Crew.Steve Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 The Hurst Players (an amateur company) have just completed a run of Murderer by Anthony Shaffer. The cliff-hanger at the end of Act 1 requires the villain to toss an electric fire into his wife's bath, and the stage direction says: "On the landing outside the bathroom door he suddenly sees an electric fire plugged into the wall. He switches it on and waits for it to glow red... now glowing red, he picks it up..." Act 2 starts with him attempting to throw the fire: "He brings it forward and the plug comes out of the wall." This presented a number of problems(!), H&S being one and the difficulty for an actor to operate a self-powered fire that would appear to heat up slowly being another. So I had the idea of making an apparently practical prop fire based on the old Swan fires I have seen over the years. Below is the finished prop. The sides were cut from a 6mm ply off-cut that was lying around using a freehand drawn outline - both sides were cut simultaneously to ensure matching outlines. The back was made from a section of corrugated plastic sheet, such as is commonly used to fabricate temporary signage, curved round and supported by a length of galvanised strapping left over from a garden landscaping project. This is the vertical silver-grey line in the middle of the back. The inside face was lined with kitchen foil - second only to gaffer tape as the most useful of all theatrical materials. The two sides were bolted together using three threaded M8 rods cut to length and inserted through steel tubes, also cut to length. The protective grille was formed from a cooling tray purchased from the local cook shop, tie-wrapped at the bottom and hooked over the top rod's ends. This produced a secure cover which could be easily swung away for access. Small angle brackets were used to support the two fire bars which were cut from a length of polycarbonate tubing (the most expensive part of this prop). A roll of 12-volt red LED flexible strip was obtained. This comes with wired connections at each end (for daisy chaining) and may be cut to the desired length with a pair of scissors. I removed the connectors to expose the wires, cut two strips of 15 LEDs each, wrapped them separately in three layers of frost filter (to soften the visible edges) and inserted them into the polycarbonate tubes. Powered from a variable 12 volt power supply in the Box it looked like this: The self-ejecting socket was a whole different problem. Emergency response vehicles often have these connectors built in to the bodywork so that the vehicle and its equipment can be held fully charged in the vehicle bay, and eject the power lead when the engine is started. The downside is their high cost - out of the question for this production. So I bought a standard twin 13 amp outlet and the deepest back-box I could find. The faceplate was carefully drilled to accept an actuator rod (the hole visible in the centre of the right-hand socket) This was achieved such that the electrical properties of the socket were left intact and, although now unsafe for mains voltage, perfectly usable at 12 volts. The earth pin was removed from the plug on the fire. This was mainly to reduce the force needed to eject the plug but also, since it had no electrical function, to reduce the chance of the fire being accidentally plugged into a normal mains socket. The earth wire was used to command the solenoid, again from a switch in the Box. The back box was then fitted with a 12-volt solenoid and a release mechanism constructed out of random materials found in my workshop. The ejector is spring-loaded with two concentric coil compression springs, and restrained by a simple horseshoe capture plate which is pulled out of the way by the solenoid via a paper-clip link. The darker substance visible is copper slip grease. Experiments showed the need for a helper spring for the solenoid and this was duly fitted. Here you can see the socket in the armed position: And here is the completed unit having just been activated: file:///home/stephen/Pictures/electric%20fire%20prop%20pics/Article/socket%20plug%20ejected.jpg Throughout the run this complicated prop performed perfectly and drew astonished gasps from the audience with it was manhandled. Here it is on set: Apologies for the long post but I have been told that this play is not often attempted by amateur companies due to its technical difficulties, so I thought it might encourage others to have a go! (I hope this works as the images are not visible in the Preview pane. If this doesn't work I will revisit it.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boatman Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 The links to all the pictures lead back to your own computer. You need to upload the images somewhere before the rest of us can see them. You should have some web space available with your ISP or use Picasa or Flickr. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamDram Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 As mentioned above, we can't see your prop, as you need to host the pictures somewhere online to link to them.Sounds very impressive though.During a production I did about 3 months ago, a little gas fire type thing was required.I got hold of an old gas fire (one of the old portable ones), gutted it with an angle grinder, cut a flap out of the back-plate and slotted a gelled and diffused PAR56 into the backWas very effective for how simple it was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crew.Steve Posted October 1, 2015 Author Share Posted October 1, 2015 The links to all the pictures lead back to your own computer. You need to upload the images somewhere before the rest of us can see them. You should have some web space available with your ISP or use Picasa or Flickr. I wish I'd never started this now. I have a flickr account but everything I try results in a broken link. It serves me right for attempting to slot a simple post into a very limited time slot. Never let a computer know you're in a hurry! ---------------(much later and with not much hair left) I have posted the photos all together in a Dropbox folder here:https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70388947/Pictures/swan%20fire.jpghttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70388947/Pictures/fire%20cold%20angle%20view.jpghttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70388947/Pictures/fire%20cold%20end%20view.jpghttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70388947/Pictures/Waterproof-Flexible-Strip-U-series_3988.jpghttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70388947/Pictures/fire%20hot%20close%20up.jpghttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70388947/Pictures/faceplate%20front.jpghttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70388947/Pictures/faceplate%20rear%20wired.jpghttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70388947/Pictures/socket%20interior%20armed.jpghttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70388947/Pictures/socket%20plug%20ejected.jpghttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70388947/Pictures/fire%20hot%20in%20context.jpg Fingers crossed! With many apologies to the forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 That's rather neat, and a great project! Thanks for sharing - I've added it to my list of things to remember for future use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 Outstanding work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Tec Posted October 2, 2015 Share Posted October 2, 2015 Nice one Steve,that's some great work there , an simple but elegant solution to a tricky prop problem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted October 2, 2015 Share Posted October 2, 2015 A thought: The addition of a large electrolytic reservoir capacitor would allow the LEDs to fade down when the plug is ejected rather than just go out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crew.Steve Posted October 2, 2015 Author Share Posted October 2, 2015 A thought: The addition of a large electrolytic reservoir capacitor would allow the LEDs to fade down when the plug is ejected rather than just go out. Oh, that is SO neat! It would certainly allow the fire to behave more naturally, although I am not sure the audience would be so aware of the plug coming out of the wall if the fire appeared still to be on. Sometimes we have to bend the rules of nature to make a point, but I still like your idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boatman Posted October 2, 2015 Share Posted October 2, 2015 A thought: The addition of a large electrolytic reservoir capacitor would allow the LEDs to fade down when the plug is ejected rather than just go out. Oh, that is SO neat! It would certainly allow the fire to behave more naturally, although I am not sure the audience would be so aware of the plug coming out of the wall if the fire appeared still to be on. Sometimes we have to bend the rules of nature to make a point, but I still like your idea. A great idea. The capacitor should be isolated with a parallel resistor and diode so the charging surge current doesn't demolish the 12V power supply! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crew.Steve Posted August 2, 2016 Author Share Posted August 2, 2016 It has just been pointed out to me that the links to the photographs has expired, so I have set them up again here:https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sz6r9iyocrab8ob/AAAnBvzq0p4U80-yn4kzHkCma?dl=0together with a few new items. The opening page invites you to sign in or create a new account, but at the bottom of this you can click on 'Continue' without doing either of these things. I am happy to chat about these props if you should have any questions. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.