Film set/Art Installation build [updated 8.26.15]

[ear3]

So over the next month, I'm going to be building a film set, which will then be struck and reinstalled in a museum/gallery space in mid August.  Because I'm ordinarily very bad at documenting my own professional work, I wanted to use this forum as a chance to chronicle the build and establish a record I can look back at later.

The movie is an "art" film.  It's non-narrative but will instead consist of a series of vignettes where the focus is primarily the set and embedded images (and the accompanying music/sound) , rather than the people who might populate that particular part of the set.  This actually places a premium on the work that I'm doing, since it will be the main focus of the viewer.  The artists, one of whom I've been building for since 2004, have previously done large installations that were cinematic in nature, and so the move over to movies was kind of a natural thing.  My contribution is going to be two-fold.  I'm building the basic architecture of the set, which will then be arranged and decorated by the production design team.  After that's in place I'm in charge of doing the build of one of the main room's, which will be a courtroom, and so will be woodworking heavy.

We snagged a suitably large and creepy place for the shoot in Queens on the border between a residential and a warehouse district.  It used to be a Billiards Club (ground floor)/Martial Arts and Boxing Gym (second floor, where I'm doing most of the assembly and cutting).  This is what it looks like from the outside:

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The inside has been gutted out, and so is perfect for constructing the set.  The smell is weird -- think a locker room that was never cleaned but hasn't been used in a couple of years --, but the music from my Milwaukee radio/charger sounds excellent in the cavernous space:

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Remnants of the old gym, which I'm going to promote into being my official men-at-work sign:

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I had already gone to the BORG and snagged the framing timber for the flats.  Since we're using 2x3s, I had to hand select every one of 400 boards for straightness, and so today we got some help to bring them, along with 100 sheets of luan, up the 65 foot ramp to the second floor:

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My goal today was just to setup my work table so I can get going early tomorrow when I bring over the rest of my tools.  I chose to set up right behind the old gym showers, because there's still tile in that area which provides an even, level surface:

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Got 2 sheets of maple veneered plywood for the work table (I actually paid for Birch, but the BORG folks threw these on top of all the luan sheets, so I didn't complain).  To make it tight, I put some 5mm dominoes in to align the boards:

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And then used pocket screws to draw them together -- thanks BTW FOG for the suggestion on the 1 1/4" PVC elbow to mate the 27mm hose with the K4 dust attachment

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Following some additional good advice I got on the FOG, I slapped a couple of coats of quick dry poly on the sheets to make glue removal easier, sanding in between coats with the RO150 at 320 :

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The first part of the build is more drudgery than anything else, but I'm hoping the recent acquisition of the Kapex and UG cart can speed things up by helping automate all the repeatable cuts I have to do.  More in the coming days.

 

[mike_aa]

Edward,
It's exciting to see you move from the planning stages to actually getting started on this project.  Good luck and thanks in advance  for documenting everything.  I'm looking forward to some interesting reading and I always learn something new from your posts.

Mike A.

 

[ear3]

Forgot my SD card in my computer so I couldn't take any pictures today.  But will have some tomorrow of the full setup for the flat assembly.

I'll just say that today was a very good day.  I did a similar build last summer, and at my peak efficiency, and working with an intern, I could complete a flat in 20 minutes.  When I got in this morning I spent an hour or so setting up stops on the work-table so I could just lay out all the pieces and know that they were square, then set all the stops on the Kapex cart for batch cutting.  The first time I timed myself today I completed one in 11 minutes.  By the end of the day we were down to 9.

It's moments like these were you really come to appreciate the systems approach and workflow efficiency.  Each little piece in and of itself seems minor -- like having a belt clip on both sides of the drill, or being able to swap centrotec chucks without having to loosen/tighten like you do on a Jacob's chuck, or having a dedicated DE hose for both the miter saw and router -- but in the aggregate they have in this case quite literally cut my work time in half.  With those things in place -- and not having to worry about double checking every measurement -- once you get into the rhythm of the work you start to search for even greater efficiencies, down to how you move your body when turning the corner with the router, or how to economize the arm motion when flicking cut offs away from the saw.  Pretty soon you've created this muscle memory pattern that your body just follows automatically.

