Stage Designs

Throwback: The Holey Wall

Rusty Burchard at Ridge Church in Charlotte, North Carolina brings us this holey grid created from PVC pipe! (Originally posted February 2011)

Rusty started with a 4″ PVC pipe and cut it into 1″ slices using a radial arm saw. He then glued the pieces together into a 3’x3′ square using an industrial hot glue gun. The grids were hung in a checkerboard pattern from the truss using wire ties. The total setup took 704 circles.

To light the lot, Rusty used 6 Coemar LED ParLite fixtures–three on each side.


Criss Crossed Trussed and Screened

10 responses to “Throwback: The Holey Wall”

  1. Peter Good says:

    DUDE! nice work! i'm digging it. so how did the glue hold up? anything you would do different with the design / construction? how about a heavy duty PVC glue?

    keep it up!

    Peter-

    • Rusty says:

      Thanks. It took longer than I thought to cut the pipe. Hot glue worked well short term. It was only up 4 weeks. If I had planned to keep it or store it PVC glue would have been a better choice.

      • We would like to use this for our youth retreat. Do you have the exact spec’s. for the truce and spacing of the squares? Maybe a drawing, etc.

        Thanks,
        JP Stafford

        • Rusty says:

          Hey John, It’s pretty simple. This is the pipe I used.
          4″ SCH 40 PVC – Lowes Item #: 87673
          I used a radial arm saw to slice it like bread into 1″ pieces. (Took awhile and I almost burned up the saw)
          I built a 3’x3’ID frame out of wood 2×4
          Using an Industrial hot glue gun – Lowes Item #: 65232 (not from Walmart) putting a good amount of glue on each side of the circles, glued them together until I had a 3’x3’square. PVC glue will be more permanent but will take awhile to set, so you my need to build more wood frames.

          I built a total of 11 squares. I hung them from Global tri-truss. In the picture you see it is 10′ tall and 20′ wide. I overlapped each square by two circles so I would have a little more support from top to bottom.

          Hope that helps.

  2. Becky Murray says:

    Rusty, it looks looks abolutely inspiring. I love the detail, What a great idea. Grandma M.

  3. JK says:

    Very crafty and looks awesome! Great job!!

  4. Jill V says:

    I think it is very inventive! I like the way the lighting changes the look…. Wondering if I can make giant letters out of it??? Any thoughts? Great Job!

  5. Roy says:

    I pastor in Charlotte also (The Praising Place). Would love for you to come by and give some suggestions. Please contact me through our web thepraisingplace.org – thanks

  6. Dan Slagle says:

    Where did you buy White 4″ PVC? I checked Home Depot, Lowes & a plumbing shop & they don’t carry it.
    Thanks, Dan

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