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matry fan contruction


james campbell

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I saw a thread about a marty fan made of pvc and can't find it now. I saw Brian Mitchel's it's very nice but I need one out of pvc. does anyone have a material list or know the original post showing the build? Thanks in advance:)

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james campbell wrote:

I saw a thread about a marty fan made of pvc and can't find it now. I saw Brian Mitchel's it's very nice but I need one out of pvc. does anyone have a material list or know the original post showing the build? Thanks in advance:)

I am going to build a Marty fan this year, so I would also like this information. I think I can figure out how to make it; but how do you keep the lights from slipping on the top arch of the fan?
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CKSedg wrote:

james campbell wrote:
I saw a thread about a marty fan made of pvc and can't find it now. I saw Brian Mitchel's it's very nice but I need one out of pvc. does anyone have a material list or know the original post showing the build? Thanks in advance:)

I am going to build a Marty fan this year, so I would also like this information. I think I can figure out how to make it; but how do you keep the lights from slipping on the top arch of the fan?

I'm doing an arch fan combo,so I think that the lights and plenty of zip ties will handle the slipping
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Not sure where the thread is but I have a video up on how I made mine out of PVC.


I have since made it larger and doing some of the stuff I talked about in the video. I don't think it goes into dimensions, just how I made it.
The light strings are wrapped around drywall screws in the PVC.
I did make the middle at the bottom different and had to add additional supports on the arch to stop is from bending in when I strung it. You can see that here
https://plus.google.com/photos/113653141314980119970/albums/5726585398652342113
I hope this helps.
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jerryb721 wrote:

Not sure where the thread is but I have a video up on how I made mine out of PVC.
http://youtu.be/i6knyQcYFcE
I have since made it larger and doing some of the stuff I talked about in the video. I don't think it goes into dimensions, just how I made it.
The light strings are wrapped around drywall screws in the PVC.
I did make the middle at the bottom different and had to add additional supports on the arch to stop is from bending in when I strung it. You can see that here
https://plus.google.com/photos/113653141314980119970/albums/5726585398652342113
I hope this helps.

thank you that will help very much, how many 10 foot pipes did you use? I was planing on two for the arch part,and not sure for the rest.again thanks the photos will help sooo much
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I made a very simple arch out of PVC. My arch was about 22', 24' would have been better. Keep in mind a couple things for your build, New strings will stretch and sag quite a bit. You will need to be able to retension a few times during the season. Instead of attaching the strings to the inside loop, I used 14guage wire to anchor the lights out about 3" from the inside loop so that I could adjust tension. The better alternative would be to string tension wire first, then attach strings to the tension wire. Sorry, I don't have any pics to show how mine was put together.

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james campbell wrote:


thank you that will help very much, how many 10 foot pipes did you use? I was planing on two for the arch part,and not sure for the rest.again thanks the photos will help sooo much

Well I kind of made the small one and used it to make the larger one.
Checked some measurements and it looks like I used a total of six 10 ft PVC.
Mine is 5 ft high and about 11 ft wide.
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http://forums.lightorama.com/view_topic.php?id=29483&forum_id=84&jump_to=279365#p279365

This is my post and how-to from about a year ago. Use 3/4" PVC though. The 1/2" was mighty flimsy when wrapping lights. I also put 2 more supports in mine to make it stronger. Best bet though is to use Snap Tees. I mate this tutorial before I learned about the snap tees. Hope this helps.
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dariansdad wrote:

http://forums.lightorama.com/view_topic.php?id=29483&forum_id=84&jump_to=279365#p279365

This is my post and how-to from about a year ago. Use 3/4" PVC though. The 1/2" was mighty flimsy when wrapping lights. I also put 2 more supports in mine to make it stronger. Best bet though is to use Snap Tees. I mate this tutorial before I learned about the snap tees. Hope this helps.

yep thats the one I was looking for,we built one this weekend pretty much the same way,but for the half circle at the bottom we used 1/4" wire. I will take some pictures it made the build so much easier. Thanks for posting the link again. ours ended up at 5 feet tall and 11 feet wide with 2800 lights
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  • 11 months later...

http://forums.lightorama.com/view_topic.php?id=29483&forum_id=84&jump_to=279365#p279365

This is my post and how-to from about a year ago. Use 3/4" PVC though. The 1/2" was mighty flimsy when wrapping lights. I also put 2 more supports in mine to make it stronger. Best bet though is to use Snap Tees. I mate this tutorial before I learned about the snap tees. Hope this helps.

 

Ron, this post is no longer available. Do you have the How-to anwhere else?

Thanks,

TonyD

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Would this be the style your looking for?

attachicon.gif020.JPG

 

Hmmm, well I actually do like this design very much, but I was thinking of a "full" design like Brian Mitchell's Marty Fan. I haven't welded anything since i was 16 years old (that was a long time ago!) and i was thinking of making it out of PVC instead of welding (or paying someone to weld) Brian's very stout design. Severe weather is not too common around where i live so i think PVC would be strong enough.

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Actually there is no welding involved..I just formed 2 pcs of sheetmetal on either side and bolted the pvc pipe to the metal. 

I realize you have to do what you like........this is just showing you another flavor of that dasign

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I made a quick and dirty drawing. Hope it's not too confusing. I ended up using Coroplast for mine and did away with the support posts. I still used the stabilizers on each end. In the end, using the coro gave me a much neater and crisp appearance. Punching 1120 holes in Coro and pushing that many LEDs was not very fun though. You can see what my final design looks like in action on my website under 2012 videos. Site address in in my signature.

 

Hope this helps.

Ron

Edited by Ron Boyd
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attachicon.gifMarty Fan Construction.zip

I made a quick and dirty drawing. Hope it's not too confusing. I ended up using Coroplast for mine and did away with the support posts. I still used the stabilizers on each end. In the end, using the coro gave me a much neater and crisp appearance. Punching 1120 holes in Coro and pushing that many LEDs was not very fun though. You can see what my final design looks like in action on my website under 2012 videos. Site address in in my signature.

 

Hope this helps.

Ron

 

Yes that's perfect, thanks! That's a pretty nice looking drawing for "quick and dirty"! What program do you use to make the drawing if I may ask?

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Yes that's perfect, thanks! That's a pretty nice looking drawing for "quick and dirty"! What program do you use to make the drawing if I may ask?

Microsoft Visio and then convert it to a .pdf

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