The attached two photos were made from some christmass mini-lights, a bit of time, spray paint and junk.
First item is a snowflake. Used to make a lot of them at Frost Lighting (like 15 years ago) out of hex cube centers and clear plastic rods. Very fragile and I think I remember hot glueing them so the light string wouldn't slip.
Get lots of spools of cable in per year often with large carriage like bolts binding them together. 15" or longer I started saving up. For the core, I acquired some very dense lumber I think from telephone poles horizontals. Like oak but more dense. Cut, cube and make into a center ball after cutting it for 16 sides, drilling and tapping. Yes tapping the holes. Bit of paint and touchup and adding a bent S-Hook to the top rod to hang from. 150 lamp light string with one run from the top with five lamps and ten lamps per spoke cable tied into position.
Christmas lights came with a bonus, a controller with like 15x lighting options for it. Can do from strobe to dim and every option between. Unfortunately the controller is very near the plug and not far enough from the light to be useful but one wire at a time it should be possible to extend that controller away from the snowflake. Very cool controller.
The wreath was a 8-pair cable digital grade snake that recently came back from its last tour. It was all coiled up for the most part as seen (without the bow.) Hmm, a year and a half old, a lot of work and cost in making it into four circuits of dual pair 75' and due to bad coiling or bad design for the cable this it what it looks like... but it's Christmas. In coil it kind of even looks like a wreath. Added the cable tied bow to it and cable tied the thing to last year's wreath metal ring support. (Yes I saved it, such rings can be useful for say an 8" fixture missing its lens retainng rings.) A bit or red and green spray paint for plastic and a 15' strand of Christmas lights. Bonus... The DMX does still work, could run your desk thru such a wreath.
Orniments out of 12v or 6v LED indicator lamps in series... etc. Last year I carved a bunch of Lekos, Par Cans and even a lamp bar out of oak, than stained and finished them. (Photos should be on the website somewhere from last year.) Also made a wire rope ladder out of 1/16" wire rope and some 1/16" ID tubing. Never finised the casting of the "techie elves" that were to be climbing the truss ladder or running the carved followspot. (A bit of scrap lumber and carving with the Dremmel tool.) Than of course most of my orniments kind of dissappeared this year so now I don't feel as bad about not having finished that elf project yet or making more lights. Various elf faces, arms and legs are carved; just needed to cast them. Perhaps next year with our costume shop person making the bodies with their little hats and rock & roll touring shirts. Perhaps a project for next year.
What did you create for Christmas this year? We are supposted to be the most creative and technical of all fields... should be easy enough.
Project tip in a by the way, Christmas light strings are really easy to attach if you have a Arrow manual 5/16" insulated wire stapler such as McMaster Carr #57025a35. Makes attaching even to butcher's block countertops really easy and safe.
First item is a snowflake. Used to make a lot of them at Frost Lighting (like 15 years ago) out of hex cube centers and clear plastic rods. Very fragile and I think I remember hot glueing them so the light string wouldn't slip.
Get lots of spools of cable in per year often with large carriage like bolts binding them together. 15" or longer I started saving up. For the core, I acquired some very dense lumber I think from telephone poles horizontals. Like oak but more dense. Cut, cube and make into a center ball after cutting it for 16 sides, drilling and tapping. Yes tapping the holes. Bit of paint and touchup and adding a bent S-Hook to the top rod to hang from. 150 lamp light string with one run from the top with five lamps and ten lamps per spoke cable tied into position.
Christmas lights came with a bonus, a controller with like 15x lighting options for it. Can do from strobe to dim and every option between. Unfortunately the controller is very near the plug and not far enough from the light to be useful but one wire at a time it should be possible to extend that controller away from the snowflake. Very cool controller.
The wreath was a 8-pair cable digital grade snake that recently came back from its last tour. It was all coiled up for the most part as seen (without the bow.) Hmm, a year and a half old, a lot of work and cost in making it into four circuits of dual pair 75' and due to bad coiling or bad design for the cable this it what it looks like... but it's Christmas. In coil it kind of even looks like a wreath. Added the cable tied bow to it and cable tied the thing to last year's wreath metal ring support. (Yes I saved it, such rings can be useful for say an 8" fixture missing its lens retainng rings.) A bit or red and green spray paint for plastic and a 15' strand of Christmas lights. Bonus... The DMX does still work, could run your desk thru such a wreath.
Orniments out of 12v or 6v LED indicator lamps in series... etc. Last year I carved a bunch of Lekos, Par Cans and even a lamp bar out of oak, than stained and finished them. (Photos should be on the website somewhere from last year.) Also made a wire rope ladder out of 1/16" wire rope and some 1/16" ID tubing. Never finised the casting of the "techie elves" that were to be climbing the truss ladder or running the carved followspot. (A bit of scrap lumber and carving with the Dremmel tool.) Than of course most of my orniments kind of dissappeared this year so now I don't feel as bad about not having finished that elf project yet or making more lights. Various elf faces, arms and legs are carved; just needed to cast them. Perhaps next year with our costume shop person making the bodies with their little hats and rock & roll touring shirts. Perhaps a project for next year.
What did you create for Christmas this year? We are supposted to be the most creative and technical of all fields... should be easy enough.
Project tip in a by the way, Christmas light strings are really easy to attach if you have a Arrow manual 5/16" insulated wire stapler such as McMaster Carr #57025a35. Makes attaching even to butcher's block countertops really easy and safe.
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