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BUILDING YOUR OWN STANDS
(Great for Practice...can be used for performance!) Each stand is made up of a base and a desk. Each sheet will produce either 4 bases or 8 desks. To produce seventeen stands you will need to have: 7 sheets of 4 x 8 x 6 mm corrugated plastic. (NOTE: 4mm is too thin to be sturdy and 10mm is too thick to bend!) 1 quart of Contact Adhesive (NOT the water-based variety) 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 Brake and a Hole Punching jig. |
 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! 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! |
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STEP ONE Start with a 4 x 8 sheet. This sheet is used mainly in the sign industry. You might check with local sign companies as a possible source, or contact one of the randomly chosen suppliers above right. These panels come in several thicknesses (4, 6, 8 and 10 mm), but we found the 6 mm thickness to be ideal for the purpose described here. Too thick and it won't bend...too thin and it won't make a sturdy stand. |
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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 in the finished base units. 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 ... |
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STEP THREE Mark the 2 x 4 piece of plywood as shown and cut. |
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STEP FOUR You should have a piece that looks like this. This will be your pattern for marking your material. |
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STEP FIVE Place plywood pattern over a 2 x 4 sheet of the corrugated plastic. Begin tracing. |
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| Use a thin "Sharpie" or other pointed marker to carefully trace the pattern. |
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| 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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