1,000 Ties Cross-Need Your Ideas on Mounting

[joseph j shields]

My wife is working a neat project. Our son goes to an all boys high school and each kid donated a tie. About 6 mothers stitched them together (about 1,000 ties!) to create a cross.(See pics below) (The white spot in the middle will be covered by a wooden medallion with the school crest - my son is working on that piece)

The cross is about 20 ft tall and 14 ft wide! It weighs about 40 lbs!:eek:

Now that the cross has been sewn together, I have to build a structure to hang it. They want it to be light enough to move & to take apart. So a solid plywood structure is out of the question because it would weigh too much.

So I'm thinking about a frame structure, with 4 separate pieces that could be bolted together. (see pic below)

The black lines represent a 3" frame. I will use Velcro to attach the tie to the frame.

I was thinking about using 3/4" Baltic birch plywood (for its strength and stability), but think it only comes in 5ft lengths. (is this true?) If this is true, I'm going to have problems because the lengths of the arms are around 6-7 feet. I'm not sure about splicing the pieces together.

I thought about solid wood, but was concerned about stability over time (warping...)

Was wondering if any of you guys had any thoughts???

Thanks for looking!!!


-jj

[Jamie Buxton]

True baltic birch is only 5'x5'. There are similar products which are 4x8 -- Finn ply, and Appleply. However, the problem for you with all-hardwood plywood is that it is heavier than softwood-core plywood.

Consider torsion-box construction. That's how things like airplanes are made. Torsion boxes have a very high stiffness-to-weight ratio, which is what you want for portability. Each arm of the cross woud be a mostly-hollow box, perhaps 6" deep by whatever the dimensions of the cloth are. The boxes would be built from 1/4" plywood, perhaps reinforced near the joints with the other boxes. There would be some structure in the middle where all the arm-boxes meet and join together. The joining structure could be a short-armed cross slightly smaller than the arm-boxes. The arm-boxes would slip over the short-armed cross, and be fastened with screws which run through the faces of the boxes. The good thing about screws running this direction is that they'll be in shear, rather than in torsion. Both the screws and the plywood are much more resistant to ripping out this way.

One of the nice things about torsion boxes is that you can use pieces of material which are shorter than the length of the box. It looks like the bottom of your cross is longer than 8'.

[Chris Christopher]

Have you considered using circular stock like for closet rods--Have the ladies that are obviously expert at sewing create pockets in the back, would not have to be full length either- two verticle one horizontal -- slide the closet rail in the pocket --Half lap the rail when they cross, fasten with a screw to enable disassembly -- May be just what you are looking for

[Jim O'Dell]

Chris has a good idea there. You could also use some 1" PVC pipe. With the T's and cross pieces, you could make something that actually outlines the tie-cross on the back side, with some cross pieces to keep it from sagging. Should be light and you could glue certain parts together, but leave others loose so it would be easy to take apart. Use a couple screws to hold each of the joints together when assembled.
By the way, the cross is stunning!! Great project! Jim.