Building A Jumbo Spray Can Prop

[BrianWolfe]

I would use the bending plywood (wacky wood as it is often called, available here at Premium Plywood) covered with a thin sheet of vinyl or ABS for the can body . The top we made for both Broadway and tour productions of Hairspray. We made a plaster mold and vacuum formed it in Kydex and silver Mylar in three pieces and then taped the seem with mylar tape. The nozzle was a wood mold and another two piece vac-forn with a plastic detail and pvc pipe to carry the fog:

Not a cheap piece. I believe the diameter was about 40" at the bottom. In your design the top looks like simple shapes you can make in wood except for the large curved section which you can make in curved slices of wacky wood(like a globe) and smooth out with bondo or wood filler. You might try to simplify the curved section and add the details with ethafoam tubing or built up wood.

[ship]

Wow! The scale of it. Hairspray is long since I left the field as a designer and had no idea such a thing was needed. Wonder if you could rent such a thing from a school or prop house cheaper than you could build it for. Remember my wagon for “Sweeney Todd” hair cutter’s wagon survived long after I left the school and it’s initial production on a rental basis. While it’s a great project to figure out the how to for, do you have the time budget and ability to get it right as opposed to renting it as opposed to concentrating on other things?

Fair question to ask of yourself out of tunnel vision being detrimental to the overall design.

Anyway, initial thughts some form of pressurized cylinder that has effect of spray added to it but later in toughts, less pressurized tube and more tube with spray nozzle that of hazer or fogger in output for it. Say weather tight adaptor to the nozzle of a fogger outlet with pneumatic hose out to the scenery hose might work. Than a question of how to make that proportional size tube as can and spray top part of it. Good solutions above, could also cut out of foam the top part than spray coat to flame prevent and color style.. Sonic tube verses bending plywood or other stuff all a question in making the can.

One might consider in what you do what you can re-use and or dispose of in cost effective and still in being “green” for fabrication. Even if this thing can be made out of a big block of foam and that and those blocks of foam can be saved for later in such a time as flueted and saved for a greek play, will this work sufficiently in doing that option verses sonic tube etc? All good questions a TD need anser in solving well solution, cost, and storage of it for later. A few options as it were for the piller as it were. This and fire code compliant if not if flammable totally sealed within materials that are not at best if used at all.