Gauze tower

This page is primarily to look at how the gauze tower for Gilgamesh was rigged.

Despite not being given much guidance from the designer, there were several things I wanted to achieve when doing it:

1)The gauze would be taught, with a sharp crease down the corner, 2)It would be scribed to fit the ziggurat on which it sat, 3)The bottom would be fixed to the ziggurat in such a way that it could not be kicked by a performer, but could still be flown out easily and 4)It should be simple to rig

What I decided on was to make a wooden frame on to which the gauze could be stapled/tied. This would give the gauze a sharp corner at the top. The frame, (made of 3"x2" timber), would then allow two Doughty Standard half couplers (from stock, Flints #DOU57000) to be screwed in using M12 50mm coach screws, on the US ends of the frame. These can be twisted so they can be clamped onto a fly bar. Then, using a Flexible Wall Coupler (from stock, Flints #SCF852), a length of scaff was taken from the inside of the DS corner to the fly bar, where a 90-degree scaff clamp was used. The Kee Klamp was attached to the frame using more M12 coach screws.

When designing this, I thought that the 3 points of contact was sufficient. But, with so much of the frame hanging DS of the fly bar, it tended to sag. So, we drilled through the frame at the DS corner, bolted on an eye bolt and dropped in a hemp line to pick up the DS corner.

For the bottom, a wooden frame, (made from 3"x1" timber),was made that fitted to the ziggurat. Pelmet clips were used on the ziggurat and the bottom frame so that it could be easily attached and reset, but also flown out easily when required. The gauze was then stapled to the frame.

So that the weight of the bottom frame and the gauze was not taken on the staples at the top, drifts at 5400mm were installed in each corner. They were each adjusted with bottle screws.

Sadly, all of this was in vain as the gauze tower was eventually cut, but we learnt a lot from doing it anyway.