We will be responsible for getting the stage in and out of storage every year, though it's likely we will have a tractor with cart available.
I should have a circular saw handy which will work in a pinch for both tasks... a RAS would be useful for the "mass regular work" of the (24"-7") cuts...
I hope to get all the cutting out of the way today
Obviously this is the ideal schedule. Likely we'll be working on it much of the first week.
Please send me private mail if you will help with labor and/or tools.
Send times, what you think you'd be best at doing, and/or what tools you can bring.
I'd *love* to do a parquet looking top. If people would like to submit **classy** designs of up to three colors (likely light brown, dark brown, and red-ish brown) we will consider them. Think along the lines of a 3.5' square as there will be a 3 inch border of dark brown around each piece Parquet Template
Greetings all! Enclosed you will find a report on the dance floor built at pennsic this year. Project Overview and history: Most all Pennsic European Dance classes and evening dance have traditionally been held in the barn. The barn has several features which make this a good spot. 1: It's centrally located allowing for high visability of the classes. 2: It's Shaded and usually cool 3: It's large enough to handle very large classes. 4: everyone knows: "Dance happens in the barn at night" The barn does have its drawbacks. 1: It's centrally located making it a good meeting point for lots of people, who then talk loudly and interrupt classes. 2: It's Shaded and usually cool (see above) 3: It's large enough to handle very large classes, which makes teaching somewhat difficult, especially when there are bystanders making lots of noise. 4: The floor is concrete, which is unkind to dancers lower extremities.. 5: the space is in great demand... for kingdom courts, A&S displays, etc. To address these problems, the dance community suggested a "dance tent" The tent would be used for smaller classes, special dance events, and as an alternate evening dance venue when court lasted well into the night. This years dance tent was 40x60... a respectable size, though not large enough for some of the largest dance events such as the masked ball, and a few of the larger classes. If you have a tent, then you should have a floor... and that is where this report fits in. The ultimate Dance floor. A dance floor must be resiliant, even, and provide some, but not too much, traction. Resiliant: Nature hates abrupt change, and your body is a product of nature. To this end, dancing on a surface which dosen't "give" when walked, skipped, or jumped upon can do considerable damage to your legs and feet. The ideal surface will take a hard landing, absorb some of that energy as deflection, and return the energy in a less jarring manner. too bouncy a floor will return too much of the energy and make it difficult to dance upon as well. Even: Tripping hazards and holes in the ground suck. Traction: Dancing often requires moving the body around the dance floor. A surface at either end of the friction scale makes this difficult. An additional consideration in this case is that the floor is in an outside enviromentm and is therefore prone to getting wet. Floor design: Initial floor design was to use .75" AC plywood over 2x4 joists spaced on 24" centers and layed on flat (to span the plywood edges) In addition, small sleepers were laid orthagonal to the joists to span the end seems where two pieces of plywood butted up against one another. One lumber company suggested the use of .75 TG subflooring. This subflooring was reasonable smooth and the tongue/groove kept the long edge fairly stable. The subfloor material was about 30% less than the plywood. The TG seemed to be fairly good, although we ran into rocking problems at instalation. (forcing once joint to be flush pushed the other end to have a gap) Usual practice was to split the difference. To protect from weathering, the plywood would be waterproofed on one side and painted on the other. The 2x4 joists were to be waterproofed. Monday: The lumber arrived late due to some miscommunication. Once the lumber was delivered, we got to work. First step was to lay all sheets on the ground bad side up to prepair for waterproofing. During this time, the sleeper studs were also cut. once things were set out, the waterproofing began. We used a deck sprayer and thompsons water seal for the 2x4s and the backs of the plywood. Due to the dry weather and heat of the day, we found that we were able to handle the wood within a few hours, and so we primed the tops of the plywood as well with zinzer 123 primer. This was fortuidious as medalion painting took longer than expected. (see painting tips and revalations) Tuesday: Painting begins. People started choosing medalions to lay out and paint. Wednesday: More medalion painting. Thursday: More painting and beginning of floor assembly Friday: floro was finished assembly... but sections still needed to be painted. Saturday-Monday: more painting of "outer regions" Installation hints: The TG plywood measures 47.5" when assembled. This caused two small problems with the project. 1: The sleepers were all .25" too long. some quick work on the Power miter saw fixed this quite nicely. 2: The "border" paint that divided the 4x8 sheets into 4x4 sheets needed to be slightly more narrow (2.75" instead of 3") along the tongue/grove sides. Painting Hints and revalations: Once the primer was put on, all sheets should have had a base coat of paint applied to them. That way the medalions are mostly decorative, and the floor itself would be protected. Once borders or medalions were painted on the wood, all "background" painting of the lighter color had to be done carefully. If the entire surface was done it could have been applied with a roller as the primer was. Several people mistook the primer (which was tinted) as the lightest paint color. This meant for tedious touch ups later. It works best to paint lighter colors first, as they are more easilly covered by the darker colors. It was found that masking tape only worked marginally to create crisp edges. Variations in the plywood surface allowed for seepage unless extreme care was used in pressing the masking tape down. It's also a good idea to let the paint dry a bit to see if a second coat is needed before removing the masking tape. It's not such a bad idea to score the tape/paint line with a knife when removing the tape... This helps the paint edge be neat and crisp.