el wire designs

DisOrienT · Post by **DisOrienT** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 12:50 pm

I was searchign through pictures from previous events and noticed some people made stick people out of EL wire. I was just wondering if anyone knew how they did the hair and faces? Did they use a mask? though it was cool to make for an event here in canada please help

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 4:48 am

I like to use aluminum wire as armatures for lots of art projects- If you're lucky you can scrounge high-tension power line, which is braided strands of wire about 1/8" in diameter and hardened so that it'll hold a shape well. You can also find it in the hardware store, with or without a plastic coating, as "clothesline wire". With a little experimentation you can work out clever AND attractive ways to wrap and wind the wire to create masks, hair-supports and whatever else you need. Of course COPPER wire'll work too, but it's heavier and more expensive. I'd be glad to offer more suggestions about working with wire, if you'd like. Happy Project!

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 5:42 am

Hey EL wire junkies! I'm wandering through IKEA on Saturday when WHAT should I happen across...but a lovely Xmuz decorating product called GLANSA. (Imagine dots over that middle "a".) To my delight, I discover that it's a 32 FOOT LONG coil of EL, available in a number of colors, with a driver and housecurrent "wall wart" transformer, for TWENTY BUCKS. Digging further, I discover portable 5' units for FIVE BUCKS- The 2 AA battery type, constant or flashing, many colors available. Now that's about the cheapest I've seen The Blinky Goodness ANYWHERE. Forgive my shilling for those cheap-but-practical Scandahoovians, but I just thought you'd like to know.

DisOrienT · Post by **DisOrienT** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 6:28 am

Sweet!, thanx 4 the tip!!

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 6:42 am

Approximately 0.63 per foot? I had a trip planned to IKEA in Dallas next month but I couldn't pass that up. Thank you Robotland you saved me a bunch of money.

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 5:12 am

Glad to be of service!

I had a chance to unpack my toys and play around with the ELKEA wire- It seems to be of reasonable quality, although (only on the portable 5-footers) the vinyl outer layer has a funky bad-new-car outgassing smell going on...Airing them out a little mostly remedies that. Colorwise, the purple is a lovely purplish violet, the orange is slightly amber, and the green is a light but satisfactory shade....I'm keen on green, and picked up two of the 32-footers- They had LOTS and LOTS of white in the long packs, and with a little digging I came up with orange, green and purple. It might take a trip to their website to determine what colors they offer in all.
Okay....Off to the studio, to put 64 feet of EL on the Space Dinosaur suit!

EB · Post by EB » Tue Nov 29, 2005 12:51 pm

Sweet tip, Robotland.

re: Stick figure idea.

My girlfriend and I made stick figure costumes this year and boy, were we the belles of the ball! Lots of compliments and well-wishes. The moonless night helped a lot...

We sewed blue el wire for me, pink for her, to black tops and bottoms while making as few "breaks" as possible. What really helped is when I learned how to make a "Y" on the trunks, allowing the el wire to go off to the arms and legs without breaking the line.

As far as the heads, I made a coil of wire (can't remember the gauge but it was a hair thicker than coat hanger wire) and fashioned a circle for the head and, out of the same piece, a perpendicular circle to go around the neck. Imagine a toilet seat.

With the pliable wire, you can adjust it so either your head sticks through it, behind it, whatever. Riding bikes at night, the ability to adjust it was important, plus, I didn't want to wear a mask all night.

Caveats -- I made the mistake of having the el-wire run through pinchpoints (neck, wrists, elbows) and shorted out my costume a few times. (repairing at Burning Man SUCKS...) so I would run wire through a clear plastic tube (or something) to reinforce it.

Good luck

EB

diane o'thirst · Post by **diane o'thirst** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 2:18 pm

STOP ME BEFORE I PROJECT AGAIN!!!