So with this first phase of the job, what I thought would take a full week to complete now looks like it will be completed by Thursday. 

 

[ear3]

So tired.  Since the building is gutted, the owner got rid of the AC a while back, so we've been working in brutally hot and humid conditions.  We're getting a full AC system installed for the actual shoot, but that won't be put in until next week, so we'll have to suffer through until then.  The one advantage of working in a former gym with my setup right next to the old showers is that I can pour jugs of water over my head and just have the runoff go down the shower drain.  Fortunately we have roof access, and so can take frequent breaks for some (somewhat) fresh air and a view of the Manhattan skyline:

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Note that tall, thin building that now dominates the upper edge of midtown.  This is Donald Trump's luxury skyrise on the edge of central park at Columbus Circle.  The building is so tall that community groups are now complaining about how it casts a mile long shadow over Central Park at certain times of the day, impeding access to that most public of all natural resources, the sun.

Just to put a few pictures to what was described in the previous post...as I did yesterday, I'll be heading in early in a second to the site to prepare for the day's work.  I'm going to batch cut all the boards we'll be using for the day using the stops on the Kapex UG cart:

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I setup the table with stops:

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So that we simply throw on the boards:

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Which I then tag with the nail gun to put into position and then predrill with the T18, followed by my assistant who screws in the fasteners -- BTW, my T18 battery is still going after 1120 1/8" countersunk pilot holes

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Lay a bead of glue down on top of the frame, making sure it's not too close to the edge and therefore liable to get chewed off by the router bit:

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Throw on the luan/underlayment, check one more time for square by making sure the frame is snug against the table stops, and then my assistant and I on each side go down the line with staple guns:

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I then finish it off with the 1010 flush trim treatment:

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And we got ourselves a theatre flat, lots and lots of theatre flats:

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I'm so happy I followed the advice I got last week to put finish on the work table.  Now we can simply wipe the glue off when it spills, or scrape it off with a putty knife if it gets hard.  I might even sand it and refinish it once I start the courtoom project:

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[rvieceli]

Looking good!

My shop isn't ac'ed  either. Summer for us is usually 90's plus 90% humidity. Buy, rent, borrow some fans and keep the air moving. It helps.

I've got an headband with some sort of absorbent beads in it , that you soak and then wear. It seems to help some. At least it keeps the sweat out of my eyes [wink]

 

[ear3]

Finished the flats last night, and taking a little break while they air out and clean the space, then get the scene architecture in place, after which I can go back in and start building the courtroom.  BTW, my T18 is still going on its first battery after 1536 countersunk pilot holes plus 6-7 pocket holes and a few random screws.  By contrast, I changed out the battery twice on my Milwaukee M18 Fuel that my assistant was using to drive the 1536 3" screws.

 

[Carl Prentiss]

I'm thrilled to watch this build Edward. Thanks for sharing it.
-Charlie

 

[ear3]

I've been so tired from the build and the heat that I've just gone home and crashed every night -- no energy for posting.

So I'll just take a few minutes to do a little update.

Things got screwy last weekend when I discovered that the artists thought I was doing a lot more than I had originally planned -- specifically, doing paneling in the entire 40'x26' room that will be the courtroom.  I was a bit miffed, pointing out they might have realized that wasn't in the original spec when only a few hundred dollars had been originally estimated for paneling, and not the thousands it will now take.  Whatever -- I'm good friends with one of the artists so it hasn't resulted in any acrimony, but my fee will have to be renegotiated upward, and now the art department is on edge because the extra money will be sucking from their budget...

So anyway, while I thought I had finished the flats I ended up spending Monday and part of Tuesday reskinning the ones for the courtroom in 1/4" oak veneer.  That done I could finally move on to the fun stuff, viz., the actual courtroom structures.

