Re: Ask Lauri about her Banner Stand from the Newsletter!

by Miss Ronnie on Sat Jan 14, 2012 10:04 am

The sand will only work if you use pvc glue to to seal the whole thing. I had thought about this too when I made mine but they do not make any kind of an end cap to place over the ends. I had thought i wanted to take it apart to fit into the trunk and just place end caps on the bottom part that I would fill with sand. You could do it it you kept a roll of duct tape with you... tape the exposed end to keep the sand from falling out. I rejected that idea as well because I thought that there was probably going to be a sand mess in my trunk or car one day. Instead, I carry two large rocks that I hand painted and I place them on the bottom to anchor... (helps to advertise my rocks for sale, too!) Hope this is helpful in your decision making!

by Flying Laughter on Sat Jan 14, 2012 11:55 am

What about filling the base with plaster of pairs or cements of some kind?
Probably a pain to do but might work out in the long run.

by Miss Ronnie on Sat Jan 14, 2012 8:20 pm

That might work.... the guys at Home Depot can always answer questions like that.

A couple of bricks would work, too... and cheaply I might add.

by squiggle on Mon Mar 19, 2012 5:36 pm

Since I moved and let my partner in the old area have our booth with the castle towers, etc. I'm in the middle of planning my new booth layout. I think I'm going to do these banner stands, but put concrete in the base and then have them taller- maybe 7'. I will put one on all four corners of the tent and bungy them to the legs so that the concrete bases will act as weights for the tent. Then I can just zip tie my banners to these frames, set up my fat max and chairs and we'll be ready to go Smile

I'm also thinking of spray-painting all the pvc with neon orange spray paint to capture attention... does the pvc take spray paint well?

by rthling on Mon Mar 19, 2012 9:54 pm

Yes. PVC paints very nicely.

by Miss Ronnie on Tue Mar 20, 2012 7:26 am

Word of warning... the pvc pipes I used have black ink printing all over them, including the UPC code. Someone (I've forgotten who now) told me to just use acetone to remove... It DID NOT work... I then spray painted the whole thing a nice bright red to match my banner.... the spray paint DID NOT even begin to cover the black printing... It is too much of pain to spray with anything else so I bought bright red duct tape from Walmart and wrapped it around the pipes (leaving about 2 inches on the end of each piece so it would still fit into the coupler properly.) Duct tape comes in so many fun colors and prints now that you could really have fun with it.

Also, I got tired of the longest pieces being so awkward during transport and set-up that I cut them in half and bought two more couplers to rejoin the pieces together.... 100% improvement!!!!

by squiggle on Tue Mar 20, 2012 12:33 pm

Thanks Miss Ronnie! I wonder if I painted some priming paint on those spots and then spray painted if that would cover it well enough? I'm going to have so many of these banner stands that I don't think I want to do duct taping!!

I'm going to make these banner stands 7' tall, so I'm going to have 2 sections of 36" tall, instead of one section 48" tall (does that make sense?) So I'll have shorter sections anyway. So I'll need 2- 36" long banners for each stand.

I'll probably make one shorter banner stand to display in front of the tent if I'm allowed to (every festival I did at home we weren't allowed to put anything outside the 10" x 10" "space" we had for our booth so I'm not sure I'll be allowed to do that here either).

My old partner at home is coming to visit next week and she wants to do a couple of these as well, so we're going to make them together. I'll be able to post pics after that Smile

by squiggle on Mon Apr 30, 2012 7:45 pm

Here are the banner frames finally! I couldn't set up the entire display due to high winds that day. The bases are 2" pvc weighted with concrete. I then used a 2" x 2" x 1" reducing tee and the rest of the frame is 1" pvc. There is another section above the 2 on the side that raises it another 2 1/2' and my 3' x 6' banner hangs ion between those above the entrance to the tent.

by Miss Ronnie on Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:22 pm

Dawnie... no photo!

by squiggle on Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:30 pm

Yikes! Sorry!

This is a close-up of the base as we were setting up (with a pic of one of the ducks from the creek next to us waddling by!)

This is the front... we weren't on level ground because of tree roots so the bases wouldn't sit straight, which drove me crazy! (I must be a little OCD Wink

and we couldn't hang the upper portions. We live on a hill with no level ground to set this up before hand so I had to just keep my fingers crossed that it would all work once we got to the festival.

by Miss Ronnie on Mon Apr 30, 2012 9:49 pm

Double-decker!!! Nice Very Happy

by squiggle on Tue May 01, 2012 2:56 am

There you go! I wasn't sure i was describing it correctly but double decker and triple decker works! The 2 stands on either side of the entrance are triple deckers and the center one is a double decker when it's all put together completely Very Happy

by Stacia on Tue May 01, 2012 11:47 am

I can't get enough of your setup Dawnie!!! I drool every time I see it. I can't wait to see it with the top piece on. BTW I spray painted my banner stand with the Krylon Fusion (no-prep superbond for plastic) paint with a "Textured Shimmer" and it worked well for a month and a half long gig...BUT it scratched from transporting back and forth, so I painted it again with the same stuff (after hosing all of the dirt off of it and letting it dry completely) and it seems to be holding up better and I only see a couple of little scratches in the paint after months more of use. It does cover the black writing, but I'm using a dark color.
Here's a pic of it-

by squiggle on Tue May 01, 2012 12:30 pm

OOh those look really nice, Stacia! I ran out of time to paint my banner frames for this festival, but my next one isn't until May 20 so I'm going to try and get that done before then.

by TheGildedCat on Tue May 01, 2012 12:42 pm

I bought a plastic furniture spray primer (same area as the spray paint in Home Depot) to use as base coat for the metallic spray paint. It worked really well. It can scratch, but it's still held up pretty well.