New Props

[MichRX7]

11 minutes ago, tlogan said:

Now Why I didn't I think of cutting a string 50? But, that would leave a bunch more hanging out the bottom. I couldn't get the lights any further into the cane.

I nipped the plugs off  one of the old light strings and used it to pull the new one through. I'd pull out the old string, thread in the one I was using to pull and clip the last light of the old string to the wire near the first light of the new string.  I'm using an AC controller for them, too, so I need the plugs. I nipped off the female and pulled it through. It did take a little push and pull, but I was able to do 10 of them in about an hour. Yes, stretching out the string a bit helped.

I just don't understand why no one makes them with LEDs in the first place.

1. I'm cheap, looked all over for someone selling 25 strings (cheap) and couldn't find any. So I got desperate and started clipping, lol.

2. Clipping the string in half was like clipping off the end which you do have to do to get them through the cane.

3. My guess is you could just cap the female ends, but they fit so snug in the cane I put them on.

4. 10 an hour seems about what it took me as well.

5. My theory is that they have a bunch of incan lights left when LEDs got hot and said, "hey, let's stuff them into candy canes and sell them off"

[MichRX7]

Ok, I'm off to start drilling holes in blow molds.

[MichRX7]

So, I had planned to add 4 rope light presents to my display using the railing on my front porch, but I took my wife to a local antique show (a large one, lol) and while walking around came across these two blow mold soldiers that I thought were unique and decided to switch from presents to the blow molds. Since I had 4 presents when I sequenced I had to find two more blow molds and came across some gingerbread people that I purchased online to complete the set. The two soldiers had old school light sockets in their back believe or not, and I was quite surprised there weren't any heat staining from them as I did pull out two 60 watt regular light bulbs from their backs. I didn't like how they looked with a single bulb so I decided to try creating a pattern with string lights and zip ties to give them more light "cover" throughout their chubby bodies.

First I took a board that was about the same height/width they were. I then drove nails into the board for the pattern I wanted and wrapped the 100 light string (clear white from Walmart) around the nails. While it was still on the nail pattern I zip tied to help it hold the shape (which it mostly held) before sliding it off the nails. Then I took a 1/2" wood drill and drilled a hole into their heads behind their hat plume where it would be unseen. I carefully tucked the pattern of lights into the original back holes and threaded the top up to the hole I had drilled. From there I took a plastic disc just larger than the 1/2" hole and drilled two small holes into the disc. I threaded a zip tie through the one hole, through the zip tie at the top of my string lights and back through the other hole in the plastic disc so they would hang through the entire body. The disc covers the top hole to keep out water. I drilled some tiny holes into their feet so any water that does get in would drip out, ran the plug cord out the original hole in their backs and covered that. I think they came out pretty good (as old as they are) and now I've got to resequence my lights to turn them on/off during drum rolls in my songs. My wife wants me to touch them up with some paint, maybe next year. I actually like that ,they look a bit "aged".

[MichRX7]

I'm running out of space to post photos, looks like I'll have to create a share folder in onedrive. 😂

For the Gingerbread people I ordered them online like I said, they have a boy pattern on one side and a girl pattern on the other. So I ordered two and of course they had a single incan bulb in them so I tried creating my pattern as I wanted the lights to go into each leg, arm, etc... Of course I crammed my light string pattern that looked like a stick figure into one of them and got it all setup, turned it on and HATED the way it looked. They are a much darker solid color than the soldiers and the spread out light string just wasn't lighting them up as bright as I wanted. So, I ran up to Home Depot with the old incan bulb and started looking at LED replacement bulbs. Of course the old bulb had no markings on it to tell me size so I spent 30 minutes holding the threading up to the packages. Finally I decided it was a candelabra thread and grabbed a set of 60 watt replacement LED bulbs. Upon arriving home I realized maybe I should have measured the old hole before buying new bulbs, hahaha. So in this case I grabbed the Ryobi drill and jig saw (how did we ever survive before battery operated power tools?) and cut out a hole in the bottom of their foot I then screwed in the new bulb and threaded it up and out the original hole. I then took the piece I cut out and drilled 4 holes into the cut out piece and 4 holes in the blow mold and zip tied the piece back in. This will allow any moisture to drain out there and I drilled some small holes in the other foot if water goes down that way. I'm still working out how to cover up the original light hole so it doesn't leak out as this is a pretty bright bulb, but I'm thinking about using the light brown plastic wrap I saw at Michael's. I need an account at Home Depot just for zip ties.

