A Soldier's Tale: The Ocean Room in Bournemouth Pavillion

20th November 2011

"A Soldier's Tale"

The Ocean Room in the Pavillion

Rosalie Tyack, the designer, sent me these pictures of the Ocean Room in the Pavillion where the play was being put on as I didn't have access to visit it.

It is important to know what the space I am building in looks like, for contextual purposes.

A Soldier's Tale: Drawing the Proscenium Arch (Part 3)

24th November 2011

"A Soldier's Tale"

Drawing the Proscenium Arch

Take Three.

Ok, I'm struggling. The shape it drawn but now I need to think about construction and how it's going to be built. I know from a previous discussion had with Rosalie and Richard on the 3rd November that it was going to be 18mm ply backwith with 3 x 1 on edge timber but it was exacrly how these supports will be placed on the back of the pros that is giving me a headache.

Do I space them evenly? Do I not? How many is enough? It's just a big puzzle to me now. I emailed Richard to ask and his advice was...

"Draw how you think it should be done and so we can compare"

Frustrating!!! I will muddle through and try and get this done asap.

Also... Do I draw the detail on top?! Ie; the polyblock, the timber, the corrugated iron?

I'm starting to worry now because time is of the essence and I cant work over the weekend.

A Soldier's Tale: Drawing the Proscenium Arch (Part 2)

23rd November 2011

A Soldier's Tale

Drawing the Proscenium Arch.

Take Two.

10.59am

So yesterday I gave up. I had a headache and the crazy angles got the better of me. I did however find a solution. I photocopied the model so I had an actual size of the 1:25 scale model to work from. I purchased a protractor and measured all the lines and angles for myself. Like so...

I however, am STILL having problems.

I'm using a new technique to draw my angles, which is to array from the point of the last angle (Polar Array) and select "Angle Between" and type in my designated angle. It's made the whole process a lot quick but it's just still not right and I cant work out where I am going wrong!!!

This is now the third time I have drawn the perimetre of the Proscenium Arch and I am about to embark again.

12.56pm

I've only gone and done it! I've had my jubilant Eureka moment and here is the evidence...

Now.... my next challenge is the interior perimeter. Wish me luck.

1.58pm

Well, it's finished. And I stayed as true to the scale model as was physically possible but I had to deviate slightly but checked with the designer and made sure she was happy with the decision.

It was hard work creating this, and it made me realise the importance of having the correct information, and that it's always better to collect the information yourself, double check it, and not rely on someone else as their mistake will just hinder and delay your work.

I also perfected using the "Polar Array" tool to create angles around a central point. Every cloud?!

A Soldier's Tale: Drawing the Proscenium Arch

22nd November 2011

"A Soldier's Tale"

Drawing the Proscenium Arch for Construction

Rosalie has designed a beautiful Cubist style proscenium arch for her set that is very angled in the way that Cubism suggests. I have come up with a problem with drawing it up to be built because the measurements she gave me are not consistent, some are in centimetres, other are in millimetres but she doesnt say which is which! Also, I dont think the drawings I've got are to scale.

Lesson Learned: Make sure your references are correct.

Once I confirm that all measurements are in centimetres, and corrected the ones that weren't correct (I understand that we are creative people, not mathmeticians) I set to work drawing it up. I have to rely on the measurements that Rosie has written down as the drawing's she has given me arent to scale. If this is a problem I'm going to have to cross that bridge when it comes to it as this is all the information I am provided with!

I start by drawing a 6000mm horizontal line as a "base" line for the proscenium arch, and am going to work through her drawings, angle by angle, line by line to make sure it is as true to the information I was provided with.

I have turned on my polar tracking for this, as I need to be able to read the angles as I work round. I am having to measure each angle (using keyboard shortcut: "DAN") from either the vertical or the horizontal and using a system of measuring angles, and adding or subracting to the angle desired by the design I am managing to get through! I'm sure there is probably a quicker way of doing it, but my skills are still only so good.

So I drew it up from Rosalie's drawings but I think there is an error somewhere...

As you can see, the line of the right of the pros extends over the baseline.

Things are never easy are they?

Ok now look here AutoCAD... This doesnt even make sense.

Surely 107° plus 3° equals 110°... not 109°? I simply don't understand.

It was at this point I gave up for the day, posted the screenshot on Facebook and managed to stump friends of mine who use AutoCAD professionally.

In Extremis Construction Journal: Laying the Floor

Day One

The last job to do was to lay the floor made up of 6 x 1/2 timber cut into sections of 2440mm in various divisions. I cut the wood up on Build Day 5 so they could be painted before being set down. We couldn't lay them last week due to restrictions with the space and rigging the lights so John scheduled me in for an hour at 5pm today.

