Using Dutchman (wheat paste) for softcovered flat seams.
- Thread starterwemeck
- Start date
MPowers
Well-Known Member
A couple of points here. A dutchmen is NOT the wheat paste used to adhere a fabric strip to a joint between two flats, it IS the strip of fabric itself. Although historically it is a strip of muslin, roughly 3" to 8" wide, frayed at the edges and as long as the flats are tall, the definition fits any strip of something adhered to the flats and used to cover/hide a seam/joint and then painted over. When dutchmen were first developed, there was no such thing as adhesive backed tape or they probably would have used it then. Gaff tape and masking tape are excellent for joining hard cover flats and in the sense that we will always have flats, platforms and facings with joints and gaps that need to be covered we will have "Dutchmen" because the term itself means to cover an obvious gap. The following is a reprint from a post of mine on another stagecraft list.
Subject: Dutching flats - History 101
From: Michael Powers <[email protected]>
There are many ways of Dutching flats, many ways, all are correct for different situations.
My personal favorite works best on mus covered flats, hard or soft.
paint the area where the dutchman will go, feather the edges, pull two
or three threads to fray the dutchman strip edge, paint the rear of
the mus dutch strip with the final brush strokes running center to
edge to straighten out the fray edges. Flip the strip and put the two
wet faces together. Now starting at the center more or less, paint the
dutchman face, feathering the paint as you work out to the surface of
the flat. Voila! Perfect dutchman.
In the 19th and early twentieth century, touring shows and shows
moving from shops to Broadway used gelatin glue to put the dutchmen
down. The strip could then be carefully peeled off and rolled up to
re-apply at the next stop.
While writing my thesis about stone age stagecraft (when it was still
State-Of-The-Art!) one of my thesis committee members decided that I
was using the wrong verb form of the word. He insisted that "to
dutch" was correct and "to dutchman" was incorrect. Another member
disagreed. So, it took about 4 years of search and research, no
internet, www or personal computers back then! To find the correct
form, I had to find the origin of the term. Turns out, somewhere in
the 1700's there was a famine of sorts in the lowlands and a large
number of dutch moved to England. English workmen still used full
wall, wattle and plaster to finish walls and every wall had to be
completed in one work session, while the dutch had developed a form of
dry wall for difficult areas and to join areas worked on at separate
times. For nooks and crannies and specially formed areas, they would
apply a plaster and straw mix to a plank and then apply a thin smooth
slip coat over that. when set, they would put the plank in place and
using linen strips dipped in very wet plaster, cover the joints(the
birth of trowel and tape!). The English workmen derided the practice
(until they discovered how much faster and accurate it was) and coined
the term "Dutchman" to mean poor workmanship or either the act or the
material, of covering up poor workmanship. The research proved rather
interesting and I suspect that was actually the reason for the initial
dispute, as the end result showed that either of the forms of the word
were correct.
Subject: Dutching flats - History 101
From: Michael Powers <[email protected]>
There are many ways of Dutching flats, many ways, all are correct for different situations.
My personal favorite works best on mus covered flats, hard or soft.
paint the area where the dutchman will go, feather the edges, pull two
or three threads to fray the dutchman strip edge, paint the rear of
the mus dutch strip with the final brush strokes running center to
edge to straighten out the fray edges. Flip the strip and put the two
wet faces together. Now starting at the center more or less, paint the
dutchman face, feathering the paint as you work out to the surface of
the flat. Voila! Perfect dutchman.
In the 19th and early twentieth century, touring shows and shows
moving from shops to Broadway used gelatin glue to put the dutchmen
down. The strip could then be carefully peeled off and rolled up to
re-apply at the next stop.
While writing my thesis about stone age stagecraft (when it was still
State-Of-The-Art!) one of my thesis committee members decided that I
was using the wrong verb form of the word. He insisted that "to
dutch" was correct and "to dutchman" was incorrect. Another member
disagreed. So, it took about 4 years of search and research, no
internet, www or personal computers back then! To find the correct
form, I had to find the origin of the term. Turns out, somewhere in
the 1700's there was a famine of sorts in the lowlands and a large
number of dutch moved to England. English workmen still used full
wall, wattle and plaster to finish walls and every wall had to be
completed in one work session, while the dutch had developed a form of
dry wall for difficult areas and to join areas worked on at separate
times. For nooks and crannies and specially formed areas, they would
apply a plaster and straw mix to a plank and then apply a thin smooth
slip coat over that. when set, they would put the plank in place and
using linen strips dipped in very wet plaster, cover the joints(the
birth of trowel and tape!). The English workmen derided the practice
(until they discovered how much faster and accurate it was) and coined
the term "Dutchman" to mean poor workmanship or either the act or the
material, of covering up poor workmanship. The research proved rather
interesting and I suspect that was actually the reason for the initial
dispute, as the end result showed that either of the forms of the word
were correct.
At the Pageant, we make extensive use of dutchmans on our scenery, and not just for seams. Since we're trying to recreate pieces of artwork on a large scale, most of our sets must appear to be perfectly flat under stage lighting. We use variations on the dutchman to cover seams, various openings and parts of the set that may jut out to ease the transition. Depending on the application we may use muslin or lycra, as lycra, being more flexible tends to work better at easing the transition from a rounded footplate to a flat piece of scenery. Also depending on the application, we'll use either plain white glue or animal glue. We even go so far as to fully cover all of our flat sets with muslin, even those with a luan facing to eliminate all seams.
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