caniac Posted April 26, 2011 Share Posted April 26, 2011 Using tomato cages and have two together with one offset to give that nice round shape. the top is bent over and wire tied to give that neat appearance. Now is time for lights and the lights want to creep up to the smaller end. the height of my tree is roughly 24" and the strand of lights i am using is 50'. Currently i wire tie every 2nd or 3rd wrap around. is there an easier or better way to do this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Blair Posted April 26, 2011 Share Posted April 26, 2011 When I start my trees I first string the lights vertically up and down the wire "spines" of the tomato cage. I then wrap them around the tree. The vertical strings give the horizontal strings something to hold on to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimswinder Posted April 26, 2011 Share Posted April 26, 2011 Are you starting from the top or bottom?Never heard of them "creeping up" before...EDIT:I like Gary's suggestion... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caniac Posted April 26, 2011 Author Share Posted April 26, 2011 Gary Blair wrote: When I start my trees I first string the lights vertically up and down the wire "spines" of the tomato cage. I then wrap them around the tree. The vertical strings give the horizontal strings something to hold on to.thanks, i will give that a shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted April 26, 2011 Share Posted April 26, 2011 Thanks Gary - that's a darn good idea! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james campbell Posted April 26, 2011 Share Posted April 26, 2011 I did my first trees a couple weeks ago,the same thing happened to me,I just used a couple pieces of electric tape. Stuck those suckers right to the wire. I have 4 more to go and I will try Gary's method Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaceMedic Posted April 26, 2011 Share Posted April 26, 2011 I use chicken wire around the cages also before beginning to wrap the lights ... it also helps to prevent them from sliding and also helps give a more round shape !There are in my avatar pic !Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Mitchell Posted April 26, 2011 Share Posted April 26, 2011 Use more zip ties. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 27, 2011 Share Posted April 27, 2011 RaceMedic wrote: I use chicken wire around the cages also before beginning to wrap the lights ... it also helps to prevent them from sliding and also helps give a more round shape !There are in my avatar pic !DaveSame here, never saw the creep issue, but used what is probably more than the average number of zip ties.I like the vertical string idea...need to keep that in mind as I go at them this year with double cages and no chicken wire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Batzdorf Posted April 27, 2011 Share Posted April 27, 2011 Also, I recommend leaving the bottom 2 inches bare. This could alleviate gfci issues during the wet weather. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caniac Posted April 28, 2011 Author Share Posted April 28, 2011 well i tried it and it looks better. went thru a bunch of zip ties but it looks round and evenly spaced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimswinder Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 caniac wrote: but it looks round and evenly spaced.as does your new avatar!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caniac Posted April 28, 2011 Author Share Posted April 28, 2011 jimswinder wrote: caniac wrote: but it looks round and evenly spaced.as does your new avatar!!! why certainly mo certainly!!! yuck yuck yuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caniac Posted April 28, 2011 Author Share Posted April 28, 2011 This may be a stupid question but after doing the first two trees there seems to be about 3ft of lights left over. Decided not to give into the urge to cut them but instead took the excess and wound around and tied off. I used the above method of doing the spines first (up and down) and then wrap around starting at the bottom. I space them about 1" apart. They look really nice but using a 50ft LED strand left me with approx 3ft leftover.Ok to do? Better ideas? Other thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 Similar to what I did when I had extra...makes sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimswinder Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 Don't know how you could estimate how to wrap it it so it comes out evenly every time...I know when I wrapped my first mini tree, I re-did it several times trying to make it come out "just right"...The last four were "to hell with it, no one will ever notice" attitude...and people don't...it is dark and they have 25 other elements their eyes have to jump back and forth at, trying to take in all the "blinky blinky"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caniac Posted April 28, 2011 Author Share Posted April 28, 2011 jimswinder wrote: Don't know how you could estimate how to wrap it it so it comes out evenly every time...I know when I wrapped my first mini tree, I re-did it several times trying to make it come out "just right"...The last four were "to hell with it, no one will ever notice" attitude...and people don't...it is dark and they have 25 other elements their eyes have to jump back and forth at, trying to take in all the "blinky blinky"...good point Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Blair Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 They will look just fine.Gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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