Scenery bumpers are invaluable in tightly packed lofts. The standard bumper, an 18″ strap-steel ring, is adequate for deflecting soft drops, but as Stage Carpenter for a Yale School of Drama production, I learned that it does not always work well on hard-covered, irregularly shaped scenery. Our production featured an x-shaped lauan railroad-crossing sign, hung on a batten directly upstage of an electric. The standard bumper we installed to protect the scenery caught on the sign, damaging it and causing focus problems. In response, I made a new type of scenery bumper from a paint can. Too wide to catch the arms of the sign, the paint-can bumper worked well throughout the run. Figure 1 illustrates both the standard strap-steel bumper and its shop-built replacement.

FIGURE 1: 18″ STRAP STEEL AND PAINT CAN BUMPERS

MATERIALS

For the scenery bumper I used a standard one-gallon paint can for the body, but other sizes of buckets or lengths of PVC pipe will work, and can be chosen to suit the circumstances. If you are using a piece of PVC pipe, you may need to buy or make end caps, which are needed to keep the body from deforming while it does its job. Silicone or epoxy secures the can lids or end caps to the body of the bumper. Plywood provides a secure base for attachment of the inevitable C-clamp, a sound damper of loosely packed muslin or foam scraps fills the bumper, and its outside is covered with carpet to guard the piece of scenery against abrasion.

SCENERY BUMPER CONSTRUCTION

Paint-can bumper construction is fairly self-evident. One side of the body needs to be flattened to nest snugly between the pieces of the plywood sandwich. Alternatively, of course, the plywood could be sanded to conform to the bumper’s body. Drywall screws work well in fastening the halves of the sandwich together once they’re in place. After drilling a ½″ bolt hole through the sandwich and the body, attach the C-clamp, using fender washers on both sides of the wood. Fill the inside of the cylinder with loosely packed sound-damping material, run a bead of silicone or epoxy around the end(s) of the body, place the lid or end caps in position, and use a mallet to seat them properly. Secure a piece of low-pile carpet around the body with gaffers tape and/or contact cement.

A FURTHER POSSIBILITY

Though they are padded, the bumpers could damage some scenery finishes by rubbing. If that possibility exists, you may want to build a scenery roller rather than a scenery bumper.

SCENERY ROLLER CONSTRUCTION

Building a roller is similar to building a bumper. Simply add an axle of threaded rod and an ⅛″ strap-steel bracket to the materials listed above. Instead of sandwiching the body of the paint can between pieces of plywood, attach one piece of ¾″ plywood on the inside of the lid and another on the inside of the bottom with drywall screws and drill holes for the threaded-rod axle. Lay in the sound-damping material and secure the ends of the cylinder as you would on the bumper. Then attach carpet to the outside of the roller.

Make a bracket of ⅛″ strap steel, leaving a minimum of ½″ clearance on both ends of the roller and 1″ between its side and the bracket. Drill axle holes in each arm of the bracket, and drill a hole in the center of the bracket for the C-clamp. Mount the C-clamp on the bracket and assemble the roller to the bracket by means of the threaded-rod axle. Use washers to fill the gaps between the bracket and the roller, centering the roller on the bracket. Double-nut the ends of the axle.

CONCLUSION

Though we happened to use one-gallon paint cans, other cylinders — smaller or larger — could be used on either the bumper or the roller. The choice is best made in light of a specific application. Regardless of that choice, however, both of these simple scenery guides present useful opportunities for recycling materials that would otherwise be thrown away.

FIGURE 2: PAINT-CAN SCENERY ROLLER