tmarshal61
New member
I have a 5'x10' CNC machine, and I make many of my own props, among other things. I want to make a bunch of Mini Trees, (like 20 or 30), made with HDPE similar to the Medium Plus 360 Mini Tree HDPE sold by Boscoyo, the MiniTree Rev2 sold by by Gilbert Engineering, or the PixNode Tree™ from Holiday Coro. I want them as large as I can get them. Thinking in the 4' tall range.
This design originated from Derek's Dalek Mini tree design and was first manufactured by James from Boscoyo in Coro. I have 8 of the old Coro Design I bought from Boscoyo before I has a CNC of my own. There is a bunch of info on this thread about how that came about and how the newer design was created using HDPE or ABS.
I can get HDPE in 4x8 sheets, which I think is what James is using in his design, but, you are limited to only being able to get two moderate sized mini trees from a single 4x8 sheet. The Boscoyo design linked to above is 27.8" tall.
There is this really cool website I use for designing all manner of things, and it has this cone pattern template calculator
The Gilbert Engineering trees are 48" tall according to their website. If I plug in the numbers to the cone template calculator, I can't even get one 48" mini tree with a single sheet of 48x96 HDPE. If I could find 60"x120", I could squeeze two on a sheet if I reduced the size just a bit, but even if I did, there would be a lot of waste. It got me to thinking that if this could be obtained in a roll of 40 mil HDPE, there would be very little waste. The only thing I could find was this glossy HDPE material used as a rhizome barrier, or root barrier for bamboo that comes in 40mil thickness in a 48"wide, 100' long roll for only $395.61 shipped. according to my calculations, that would be enough to make over 30 46" tall mini trees.
Most of the vendors use an HDPE material with more of a matt finish. Does anyone know of any similar HDPE product with a matt finish that comes in a roll, or other options that might work?
This design originated from Derek's Dalek Mini tree design and was first manufactured by James from Boscoyo in Coro. I have 8 of the old Coro Design I bought from Boscoyo before I has a CNC of my own. There is a bunch of info on this thread about how that came about and how the newer design was created using HDPE or ABS.
I can get HDPE in 4x8 sheets, which I think is what James is using in his design, but, you are limited to only being able to get two moderate sized mini trees from a single 4x8 sheet. The Boscoyo design linked to above is 27.8" tall.
There is this really cool website I use for designing all manner of things, and it has this cone pattern template calculator
The Gilbert Engineering trees are 48" tall according to their website. If I plug in the numbers to the cone template calculator, I can't even get one 48" mini tree with a single sheet of 48x96 HDPE. If I could find 60"x120", I could squeeze two on a sheet if I reduced the size just a bit, but even if I did, there would be a lot of waste. It got me to thinking that if this could be obtained in a roll of 40 mil HDPE, there would be very little waste. The only thing I could find was this glossy HDPE material used as a rhizome barrier, or root barrier for bamboo that comes in 40mil thickness in a 48"wide, 100' long roll for only $395.61 shipped. according to my calculations, that would be enough to make over 30 46" tall mini trees.
Most of the vendors use an HDPE material with more of a matt finish. Does anyone know of any similar HDPE product with a matt finish that comes in a roll, or other options that might work?
