nzLARPS Working Bee - April 10th

nzLARPS will be holding a working bee as a bit of a follow-on from our annual gear day. At the gear day we did a lot of fabulous upkeep work on our existing gear (thank you everyone!) and we’ve identified a couple of extra tasks that we need to do.

  • Gear Stocktake
    We need to do a complete gear stocktake for our accounting records.

  • Build a new portal
    Our trusty old portal (dating to 2002, I believe) finally gave up the ghost. We will be building a new portal to service our teleporting needs. We are accepting ideas and designs on how to construct a portal that is impressive looking and packs away for easy storage.

  • Soft Kit
    We have boxes upon boxes of ‘misc fabric’ coupled with the stuff that was donated by Muppet’s family. We will be needing seamstresses to bring sewing machines and a pair of sharp scissors. Trestle tables and extension cables are also of value.

We are looking at having it on April 10th at Hamish’s house (where the gear lives) Please post below if you can help with any of those tasks. Probably we don’t need more than 3 people on the gear stocktake, while the more the merrier on the other two tasks.

Sewing bee!!! :smiley:

Ideas incoming :smiley:

The old portal was constructed with cores of wood, that had polystyrene glued over the top that was carved to resemble stone blocks. It was in three parts, two uprights and a top arch . The arch was joined to the uprights with bolts that could be removed for transportation and storage. For putting it into the ground, there was wood coming out the bottom of the uprights that was intended to be put into pre-made holes. The skull in the top of the arch had red LED lights in its eyes, that were lit up by an 8V battery.

You were a bulky prop that was a pain to transport and set up, but you allowed us to unleash hordes of respawning greeblies and for that we thank you. RIP.

How about an inflatable one?

Fear the respawning clowns!

We could do 2 columns in a similar fashion to the ones we have in the gear library but with a top peice (probably from a slightly different material thats not as brittle). Although I think we’d want more substantial bases than we have on the current columns.

That would have the advantage that the columns could also be used without the arch.

What’s the construction of the existing columns?

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]That would have the advantage that the columns could also be used without the arch.

What’s the construction of the existing columns?[/quote]

We used a sheet of the corragated plastic thats often used for carports and just roll it into a tube a few pop rivits/bolts/screws and a can of grey spray. instant fluted column. problem is the plastic gets brittle (as has done with the ones we made) but there are other plastics that can be used that dont get as brittle.

It would be great to makes something that “packs down”. That’s what I was getting at with inflatables, there are lots of inflatable arches out there.

Something like this might work, if we could remove the reaper and other decorations and do some repainting:

costumeexpress.com/9-Airblow … fbdd003157

It’s US$90. The only issue is that it needs power to run the pump, like a bouncy castle. So unless it could be jury-rigged to be hand-pumped, it would need the generator to run outdoors. There might be other, probably cheaper models made for hand-pumping like an air mattress, though.

Same story with this one for US$70, which just needs the “bow” removed somehow:

Or if inflatability doesn’t appeal, what about a curved arch made from a series of solid rings, with fabric over them? It could then concertina into shape, and then concertina back into a very packed-down format. Because of the fabric construction it could also sometimes be internally lit, if it was a magic portal used at night.

Painting wouldn’t work on inflatables as the paint would crack and flake off the moment you inflated/deflated it. The concertina idea is interesting though, but you’d want a fairly stable base to work from, and to my mind it would be better to build something that doesn’t completely fold down into the smallest convenient space and is a bit more robust and should in theory last a good while. It’s a fine line to walk between convenience and durability :-/

I noticed today at work that there are some plastic/perspex sheet lengths, and was wondering if they would be useful at all regarding building new portal?
The dimensions are 2.4m long x 30cm wide x 3mm thick for mid-tone grey sheets, and 1mm thick for white sheets. There are 4 of each colour. There is a reasonable amount of flex inthe grey sheets and the white are really quite bendy. They are a bit shiny and plasticky, being plastic 'n all, but could be a base perhaps, for foam/stone chunks glued on? Does it fire anyone’s creative skills?
If they might be useful, I could approach my boss about having them - they’ve been kicking around the kitchen floor for months now.

Maybe the portal could be made to a similar design as the old one, but so the upright pieces break into two instead of being a single length?
That way it would probably fit into a normal car boot. The old design did seem fairly robust.

I’ll be at the gear workshop, and will bring my sewing machine.

Just noticed that this forum thread lists the gear day as the 10th of April but the March committee meeting minutes list it as the 11th- which is it?

I am available on the 11th but not on the 10th.

From other threads, I have gained the impression that this is going ahead on the 11th. Can we confirm date / time please ?

Also, I have a brand new sewing machine, but I can’t sew (yet). Put your hand up if you can sew, and don’t have a machine, and I’ll bring it.

Have we settled on a design for the gate yet ? I would suggest using coreflute (which I have some), with pieces that lock together using tabs that slide into internal slots. It would be thin (ie. 4 layers thick), but could be covered in something that looks really cool. From front on it would look impressive, but from side-on, not so much. I would envisage strong feet that are pinned to the ground in windy conditions, otherwise it would be free-standing.

But it would be light and strong, and easy to store, transport and set up.

The gear day is going ahead on the 11th

Sorry I can’t make the 11th
Have fun anyway!

Apologies as I will not be able to attend the 11th because of a maths conference.

[quote=“Mike Curtis”]
Also, I have a brand new sewing machine, but I can’t sew (yet). Put your hand up if you can sew, and don’t have a machine, and I’ll bring it.[/quote]

I can sew but no machine and my work schedule has just been changed so I will (barring it changing back again) be coming along.

Unfortunately I have rehearseal on Sunday afternoons so I will only be able to come in the morning

time of day?