How to make mini trees

Anarchtica - it would be really nice to create a wiki for this!


The chicken wire gives a very nice form - I've been doing it this way for 4/5 years now.
 
I created 6 tress this year using the cages. Each one as 4 colors on it, RED, BLUE, GREEN and WHITE. All outputs on the 4 channel SSR are hooked up to the tree. The small tree has 150 blub light stings x4 colors for 600 lights. The large tree has 300 blub light strings x4 colors for 1200 lights. The strings are hooked directly to the SSR and all soldered together end to end. The outlets and plugs were removed.

I hadn't considered using chicken wire. Good idea. To late for me now, the work is done. They came out nice however.



Thanks
ms
 
I wish I had wrapped my mini trees in separate colors to get that effect. But I kinda ran out of channels to facilitate that. 64 channels for my mega tree and 12 for my mini trees leaves me with 24 out of 100 to use.

p.s. Stempile, from that music, do you happen to listen to the 1 up show podcast?
 
The music is stock iLife '08 - iMovie. There are several different variations of that at different lengths. I have read stories on 1up but have not followed the podcasts.

ms
 
you know I might have to stop visiting this forum. My after christmas "need to buy list" is getting too long and my house is going to dim the lights in my neighboor hood :lol:

Deffinitally making some of these!

Ben
 
anyone know who carries yellow minilights?

i made one of these and my wife liked it, so i'm looking to make more. i'm going to try to bend a wire hanger in the shape of a star to put on top and am in need of yellow or gold lights to outline it with.
 
I use Floral easels from the hobby stores for my mini trees. They are powdered coated and cost around 2.50 each. They have lasted for 5 years without any problems.
 
I'm currently in the process of making a few more Mini trees using the Tomato Cage/Rings you can get from the hardware stores.

For anyone else making these, here's a few more tips.

Chicken wire in 24inch x 25foot rolls. This does not cover the entire tree in one go, so its a two stage process.

Bottom 2/3rds:

Make a trapezoid measuring 41" along the bottom of the chicken wire and 21" along the top. Make a centerline on the chickenwire and make the trapezoid equidistant. better yet, make a hardboard template.

I just make a small bend in the wire top and bottom to make the centerline, measure 20.5" each way along the bottom, and 10.5" each way along the top to get your trapezoid.

Make sure you have a way to locate that centerline later, majic marker, bend in the wire.

Using this trapezoid pattern you will consume 258.5 inches of the 300 inch roll leaving about 42" by 24" left over as well the two wedges left over from the trapezoid pattern after you square off the roll.

Those become the top covering.

Top;

The chicken wire I bought has a center guide wire through the middle of the roll, if yours does not have that, just eyeball it at 12" and snip the remaining 42" lengthwise in half.

If you want, make a second trapezoid template using 20" along the bottom and bring it to a point along the top, use the centerline, marker or bend again. This will produce 6 wedges for the tops.

The remaining wedge scraps from the bottom traps will give you the remaining 2 wedges needed for the top.

Applying the bottom wedges;

Using the centerline you created on the trapezoid, hook it over one of the 3 straight wires on the frame, keep the centerline of the chickenwire along that frame wire. Join the ends of the chickenwire at the second ring so its snug along that ring, work back down to the base and if done correctly a tail will result that you fold under the base. once thats done, eyeball form the last 5-6 inches from the second ring upwards keeping the conical shape, dont be tempted to just snug the chicken wire to the 3 wireframes at this point or you'll get a floppy witch/wizards hat look to it.

The top few inches may not even make contact with the frame wires at this point. wo worries.

Now use the top wedge and using the centerline again, hook the top over one of the tree frame wires and work back to the top ring, you'll not quite reach it but close enough to begin forming the bottom of that wedge into a ring, knit the rest upwards keeping a conical shape and overlaping the edge of top section lapelle style to conplete the cone.

Press outward from inside to shape the tree if any dents occured.

Apply lights..

8 mini-trees, 1 roll of chickenwire, 30 minutes..
 
If you don't like the shape or size of the tomato cages, you can also make your own using suspended ceiling wires. Just bend 2 or 3 of them into rings of the desired size, then fasten them to some vertical posts (tape, zipt-tie or weld), then cover in chicken wire. I've used the suspended ceiling wires to make other shapes (not trees), and they are quite durable.

don
 
I use Floral easels that can be purchased in sizes from 30" and up. The cool thing is that they are powered coated and they last forever.
 
has anyone done any tests to see how a flat mini tree looks compared to a tomato cage one?

It would also be neat to know how well a tomato cage mini tree loos with only lights wraped on the front 180 degrees.... to give the most amount of lights shinning forward.


Obviously the benifit of the flat tress is the store easier..
 
I saw an article on how to make these. Can't remember where, but they weren't in the ground they put them on their home in some type of pattern.
 
Thats the goal.
Really old joke from a long time ago when every one thought 64 channels was a lot and I was making up the signature images.

Only 250 this year.
Hope to hold it down to less than 500 next year.
Two years from now, who knows.
If LEDs individually controlled with 12v count I may get there sooner than I think.

Joel
 
PacMang said:
has anyone done any tests to see how a flat mini tree looks compared to a tomato cage one?

It would also be neat to know how well a tomato cage mini tree loos with only lights wraped on the front 180 degrees.... to give the most amount of lights shinning forward.


Obviously the benefit of the flat tress is the store easier..
Click to expand...
This is very personal, but I like the dimensional look of the tomato cage trees versus the flat look.
Again it is a personal thing, but I thing the dimensional aspect give the viewer a more interesting view of some depth versus flat
 
In my case where I have 350 feet of yard/road front to decorate, folks at one end of the display can DEFINATELY tell if the Mega Tree was flat..
 
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