Stage Designs

Precision Grid

Drew Middleton from West End Community Church in Nashville, TN brings us this hanging grid of Coroplast. (Originally posted June 2014)

Materials:

  • Coroplast
  • Heavy fishing line
  • Clear shipping tape
  • Industrial strength velcro

This two dimensional grid was very inexpensive to create, although very tedious to make. Drew wanted to make a grid with 2 ft. squares out of Coroplast. (Piedmontplastics.com is a great seller with affordable options on those kinds of materials)

The trick was making sure the measurements were absolutely perfect, otherwise it would look off. The first layer was back washing the wall of the stage. (All of their LED lights are K9 Bulldogs—also very affordable and very bright LEDs) Their back wall has a textured cement-block siding which they wanted to keep. The 2nd layer was the grid of squares all separated 6″ from each other on all sides and were front-lit from the floor up.

Drew wanted the squares to look like they were floating and free from any constructional material (Except the top). First, he cut the 4mm white Coroplast into 2′ squares (Sheets came in 4×8 so with each sheet he could get 8 squares). Then he lined a row of squares that would fit his back wall vertically on the floor—triple checking that each square was 6″ apart. Then he took fishing line and taped the line to what would be the back of the squares when they were suspended. Two lines were taped on either side of the squares to ensure symmetry and durability.

Then he used velcro at the top of each column of squares to secure them to the beam and ensured each column was also 6″ apart at the top (the use of velcro will change for everyone depending on your stage structures).

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Parallel Lined Most Popular Stages – March 2021

8 responses to “Precision Grid”

  1. Matt says:

    Nice design! I’m wondering if something other than coroplast would work just as well, such as white posterboard. Is there any reason you chose coroplast for this besides weight?

    • Drew says:

      You could use posterboard just as well since we’re lighting the squares from the front…but I guess we went with coroplast because it also has the ability to glow if we chose to ever back-light the sqaures. Posterboard can only be lit from the front.

  2. Angela Hoffman says:

    Nice job! We did something similar with 3/4″ thick styrofoam sheets.

  3. Betty says:

    Where can I ger the coroplast and can I get an idea about how much it costs?

    • Drew says:

      Piedmontplastics.com is a great and inexpensive site for coroplast. Check their site to see if they can ship it to you. For one – 4×8′ sheet of 1/4″ thick coroplast it was $12 then you can cut them to whatever shape you need.

  4. Travis Blye says:

    Love this! Just to be clear….. you used the K9Bulldogs to light the wall behind the grids and then just an LED light bar to light the front?

  5. Sarah says:

    I’m looking to do something very similar for an upcoming conference backdrop. What effect do you suppose a gobo projection might have when projected onto the squares? (Toward the center/top of the grid)

  6. Jon says:

    Almost 10 years late to the party because we can’t afford an LED wall yet… ;)

    How did you cut the coroplast? I’ve heard of cutting it with a table saw, but we don’t have one of those on-site at our church.

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