The light looks really bright in the one neck in this photo, but that was just my camera. Just looking at them I've positioned the bulbs now to point more down and it really disperses the light through the whole blow mold. Now to zip tie them all to my porch railing. The two soldiers will be on the outside to the left and right of my star poles and the gingerbread people will go to the inside of the star poles. (Yes, I know, I know, I didn't do a very good job of centering my right star pole last year if you look at my house photo in my profile.)

[tlogan]

12 minutes ago, MichRX7 said:

how did we ever survive before battery operated power tools? 

I need an account at Home Depot just for zip ties.

It's called ELECTRICITY. They have ELECTRICTY up there,  don't they?

I have a Harbor Freight nearby. Here's a tip for your retirement portfolio..buy stock in Harbor Freight at the rate I spend there (even with all the free stuff you get!). 

[MichRX7]

3 minutes ago, tlogan said:

It's called ELECTRICITY. They have ELECTRICTY up there,  don't they?

I have a Harbor Freight nearby. Here's a tip for your retirement portfolio..buy stock in Harbor Freight at the rate I spend there (even with all the free stuff you get!). 

Of course we have electricity. How do you think I charge all those batteries for my Ryobi One+ tools? 🤣

[tlogan]

I don't know....one of those 100W solar panel charger kits from Harbor Freight?

[k6ccc]

On 10/17/2019 at 6:36 AM, MichRX7 said:

Oh, and start earlier. Like March.

Oh, starting late?  I generally give myself a couple weeks off after the lights get put away in January before starting on the following year.  BTW, the first lights go up this weekend (they get used for Halloween), then November 2nd, starts Christmas setup in earnest...

 

[MichRX7]

53 minutes ago, k6ccc said:

Oh, starting late?  I generally give myself a couple weeks off after the lights get put away in January before starting on the following year.  BTW, the first lights go up this weekend (they get used for Halloween), then November 2nd, starts Christmas setup in earnest...

 

It's a really late start on props. I feel like I'm scrambling here. Woke up at 3am last night having a nightmare about it. Right now I'm trying to draw a bell diagram on a piece of 2'x3' black corrugated plastic. Then I reminded myself I am a horrible artist, so I created one on the PC. I have it right and want to print it only to find the kid took all my paper. Kids...

[dibblejr]

1 hour ago, MichRX7 said:

It's a really late start on props. I feel like I'm scrambling here. Woke up at 3am last night having a nightmare about it. Right now I'm trying to draw a bell diagram on a piece of 2'x3' black corrugated plastic. Then I reminded myself I am a horrible artist, so I created one on the PC. I have it right and want to print it only to find the kid took all my paper. Kids...

If you could get a projector, even a cheap one. My wife bought a projector on FB for $50 for the Karate studio. Or borrow one.

 You could hang your coroplas and trace it

JR

[MichRX7]

6 minutes ago, dibblejr said:

If you could get a projector, even a cheap one. My wife bought a projector on FB for $50 for the Karate studio. Or borrow one.

 You could hang your coroplas and trace it

JR

Yeah, that's a great idea. You just gave it to me late. 🤣

I'll do a write-up (if I like it when the lights are one it, of course). But basically if you get the image the way you want Microsoft Paint will let you print it on multiple pages to cut and tape together. I then taped that onto the board and traced around it. The only tricky part so far was I had to go back and cut the bottom bell area off so I could trace the upper lip. But I have finished my tracing at this point. There are four bells two on the left upper windows and two on the right. They are exact mirror images of each other so when I get the first one done I should be able to tape 4 boards together and make the holes for the other three, then flip two over before putting the lights on and they should be the way I want them. Who knew finding bells you wanted was such a hassle.

Edited October 24, 2019 by MichRX7

[MichRX7]

Ok, bell #1 of 4 is done. I think it turned out pretty good for my first try ever. Now to tape it to another piece of coro and punch through the zip tie holes. Then I tie that new one to two other pieces and drill out all the holes and start zipping. It was annoying slow to do this as you had to set each light on the pattern, remember where I set the drill, drill a hole on each side, flip the board over and run the zip tie through, reset the light and tighten the zip tie, then tighten it more. At least I won't have to stop to drill each one on the next few.

Edited October 27, 2019 by MichRX7

[tlogan]

I spent what little free time I had this weekend buying 1/8" plexiglass and waiting for it to get cut to the right height, cutting 1/8" rabbets in the lamppost cross pieces that will help hold the plexiglass in place, cutting the final shape out of the plexiglass, going to Home Depot to get a 1/8" glass/ceramic drill bit, assembling the drill press that's been sitting in its box for over 5 years now, setting up and aligning the drill press and FINALLY drilling 220 holes in the plexiglass pieces. Keep in mind that I am building 10 of these lampposts and each one needs 2 cross pieces and 2 pieces of plexiglass (each of the 20 plexiglass pieces needs 11 holes drilled, so 220 total).