I started on the two dividing walls that separate the audience from the judge, each 3'x7'x10".  Basic structure is a box made out of 3/4" oak veneer ply, to which I've applied 1x3 (on the ends) and 1x4 (on the faces) oak that I milled with a reversible classical profile bit to make a wainscoting pattern.  The one tricky part was hiding the seam in the ply -- Since I wanted a genuine paneled look, the grain had to run north south, and so I had to join two 3'x3.5' pieces together.  This was a great occasion to use the split kerf method I learned about on the FOG, originally from [member=1619]SRSemenza[/member]:

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I then joined the two halves with dominoes, pocket screws and glue, using pipe clamps to make a tight seam, and then secured one of the ply offcuts on the back to make it secure:

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Then I squared up the resulting rectangles with the track saw:

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More dominoes in the end pieces, and two offcuts of the same width placed in the middle, then clamped it up to make the box:

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Next up, the moulding

 

[semenza]

    Interesting. I never thought about doing that with plywood. I am usually covering seems between plywood with trim pieces or something. Such as this one , speaking of courtrooms.

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Seth

 

[ear3]

I'm using the reversible classical profile bit from MLCS to do the wainscoting effect on the dividing walls.  I'm also loving my recently acquired Jessem rollers for the router table, which enable me to run long boards with minimal worries about the piece coming off the fence when my assistant isn't available to guide the board on the other end:

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I'm making the coping cuts with the Woodpeckers coping sled:

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Though the 3.5" end caps had to be done by hand with much anxiety about my fingers as I ran them through:

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I installed the moulding on the end first:

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Then routed it flush with the face of the wall with the 1010 outfitted with the edging plate, which btw has been a real workhorse on this project, despite one of the T15 screw holes holding the dust shroud to the base being stripped (it's going in for service as soon as this project is over):

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Incidentally, I feel like I'm really putting into practice an insight that I had a while back, but one that is continually reinforced/expanded by what I learn on the FOG -- the distinction b/w measuring and fitting.  It was hard to give up/discard the importance of perfect measurements.  I mean, I had invested a lot of years in learning how to measure things precisely down to the 1/64th, and then there's that whole thing about measure twice cut once.  But even when you think you've measured perfectly, there is almost always some unforseen variable -- wood movement, clamping pressure, nail angle -- that conspires to make your meticulously dressed board short.  So now I'm constantly expanding the ways in which I can use fitting to my advantage.  On this piece, it involves measuring all the moulding slightly proud of the box, and then routing it flush for a seamless fit.

After the end moulding was put in place I applied moulding to the faces.  To speed things up, I'm using adhesive rather than glue (here's me applying the adhesive):

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And nailing the pieces secure with an air gun and a bevy of clamps:

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After another round of flush trimming with the 1010, I filled the holes with the red oak Pacific filler that was suggested on the FOG:

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And then ran through the grits up to 150 with the RO150 and ETS 150:

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The walls are now ready to receive their top, which I will be working on today:

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Incidentally, I realize that I'm violating one of the commandments about not exposing end grain by running the rails of the face moulding all the way to the end.  Early on I had made a decision not to miter joint the face and end moulding, and instead just have the edge of the face moulding exposed.  If this were an actual courtroom, or a build in someone's house, I would not have the end grain visible.  But the camera will not really be focusing on the ends of the walls, and when it's reinstalled in the gallery, I think only another carpenter will be able to spot this shortcut.  And in truth, I did not feel like fussing around and remounting the bit in a hand held router to cope cut the ends of 7 ft. long boards.  So there you go, I'm guilty.

 

[ear3]

Hey, that sort of looks like my dividing wall!

Yeah, it was more of an economy thing.  If I left the seam messy and simply covered it, that meant I would be using one or three additional vertical strips of oak to form the panels, whereas aesthetically I thought the optimal number was two.  So I used the split kerf method to get a tight seam.

    Interesting. I never thought about doing that with plywood. I am usually covering seems between plywood with trim pieces or something. Such as this one , speaking of courtrooms.

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Seth

 

[Shavings]

WOW, extremely interesting!
I'm looking forward to following your progress.
Thanks for posting.

 

[nclemmons]

Nice work Edward and thanks for the detailed photos.

Amazing the work that is going into a 'scene setup' that I assume will be torn apart after the production.  Am I right that this is only for filming and then will be torn down?

Thanks for sharing.

neil

 

[TheTrooper]

Great job so far.  What router do you use in the kreg table?  And do you like the table?

 

[ear3]

Actually, it will be reinstalled in a gallery after the filming is done for a public exhibition -- part of the reason why the build is about to get a bit more complex, since I have to design the actual judge's bench and witness stand to be taken apart and reassembled.  Portions of the installation may then be sold off to collectors after the exhibition.