Firstly, the floor took a long time to get into position. After giving the painters strict instructions to not paint over the numbers that help us match the corresponding pieces and put them into sequence, it took us about twenty minutes to just put the planks in the correct order.

The next struggle was finding the centre of the stage, which is offset to the centre of the seating but it made more sense to make sure they were in the middle of the floorcloth. We laid the centre plank which is not in the correct place according to the plan because the courtinerie for the curtains has moved approximately 300mm upstage from the original plan.

We had about fifteen minutes left of alloted time before the stage crew came in to start plotting the lighting.

I was given the drill to make pilot holes through the planks to the floor, and the drill bit wasnt long enough to be effective. Then, the screwdriver was running the heads off the floor before they could be completely flush with the timber. Finding the right screws, the right torque and the right drill bit took a long time and using various processes it took a further two and a half hours to get half of the floor down.

The best crews we found to use were 1 1/4" inch black screws, of which we didnt have many so John made a plan to go to a hardware store in the morning to buy more screws to finish off the job.

It was frustrating that a quick job turned into a three hour long saga... but hey, that's theatre.

Lesson Learned: Have enough screws for the job

22nd November 2011

Day Two

John had been to a hardware store and bought 1 1/2 black dry wall screws which were fantastic. It took less than an hour to lay the other half of the floor but when we finished we realised there was a difference between the amount of floor cloth remaining on either side. this could mean a number a things, such as the centre point we marked wasn't off center or that the gap inbetween the timber was collectively larger on stage left than on stage right.

Lesson Learned: Do the measurements yourself, never rely on someone else's judgement
Lesson Learned: Use matchsticks in between the planks for spacing continuity.

There I am, laying the floor!

In Extremis Construction Journal: Day Six

Arrival: 8:00am

I arrived nice and early to make sure that the last day was a full productive one, but when I arrived on site Richard nor Debs were there. Instead of waiting around and shirking off, I busied myself with making the medieval saw for Sean as one of his props. John had dropped off a saw for me to take the blade off, and I made a frame for it to go in. Here are some pictures of it after it was painted. 

Everything else Richard and I did that day I sadly didn't take a picture of, I was feeling the strain and I admit I was a bit grumpy but I pushed through. I sensed that Richard was itching to get home so made myself as useful to him without being too much of a hindrance. 

We braced off all the structure, which was a pain because when Richard was drilling into the wall, apparently the screws weren't biting, so as usual a job that should have taken an hour took four. 

Richard and I also made the mechanism for the grass to be raised and lowered by making a frame with a runner, and legs on hinged then on bungee cords so it could be easily moved up and down. We finished around 2pm, and I was exhausted. I was a little desperate to go home and get some rest so I didn't help out with the painting, I felt I had done my bit as it was. It was a hard end to a tough but enjoyable week and I had an absolute blast working with Richard. I've learned so much and I think I have finally found my niche! Looking forward to working with Richard again on A Soldier's Tale. 

Next time I see the set it will be fully painted, curtains hung and waiting for me to lay the floorboards!!

In Extremis Construction Journal: Day Five

Arrival 8:00am

I knew Richard was keen to be finishing the build so I wanted to be in nice and early to get things done. The first taste of the day was to create a platform for the wheel to be mounted on with castors so it can be moved around the stage to be more dynamic and versatile during the play. We made a simple roller box (not the technical name) with 6 x 1 reinforced with some joints and then attached the heavy duty castors.

A lovely rollerbox.

Bolting in the castors with enough room to fully rotate. 

The wheel in place on its rollerbox.

The next task that needed doing was to clad the perimeter so the MDF was hidden, this was an easy job but took time as each piece had to be measured and hand sawn then draw knifed then attached. It was worth it though because it really tied everything in together and it looked brilliant when we had finished. 

Clad perimeter

Finished wheel!

Detail of the lovely joints.

We then put on some really long arms for the bucket and rope to go over. 

Tying the pieces together

Breaking down detail

I was so proud once we'd finished the wheel. It felt like we were really on our way to finishing the build and it looked great. It is fully transportable, nice and big and spins! It even makes a lovely heavy creaking sound when it rotates. I really hope the director, Sean, uses this to it's full potential. 

The next job is Richard is going to make a lovely rustic ladder, and I'm going to start cutting the 6 x 1/2 down for the floorboards using simple maths and a tape measure. The floorboards wont be laid until Monday because of the lighting rig, so I have numbered each piece so I do not have to waste time putting a jigsaw puzzle together on Monday when I need to be working on  A Soldier's Tale.

Richard is going to make a ladder. 

