Stage Designs

Hollow Crosses

Cody Pierce from First Baptist Church in Umatilla, FL brings us these Coroplast crosses built off the light tower idea. (originally posted April 2015)

Cody made two 11′ tall, 7′ wide, 1′ thick crosses made of Coroplast. He designed this to where all of the points met in the very center, which allowed an artistic look as well as a nice place he could make the connection fit with the style. They were held together with some very good black duct tape and 30lb fishing line to give the outer arms some structural support to the top center arm. Each cross used two and a half pieces of 4’x8′ 10mm Coroplast.

He started by scoring one side of the Coroplast so that when he made the cross arms they still had the support of being attached, rather than having four individual pieces without the structural support of them being attached. Then after scoring, he measured two of the beams and made a point at the halfway point and 6″ down the sides. The two sides that that were not at a point, he simply cut 6″ off of them. That way when the cross fit together everything would line up snugly.

He did this for all four beams. The base beam was 8′, and all of the others were 4′.

Once all were cut, he squared the pieces up and ran a 2″ piece of duct tape down the crease, for more structural support. Then he attached all of the pieces together. He taped the inside very well along each crease, then the outside very well along each crease. He put a 1’x1′ cap on the end of all but the bottom (which is where he put an LED light).

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Scrim Tower Lights Retro Spinners

4 responses to “Hollow Crosses”

  1. ben wysong says:

    This looks incredible! do you have the tutorial on how you made the wood boards behind it?

  2. Cody says:

    For the wood boards we went to the lumber mull and purchased a bunch, and I do mean a bunch, of 6″x20′ pieces of rough cut pine. We had the mill cut the pieces at various lengths, as well as had them cut the pieces in half and at 4″ (which gave us a 2″ piece and 4″piece). I purchased 7 types of stain from a local store. Various colors, the more you use the more depth it has. Make sure to get a variety of colors, we had some natural looking, some dark walnut which is very close to black, and even down to some that looked white washed. We stained the boards with rags by hand, and it will take a lot of stain because the rough cut lumber soaks up everything.

    We then built three walls. In our building the two outer walls are 10’x10′ with the middle being 18’x10′. We used a 12′ stud frame covered in plywood, literally like you are building an exterior wall for a house. Then it took about 8 men to lift the middle wall into place, which we mounted using brackets all around the top and sides (they are painted wall color to keep from being seen). The side walls are braced with two 2″x4″pieces that are about 4′ long, attached to studs on both ends. Make sure these walls are braced. These walls are very heavy. If they fall they will hurt someone very badly, so please make sure they are secured before adding the boards. Then we painted the plywood black, which allowed us to leave the occasional space in the boards to give it the appearance of our normal walls behind it.

    Then we attached the stained pieces of lumber cut in various lengths using a nail gun and finishing nails. (the nails will go through the wall, so be sure to cut them on the other side to keep people from being stabbed) We never let two colors be side by side, and we never let the ends meet up in the same spot, which gives it the broken look.

    At Christmas I took white rope and made contemporary Christmas trees on the walls and hung black wired Christmas lights from the ceiling to the top of the walls (attached to a fader) which made the lights look like stars above the trees. It was pretty neat as well. The wood walls allow for a great base canvas to work with.

  3. Chad Carrington says:

    Is this coroplast white, natural, or clear?

    Thank You

    • Cody says:

      Hey Chad. It is white 10mm Coroplast. The white lets it diffuse the light very well as well as hide the lights in the bottom of the crosses.

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