Nice work Edward and thanks for the detailed photos.

Amazing the work that is going into a 'scene setup' that I assume will be torn apart after the production.  Am I right that this is only for filming and then will be torn down?

Thanks for sharing.

neil

 

[ear3]

Thanks.  Triton TRA001 3.25HP -- I love that router to death.  And no need for an expensive router lift.

I'll say this for the Kreg table, it's good enough that once I get it properly set up for a cut I don't worry about anything going wrong.  Stand and table are rock solid, even with the casters on.  But if I had to do it over again, I would probably get another one.  To begin with, I would want an aluminum insert plate rather than the phenolic.  Not sure if it's partially a function of the heavy Triton router, but the Kreg insert plate sags a bit in the center of each side -- not a huge amount, but enough where the board would sometimes catch when running through.  I was able to fix the problem completely by making and attaching additional levelers on each center, supplementing the Kreg ones at the corners.  I also got really frustrated during the setup process, because two of the four screw housings into which the plate screws are secured literally popped out (they are threaded brass cylinders friction fitted inside of the plastic levelers).  And I'm pretty sure it wasn't due to me overtightening, since I'm normally sensitive to that kind of thing.  Kreg customer service was cool and sent me new ones, as well as a new insert plate (which also sagged BTW).  The plastic reducing rings also dip slightly below the plane of the table when tightened.  I've never seen it mess up any cuts, but it adds a variable when trying to measure exact bit heights.  I think the aluminum reducing rings like Woodpeckers has is the way to go.

I'm not crazy about the fence.  Too much pressure on the featherboards can throw the fence slightly out of 90, which can create problems if you're using a DIY auxillary fence to rout tall boards, like for crown moulding.  The Jessem rollers have fortunately been good for avoiding that problem, however, since they don't require excessive pressure to keep the workpiece snug on the table, though obviously they can't be used when the board is riding on its edge.

Overall it just seems like they took a few ill-advised shortcuts on what is otherwise a decent table.
 

Great job so far.  What router do you use in the kreg table?  And do you like the table?

 

[ear3]

Milled and installed the tops on the dividing walls yesterday.

Jointed some 1x8s using the split kerf method, which has served me very well so far on the build:

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Dominoed the boards with 6mm dominoes spaced every 10 inches or so then clamped everything up:

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After glue was dry I trimmed the board to width and square with the track saw and Kapex (nice to have 12" cross-cut capacity on the miter saw for times like these, as opposed to the 8" I previously had with the Bosch CMS).  Had a small heart attack when I initially cut the board to length -- I thought I had spaced the dominoes properly on the original 8 ft. boards so that taking 5" off either end to get the needed 7'+ would not expose a mortise/tenon:

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Turns out everything was fine, and the exposure was just because I was trimming a little less off one end -- good reminder though about proper planning when there are multiple steps to getting a board down to it's ultimate size.

After sanding it up to 150grit with the RO150 and ETS 150 (had to start at 80 grit to remove the ridge and glue line between the 2 boards), I ran a 2" pedestal moulding bit with the OF1400, doing the end grain first.  DC was actually horrible with the edge guide, so much that I've already posted about it in the How to forum:

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Then attached the tops, and felt satisfied with the days work:

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[Coliban]

Thank you,  Edward A Reno III, highly interesting, also the detailed documentation with the photos. I appreciate the work you do to inform us with the progress of your project. And additional, it is impressive to see the speed and the quality as a results of your work.

Thank you.

 

[Billedis]

Thanks Edward for the very informative posts.  I look forward to seeing the remainder of the build.

I too have the Triton 3.25, but mine is in a Sommerfeld table and I have had it for 5 years now and no sag on the aluminum table top.  Are you using the rubber grommet in the collet?  It really is a good way of getting the proper set with your router bits, as long as you are using matched height cope, pattern, and panel raising bits that Sommerfeld sells.

I am going to look into the jessem router and table saw roller/hold downs.

Thanks again for sharing.  Bill

 

[semenza]

Looks good Ed. Nothing like a portable wall.  [smile]  I think that is an interesting and fun build to have.

Seth