Starting to try out various designs for the mini tree's, which I plan on making for our 2011 display.
I wanted to avoid tomato cages, which I can't stand using even for growing tomato's. I wanted something fairly easy to assemble and also easy to source the parts for. I opted to go the PVC route and based on my design off a few folks prior work. Mine includes a slight change for the topper piece, which I'm planning to incorporate either a micro star or a strobe element.
A good source on this forum that I drew inspiration from is here;
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LoginCredit to lineman for the above.
In my mock up I use some wood 2" #10 wood screws, which in the final version will most likely be replaced with zip ties. Unlike lineman's tree design I bought and decided not to use a 2" top piece. Instead while I was waiting for someone at Home Depot to get my 100' coil of 100 PSI poly pipe down from their shelves I stumbled upon a 4" round flat cap. I believe this cap is intended for outdoor irrigation; however, I neglected to write down the name of the part.
On the wide based tree I use 5" lengths of schedule 40 water or electric pipe between each 45 angle connector and the T fittings.
On the narrow based tree I swapped out the 5" for 3" length pieces of schedule 40.
Lastly unlike lineman this particular design use 8 vertical pieces, which in both tree's currently are sized at 36" or 3'. To keep them looking organized I created 8 evenly spaced holes in the top of the 4" round flat cap.
I'm planning on playing around with different ways to string the lights on these. For 2011 I will probably not be doing them in RGB as I don't have enough lights in RGB to do one, let alone the dozen or so I plan on using in the display. I will probably settle for one or two shades of white and possibly multicolor.
Shopping List
- 8x 1/2" T
- 8x 1/2" 45
- 3-4x 1/2" 10'
- 1x 4" Drain Cap
- 8x 8" Outdoor Zip Tie
- 2-4x 1/2" Cross
- Rebar
Feel free to ask questions and hopefully I can answer them!
I recommend investing in a pair of ratcheting PVC pipe cutters, which produce very clean cuts and do not create a ton of PVC dust or rough ends that need cleaning up.
If using electrical 1/2" (grey) schedule 40 PVC measure your long cuts from the non-flared end of the pipe. I like to cut some of my short lengths from the last foot or so of scrap left over after cutting 3x 36" pieces from the 10' lengths commonly stocked. Remember most of these pieces are not always exactly 10' long and are usually slightly over.
Lastly on the shopping list are two optional items. One item is 1/2" PVC four way fittings, which I may swap out with some of the T fittings. Once the fittings are swapped out it may make it easy to mount the tree's on top of rebar driving into the ground.