I THINK I'm at the paint-it-all-black-install-the-light-fixtures-and-make-the-final-assembly stage.

[ebrown1972]

I did not add much in the way of props this year. I am doing 2 singing faces, and possibly 8 circles (if I get them built). I spent more of my time re-arranging all of my lights and the layout to make things easier with install and take down. I am 100% pixels so my new layout did away with a ton of cables and such. Unfortunately I am only adding 2 new songs this year but I have plenty.

[MichRX7]

What to do for breakfast... Oh I know, work on props. I needed a short break from my bells, so I did a simple thing for other props. Last year I wanted large "ornaments" under my outside arches, so I went to Walmart and bought two of the red hedstrom bouncy balls, two 100 strings of bright white lights,  four pieces of rebar, two bungee cords and some aluminum foil. I taped the lights on the top of the ball and taped the aluminum foil over them to make it look like the metal part of the Christmas tree bulb. Slit a hole in the top of the foil and ran enough light out to reach the top of my arch. The lights will light up the ball. I then drove the rebar into the ground the width of the balls, stuck them in the middle, wrapped the bungee cord around tight enough to hold it in place and ran the light string up and over the arch light a hanger. This also helped the balls stay "upright" as they wanted to spin backward with the weight of the light cord. You can see them in my profile picture, and I loved them. My wife, not so much. So the other day, she bought me two of those large fake red ornaments they have at Walmart this year, but I decided they weren't bright enough (I mean, she wanted them bright, right?) So, I bought some 40-watt LED bulbs from Home Depot, but they were WAY too bright. So, what's a guy to do? Go back to the original crumby light that was in it? Nope, grab a coat hanger, masking tape and some red spray paint and I can fix that. I don't think I'll like it as much as my homemade ornaments, but the wife wins or she cuts off my funding.

[MichRX7]

Ok, that's done. Now back to my bells. I took my original pattern, made sure all the "block" ends of the zip ties were centered and taped it tightly to another piece of coro. I then took a skinny finishing nail with a board underneath (can't destroy the kitchen table) and proceeded to hammer through all the zip tie holes. I un-taped it and the pattern came out perfect. Now I need to tape the new pattern to two more pieces of coro and drill those holes out so I can zip tie on the new lights to the last three bells. Two of the new patterns I'll flip over before attaching the lights so that they face opposite each other since I am placing two on each side of the house. You can see how the holes came out in the picture below. I believe I should have clipped the zip tie ends as you can see a couple of marks they left if you look close, but this is one of the flip over patterns so it won't matter to me unless it weakened the coro. I cropped the below image so it wasn't too large and it shows the bottom of the bell with the uvula/clapper section that I do in yellow lights. Two red, two green paired together red/green and green/red from left to right on the upper house windows when I am done.

[tlogan]

Did you try a 25 watt bright or daylight LED from Walmart? Not that you should run back out to Walmart or anything. 

[MichRX7]

1 hour ago, tlogan said:

Did you try a 25 watt bright or daylight LED from Walmart? Not that you should run back out to Walmart or anything. 

No, my wallet is avoiding that store like the plague at this point. Unless my props from last year have lights not working I've got everything I need (note: did not say want)

Also, two notes to self:

1. Do no grab the painted light bulbs before they are dry or you'll be caught red-handed.

2. Hold firmly onto the coat hanger when cutting the string down. That was almost a disaster. Hand-eye coordination is still good as I caught it right before they smashed on the garage floor.

[tlogan]

Hey. MOE! Hold this nail while I hammer it in!

[MichRX7]

DING-bells are done-DONG!

Tools/Items I used:

1.  Ryobi One+ Drill
2.  1/8" Drill Bit
3. Needle Nose Pliers
4. 300 - 4" zip ties
5.  4 - 2'x3' pieces of corrugated plastic sheeting
6. Sharp Scissors/Knife
7. Hammer
8. 1 Skinny Finishing Nail
9.  2 boxes each of 100 red and 100 green lights
10.  3 boxes of 100 multicolor lights (cheaper than buying yellow replacement bulbs)
11. Masking Tape (or other tape)

So, here is what I did.

