Giant Star

Ben Dillenback from Passion Community Church in Richmond, VA brings us this crazy big star for their stage.

From Ben: This star is 15 feet tall an 16 feet wide made of Coroplast. The center star is 4 sheets thick of Coroplast the back layer is what all of the layers are zip tied too.

We used two colors of Coroplast white and silver. We wanted gray but supplier could not get gray so we went with silver. We went through a local supply chain for the Coroplast Polymer Shapes, they are a nation wide supply chain for polymers.

There are 13, 1/16in, black aircraft cables run from floor to ceiling that the pieces are fastened to. The center star is hanging from the center floor to ceiling air craft cable via a wire rope clip and and an air craft cable threaded through the bottom 3 layers and are all wire clipped together. The stars front north south spire covers all the zip ties and fasteners and is held on by a four zip ties as well.

All the off shooting spires are zip-tied tight to the air craft cables and can slide up and down if so desired.

The star field back drop is from the company Dazian and the back drop center is made up of two 6 meter by 6 meter starfield curtains and two more 6 meter by 5 meter out the outside left and right.

The biggest help was drawing it all out on graph paper to scale first. Each square on the graph paper equals 1 foot.

Big challenges were getting the center star fully assembled and as straight as possible. And running air craft cables from floor to ceiling too much longer than anticipated. Each cable runs about 21 feet. We mounted the cables to the floor so when we fastened the pieces they would not swing or rotate.

There is a 2 foot tall wall that made of 2ft high black Coroplast which hides the rough bottom edge of the Star Field blankets.

We spent a week cutting out all the pieces and assembling the star and it took me and another volunteer 4 days to install the Star Curtains, hang the cables and put up the star.

Full materials list.

– Lots of Coroplast
– 1 spool of black 1/16 air craft cable
– Lots of white zip ties
– We found a hand held tile cutting saw works well for cutting Coroplast. $40 at harbor
freight.
– Lots of Wire Rope Clips
– Wire Cutters
– Screw Gun
– Scissor lift (we are fortunate enough to own one already)
– Gaff tape
– Black 1/8th Kevlar cord (used to tie up the star blankets)

The most expensive part was the Dazian Star Field blankets. But wow they look great. And they will stay up for a long time. If you go to their site you can price out different size star blankets. But to cover out back wall 50′ wide and 21′ tall it cost around $5000.

The Coroplast, cables, and wire rope clips were about $500