Looking pretty good!!!

We also had Debs Mitchell, the scenic artist, in to start the paint team off. The first thing they did was the rostra, and it looks absolutely brilliant! Exactly like the model. It's really coming together now. 

The rostra painted with some of the floorboards. 

Alice and Julia doing a marvellous job painting the wheel.

Brilliant!

Richard's ladder (which injured my hand!)

Housing joints

Paint detail on the wheel

Progress on the wheel

Rhiannon testing out Richard's ladder, it's secure!

Richard and I also put up the courtinerie wire for the curtain to be hung onto, and making sure that was taught enough was hard work. It was also very nerve racking securing the dog clips as I was very high up! I learned about the difficulties of dog clips and Richard taught me how to secure a wire into them. 

It's the end of Day Five and I'm really starting to feel the strain. Every muscle in my body aches from all the physically hard work I've put in but I'm still really enjoying myself. I'm learning so much, and it's the kind of work that just makes sense; I think it's because I'm quite logical and mathematically minded. I'm picking things up quickly and really enjoy making myself useful and keeping busy with it. You can see from the picture's below that Richard and I are nearly done with everything we need to do, just a few more finishing touches to do tomorrow. Having the painter's in has really made the set come alive, the realisation from model to structure is unbelievable! I'm very proud of Rhiannon and all her hard work to make this come together. 

Stage Left (unpainted)

Stage Right (painted)

Nearly nearly there!!!

In Extremis Construction Journal: Day Four

Arrive 8:30am

When I arrived on site this morning, Richard was already squirrelling away with one side of the wheel. As you can see he is applying cladding to join the CNC cut pieces together.

 The thing is, Richard didn't cut the pieces from the rather beautiful CNC ready drawing I emailed him, so he drew one up from memory. Richard says he was very tired when he did this and as you can tell because when the four pieces are together, the lines do not meet up. What has actually happened is the radius is 1000mm on one side, and 900mm on the other, so the wheel is not an equal diametre all the way round. Also, the diagonal lines that need to meet up are not central to the pivot point so they shall never meet up. Not in a month of Sundays. 

The CNC cut pieces of MDF that dont quite work...

But Richard was already putting them together before I pointed this out to him...

He didn't quite understand why it wouldn't work.

Luckily my maths skills are quite good so I had to explain. I dont think he was too happy...

So I came up with a rather wonderful idea (if I say so myself), that we should remove the diagonal struts that don't match up. Richard told me I was a genius (I may be paraphrasing here...) so we got the panel saw out and promptly removed them.

If it doesn't work... saw it off. 

Putting the steel tube in for the irregular wheel to pivot around. 

Attaching the joiners to one side so we can simply put the other pieces on top.

Coming together nicely

Lovely.

The discs to support the pole and cover the messy joins. 

Cladding the interior with 4mm ply (reclaimed)

Putting some more timber for the cladding panels to sit against.

Inside the wheel hammering them in.

Oooh.

The workbench then got in the way...

So we had the better idea of putting it on the floor.

Made the whole process a lot easier.

All clad!

Putting the wheel into context.

We added some non-structural diagonal supports...

Then realised it was going to be much easier to do it on the ground. 

Looks like the model!

 Once we had put the diagonal pieces back on, we decided it would be much easier to do the cladding once the wheel was together as we could spin the wheel round as we went. We decided to make the base for the wheel. We discussed our method of attack, and we could make it roughly look like the model, but we had to change it a lot to make it able to take the weight of the wheel. We decided to make it out of 3 x 3 then clad it nicely to look like the model. Richard then showed me how to do a housing joint!

Housing joint. 

The housing joint I did. 

Putting the base together

another housing joint?

Richard

I put some decorative cladding on the wheel support.

Richard did some more housing joints

It's nice and strong. Housing joints are structurally very sound. 

This cladding is decorative, but will also improve the structure.

The next job was to drill a hole big enough to fit the steel rod through that will hold the wheel in place whilst allowing it to rotate. To do this Richard got a special drill bit, and a really big drill and it took him a fair while to do this. I had to support the structure with an opposite force and I ended up with sawdust all over me.

Checking the steel pipe fits

After fitting the wheel into the supports

It spins!

Reinforcing

More reinforcements

After cladding the outside

So we ended the day with the wheel mounted in it's base, the exterior clad in bits of 6 x 1 and the structure fully stable and able to take the weight of the wheel. A very productive day, albeit very frustrating. It's a shame that the CNC cut pieces that made up the frame of the wheel weren't correct, but you have to take into account that Richard is very busy. It's getting very tiring now, especially as it is just me and Richard doing all the building. Very nearly there though, last few jobs to do!