1. Find bell outline I like and manipulate it to size/rotation I like online (thanks bing images)
2. Load that picture in Microsoft Paint because paint.net doesn't allow me to print across multiple pages
   1. In paint you choose Print->Print Setup and in the Scaling area tell it to Fit to 3x3 pages (my size on the coro when cut down)
   2. Print
3.  Trim printed pages where necessary and paste your puzzle pieces together to form bell outline
4.  Trim pages to the outline of bell
5.  Put bell layout on a piece of corrugated plastic the way you want it and tape down
6.  Take green sharpie (only one I could see on black coro) and trace outline
7.  Remove layout and fill in tape spots with green marker for outline
   1. If you are much more art "skilled" than me you could free hand draw it or use @dibblejr's idea of using a project to trace)
8.  Grab your 100 string of Walmart LED red or green lights and decide where you want to start
   1.  Each bell used 65 of the 100 lights
   2. I started on one side going up the bell where the upper bell lip starts (not on the lip, on the outside of bell next to lip) which allows for one continuous pattern
9.  Lay light down on pattern, drill hole on each side just below the clip
10.  Run zip-tie up from bottom, over the light (while holding light in place) back down and zip tight
    1. Crampy hands caused use of Needle Nose to really zip it down tight and in the correct direction
11.  Lay down next light and go to step 9 repeat along bell outline until you get to clapper then goto step 12
12.  Grab a multi-color string and plug it in
13. Remove clapper bulb 1, remove yellow bulb from multi-string (don't grab an orange one) and plug your yellow light into the clapper outline
14. Plug your removed bulb back into the multi-string so it lights back up (and you don't grab an orange bulb next time)
15. Repeat steps 9-14 until you finish the clapper
16. Repeat steps 9-11 until you finish the bell (ending at the upper lip against the far side) then goto step 17
17. Take your knife or scissors and cut a plug size line across the coro near your last light on inside of bell
    1. Shorter than the distance from the last light used to the first free light
18.  Then on both sides of your line cut vertically down
19. Bend the upside U cutout back (bending as little as possible and push your female plug end through
20. Push rest of extra lights through
21. Slip cord to one side of your cutout U and pull the coro back into the same position before  it was bent
22. Drill two holes somewhere in the middle and push a zip tie from the back through the front back to the back
23.  Take your extra lights and weave them back and forth between the two zip tie ends with the female end hanging down
24.  Zip tie the extra lights to the back

You now have your first bell done. Steps for creating bells 2-4 follow.

1. Take your original bell and flip it over so you are looking at the back
2. Carefully position each zip-tie block (what the thick square part is called on a zip-tie) dead center between their two holes
3. Take another piece of coro and flip it over
   1. Mine had a sticker on the shiny side which I always want facing the back so I don't have to screw with removing the sticker
   2. You flip it over because I want my bells to face away from each other so we need a mirror pattern
4. Gently tape the two pieces together
   1. This is so you don't press the zip-tie pattern into the new piece of coro
   2. Also, don't lean on it when doing the nail steps, lol
5. Start where you zip-tied down your first light and hammer the finishing nail through each zip-tie hole remove nail and move to next light
6. Repeat step 5 until you have done all of the zip-tie holes for every light
7. Un-tape the two boards and put Bell 1 away so no animals step on it or knock it over
8. Flip coro board 2 over, and you should clearly see your pattern nailed through and it will be mirrored from Bell 1
9. Take two more boards out
10. Flip one of the two boards over (remember, mirrored bells is my goal, so two are flipped)
11. Tape coro boards 2-4 together
12. Drill each hole from coro board 2 going through boards 3-4
13. Un-tape boards 2-4, set boards 3-4 aside
14. Take zip-ties and zip tie each light spot starting from back to front and thread back through the back
15. Partially zip that zip-tie
    1. Don't zip to far or you won't get the light in
16. Repeat steps 14-15 until every spot has zip-ties in it
17. Grab your string of lights and start zipping them down repeating steps 11-24 above
18. Repeat these steps for the other two boards

TADA!

Things I learned:

1. I am really adept now at threading zip-ties through coro without having to flip it over to find the other hole
2. Keep the string lit when putting in yellow bulbs for clapper to make sure you get a good connection and everything stays lit
3. Keep the multi-string lit when pulling yellow bulbs because my old eyes can't tell the difference between yellow and orange when they are off
4. If you need to manipulate a light after you zip-tied it down, use the cord going to the previous light under it and it'll help hold it in place (LEDs are cool, so no worry about melting, don't do this with incandescent lights)
5. Make sure you start with enough zip-ties so you don't have to stop mid-bell and run to Home Depot
6. Tell your wife, "Look honey, I got you three strands of multi-color lights to use on the tree!" (ignore that there is no yellow)
7. If I were to do this again I would tape all four coro pieces together from the start (I didn't do it this time because I wanted to see one first before making three more and ruining sheets of coro if I was wrong on how it would work)
8. My first bell took about three hours
9. Bells 2-4 took about 1-1.5 hours depending on distractions from your spouse, kids and grandkids
10. Not to add more bells to my house next year so I don't have to do this again

The Results: