ready to be cut with the panel saw |
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Richard had his laptop with the drawing on so he could keep dimming up the
drawing to have the exact measurements |
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| I used the Festool to cut the pallets to the correct angle. |
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| The festool didn't cut through the inner timber so that had to be done by hand. |
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This one was a bit tricky anyway, because of the lack of timber. It ended up breaking in half.
Rosie didn't mind as it added to the effect! |
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| It's Rose's Set! |
So we left Saturday with one leg of the pros cut, and most of the pallets made. It was a very productive day! Although it was absolutely freezing in the studio. I kept busy and moving all day so I stayed warm, let's hope the weather doesn't get any colder.
