backstagejeff Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 hey everyone, new member here. I was wondering if anyone has ever built periaktoi before, right now my team has built five of them and they all resemble a general triangle shape, but we can't seem to get the gaps out from in-between them. I have realized that this will now be a big problem as the gaps do not look very good from far away. and we also came across the problem of how to rotate them, someone suggested 3 wheels; one on each triangle point, but I thought that mounting each on a turntable would be better. of course now we have the problem of the triangles not being very square(partly becuase some of the boards were warped from our low budget) and looking horrible from the house. if anyone has any suggestions on periaktoi it would be greatly appreciated, thanks... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 Hi Jeff, and :( to the blue room. Links that may give you some ideas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periaktos http://www.bscl.org/periactoi.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GridGirl Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 Is the problem that you're having with the gaps an issue of the three sides of the periaktoi not meeting properly, or the periaktoi not meeting each other properly? The last time I used periaktoi they were made up of 18 foot flats, timber frame with canvas skins. From memory, we put them together by laying the three flats face-down on the stage and hinging the joins, then swinging the two outer flats up to meet each other and dropping hinge pins into the split hinges. This meant that the hinges held the thing together pretty effectively. I think our peris had two wheels bolted to the bottom of each side, and we didn't have too many issues rotating them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 I think I know exactly what the OP means. My students were building 5 of these for a project. As it was BTEC, the grades depend on the level of input and assistance they get, so they decided not to ask at all, to get the best grade! They built 3 triangles from 2x2 pse timber (made pretty good jobs of it, and cut thin mdf (6mm from memory) as the skin. One triangle top mid and bottom. The gaps appeared in exactly the same way you've described. One group built 2 more triangles for their one, and inserted them between the others - gaps closed a bit but were still there. One of the other groups, managed to get 60 degree wedge shaped pieces of timber cut and screwed and glued them to the joints between panels - by crawling into the thing on the floor like a tube! This worked fine. Another simply covered the gaps with white gaffer, and painted it - not realising that emulsion doesn't stick that well to shiny gaffer - but it lasted the 6 or 7 shows. Wheels - were 75mm castors, on small plates at the corners. They did experiment with drilling a hole into a stage weight and inserting a long pin, that went into a hole in one of the periaktoi that had an MDF solid bottom - nice idea, but if the thing was spun a ittle unevenly, the weight moved making alignment even more difficult. The plain 3 castor idea with I person per unit worked best. One point - they didn't travel very well. The weight is too much to allow them to be lifted from each end to carry - it ripped the timber away from the mdf panels. The one with totally glued joins survived - the 3 and 5 triangle ones all got damaged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted February 11, 2007 Share Posted February 11, 2007 Keep it coming, I should declare I've got as vested interest, I may be tangling with two peri shows in the next 12 months ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluejudeto Posted February 13, 2007 Share Posted February 13, 2007 Hi, I was looking to do this for a "baroque" professional Jack and the Beanstalk last Christmas and after looking at the build I opted for something less complicated. As far as turning them you'll need castors and a central pivot solution; castors to take the weight, and the pivot as an axle to stop the thing wandering, which will inevitably mean spiking the floor. As far as gaps go, you'd need to power-plane the frames and covering to match or try canvas - that's what they were originally You've picked a tough one to get right but the link below is a mine of info about all things movey in scenery. The baroque guys got most of the stuff we use today working well with no powertools. http://www.acs.appstate.edu/orgs/spectacle/index.html Ahhh for the simple life, Good luck Guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben... Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 http://www.acs.appstate.edu/orgs/spectacle/index.html Also from appstate.edu, this has some plan views of Periaktoi setups (scroll down a bit)http://www1.appstate.edu/orgs/spectacle/Pa...cenechange.htmlHas some comments about how various problems were solved historically.(And a lot of fascinating 18th century mechanical wonders ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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