# Sunday project: puppet stand & theater



## hyunelan2 (Aug 14, 2007)

Yesterday, we had nothing on the schedule. It was warm, but rainy, so that made a lot of options disappear for outdoors. Laura said early in the morning "I feel like building something -and- I want to get a puppet stand or something for the kids." Challenge accepted. (Her "building something" is more like a finishing touch/painting of something, not building as I consider it). I decided to build a puppet-tree and theater. No plans, just made it up as I went.

Went to Menards and gathered materials. About $45, but I already had a sheet of 1/4" sandply. Started with a $3 2x4 stud, the best one I could find in the lumber stack. Cut it inhalf and glued it together:



I didn't take a lot of pictures during construction, because I was just working.

After the glue had cured, I cut off each side on the table saw until it was about a 2-1/2" - 2-3/4" square. I used my Bosch power planer to cut off the corners and make the square into an octagon. About 6 passes on each corner set to 1/16". Lots of sanding then with the Porter Cable and 150-grit. 

The tricky part was drilling the holes at close to the same angle. I just freehanded it and got close enough using the corded drill and a 1/2" spade bit. I attached the post to a round base I picked up from Menards using 4x 3" screws. Using half-inch dowel rods cut to 9", I stuck them in the holes with some glue. I think I'm gong to get a round newel post cap to stick on the top, but for now it's assembled:

I ordered some dowel caps to go on the end of those sticks, I had in $10.50 eBay Bucks that I had to use by Tuesday, so those will get here sometime this week.

The "theater" was not hard. Basically 2 2'x4' rectangles, attached to a 4'x4' square using hinges. The sides can fold in and the whole thing is flat for storage. I constructed the frames out of 2x2s (again spending time at Menards to find the straightest and most non-knotted pieces I could). Each 2x2 was dadoed on the table saw so that the 1/4" ply fits inside the frame, then the frame is screwed together. Simple butt-joints here, and lots of sanding everything smooth before assembly. I don't want any slivers coming from this.


I dressed it up by gluing a select pine 1x4 as the "stage," a 1" dowel rod to hold a curtain, and a piece of backband moulding across the top. The curtain rod was mounted by drilling a 1" hole down the center of a 2x2 cuttoff, then I cut the cutoff into slices on the miter saw and simply glued them to the face.


View of the panel inset. It sits back 1/4" from the front edge:


Back side:



Final:




It still needs to be painted/stained and Laura is making curtains for the rod, but my work is about done. We're thinking we might chalkboard -paint the panels for another thing to do with it. Dunno.


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## cdnNick (May 28, 2011)

Looks like fun, I was just going to say you should chalkboard paint the sides so they could draw and write on it, but it seems you are think about that already.


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