Building Your Own Stands

BUILDING YOUR OWN STANDS
(Great for Practice...can be used for performance!)

We recently "manufactured" some elegant little rehearsal stands from sheets of corrugated plastic. Height and angles of our do-it-yourself stands match that of our regular on-the-job stands. These plastic cuties are light, waterproof and unbelievably sturdy.It took two of us 8 hours to build 18 stands.

SOURCES of PLASTIC SHEETS
Here are a few sources for the corrugated sheets. You may want to check with a local sign company to see if they know of any suppliers in your own area. They would also likely be able to order the sheets for you. By the way, these sheets also come in several standard colors, thereby avoiding the necessity of painting!

R & J Sign Supply, St. Louis, MO
Aluma Panel, Cumming, GA
Letterbank, Grover Beach, CA

These suppliers were picked at random from the results of a web search on "corrugated+plastic." No endorsement of any supplier is implied or guaranteed. They are offered as a means of narrowing your search for the necessary materials. Your mileage may vary!

Again, check with your local Sign Supply house first. Signmakers all over the USA use this product. "Coroplas" is the only brand name I have personally encountered, but this in no way implies that there are not other manufacturers of similar products. Some may carry it in stock or perhaps order it for you. (Ask to have the sheets cut into 2' x 4' sections, according to the cutting instructions below. A package of 2' x 4' sheet is much easier to handle than a 4' x 8' sheet!) In the UK there is a similar product called "Corriboard." You may have to experiment with it and adapt these US measurements to metric units. You're on your own there!

These instructions are an account of how we built our own set of rehearsal stands. You are solely responsible for your experience with this method. You might want to build one prototype out of corrugated cardboard first, just to make sure you've got it right before you begin cutting up your plastic sheets!

Each stand is made up of a base and a desk. Each sheet of CORPLAS will produce either 4 bases or 8 desks. To produce seventeen stands you will need to purchase:

7 sheets of 4’ x 8’ (6mm) CORPLAS corrugated plastic
NOTE: You MUST use 6mm material. 4mm is too thin and 10mm is too thick.
1 quart of Contact Adhesive
3 or 4, cheap, 2” paint brushes (for applying adhesive)
1 roll of white duct tape (optional)

You will also need:
A jigsaw
3/8” chisel (SHARP)
1.5” chisel (SHARP)
One 2’ x 4’ piece of 3/16” plywood (for making a pattern), assorted scrap pieces of plywood and 4 old door hinges for building a bending break and a hole punching jig. (More on this later!)

STEP ONE

Start with a 4’ x 8” sheet of CORPLAS. This is a corrugated plastic sheet used mainly in the sign industry. You might check with local sign companies as a possible source, or contact the Aluma Panel Company who manufacture Corplas. The panels come in several thicknesses, but the 6mm thickness seems ideal for the purpose described here. Too thick and it won't bend...too thin and it won't make a sturdy stand.

STEP TWO

Mark off and cut into four, 4’ x 2’ pieces. They MUST be cut as shown in order for the “flutes” to be vertical. Cut all 7 sheets in this manner. You will then have 28 pieces measuring 2' x 4.' Set these aside for now and proceed to ...

STEP THREE

Mark the 2’ x 4’ piece of plywood as shown and cut.

STEP FOUR

You should have a piece that looks like this. This will be your pattern for marking the CORPLAS.

STEP FIVE

Place plywood pattern over a 2’ x 4’ sheet of the CORPLAS. Begin tracing.

Use a thin "Sharpie" or other pointed marker to carefully trace the pattern.

Be sure to make a mark inside each of the two notches. You'll need these tick marks to line up the pattern when you flip it over to trace the other side.

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