Diamond Apps

René Bogue from New Life Foursquare Church in Canby, OR brings us these diamond shapes for their stage. (originally posted June 2016)

They have a small stage, so space is a premium. They had 10 KED light strips (American DJ) already on hand. Their maintenance man, Jerry, cut squares of plywood with rounded corners and painted them with a faux whitewash (grey paint base, white dry overlay) to make it look like the “wood grain” was horizontal when they tipped the squares diagonally. They bolted the smaller squares (2′ and 3′ sides) to the wall with plumbing pipe and bases, all painted black. Jerry created a base with slots on the back of each square (diamond now), with a wingnut on each side, thus making the forward tilt adjustable. The pipe is also threaded on both the wall side and the diamond side, for adjustability at install. The big diamond (4′ side) was secured by an “L” pipe: a big wooden base bolted to the floor, with a pipe base, then vertical pipe, then an L joint, then a pipe parallel to the floor.

This was heavy, so they added a guy wire from the L to the wall for stability. The success of this was dependent on varying depths, so that each LED (on the floor) projected onto a different diamond. The two sides of the stage were mirror images in the context of depth and size. These pictures show both the plain white (no light) and when they’re using different colors of LED light projected onto each diamond. The closest diamond was about 1′ from the wall, and the farthest is about 4′.

The entire budget, including paint and pipe, was under $200. [The Cross gobo in the “in progress” photo was made from a disposable aluminum pan, and the other was custom from their design, so a little more spendy at about $70 with shipping.]