I have a boatload of red regular gauge from years ago and I'm thinking of doing an animated running wolf for my bicycle, à la Blue Horsebike style. Go back to the basics

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 2:27 pm

What really helped is when I learned how to make a "Y" on the trunks, allowing the el wire to go off to the arms and legs without breaking the line.

Do you have any pictures of how you did that and what the final result looked like?

DisOrienT · Post by **DisOrienT** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 1:20 pm

i am curious as well on how u did the "Y" split off so there is no break in the line...... also i was thinking that using an old hoodie or buying one for cheap to make the face would work very well, just line the forming wire through the hoodie where the string is and voilla you have a perfect shape for the face without wearing a mask........

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 6:09 am

To create a visually unbroken "Y" join, you can employ an old neon-signmaker's trick- Make one leg of the split slightly longer than the other, and loop it back and over the splice where the light is "broken". Don't bend it TOO tightly over, or you'll break those little teensy wires. Touch up the loop with black paint or a piece of electrical tape...or, if you want to get fancy, use "Tool Dip", the stuff made for regripping tools.
You can also CAREFULLY bend back the ends of any and all EL sections that meet, and butt the resulting ends snugly together to leave an unbroken effect- What in neon is called a "doubleback". (The wiring is underneath.)

EB · Post by EB » Fri Dec 02, 2005 1:50 pm

Maybe unbroken was an exaggeration...

I took the two branching segments (the "arms" of the "Y") and joined them side-by-side instead of head on forming a super wire of sorts, then I joined the super wire into the torso wire head-on. I'm sure this isn't news to the pros, but, damn, when i saw how to do it (found it at hovering.net I think) I was psyched. There is indeed a small patch of tube where they join but it didn't look too bad...

I have photos on my hard drive, but my computer IQ stopped growing sometime between 14.4 modems and web site hosting so I don't know how to do it.

Duh.

EB

Elliot · Post by **Elliot** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 10:07 pm

IKEA is building a store in West Sacramento, Northern California, scheduled to open in spring 2006.

As for the "cheap but practical Scandihoovians" comment... Hey, I resemble that remark! ;-)

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 5:39 am

I can't WAIT to see what you're driving next August. Lotsa "IKEA wire" trim, please, ya Scandahooligan....and Beware The Norwegians. There are forces at work to undermine the supremacy of Herr Killbuck's Apokiliptikan Regime, and they're spending herrings like they grow on trees.

DisOrienT · Post by **DisOrienT** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 5:23 pm

WOW we whent to Ikea they have Glansa EL Wire on sale for 7.99 for the 10m sections...........Crazy cheap

capjbadger · Post by **capjbadger** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 6:35 pm

You wouldn't happen to know what the output of that "wall wart" is would you? It'd be nice if one could just chop the transformer off entirely and hook up some DC from batteries. hmmm....

Badger

robotland wrote:Hey EL wire junkies! I'm wandering through IKEA on Saturday when WHAT should I happen across...but a lovely Xmuz decorating product called GLANSA. (Imagine dots over that middle "a".) To my delight, I discover that it's a 32 FOOT LONG coil of EL, available in a number of colors, with a driver and housecurrent "wall wart" transformer, for TWENTY BUCKS. Digging further, I discover portable 5' units for FIVE BUCKS- The 2 AA battery type, constant or flashing, many colors available. Now that's about the cheapest I've seen The Blinky Goodness ANYWHERE. Forgive my shilling for those cheap-but-practical Scandahoovians, but I just thought you'd like to know.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:44 pm

Glansa is not available for web ordering. Bah! That's one of the curses of living out here, you have to drive 500 miles to get to anything really good. I guess it's back to $1.10 a foot for me which is still a far cry from some of the prices I've seen locally. How about $4 a foot?

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 10:57 pm

capjbadger wrote:You wouldn't happen to know what the output of that "wall wart" is would you? It'd be nice if one could just chop the transformer off entirely and hook up some DC from batteries. hmmm....

I believe it was good 'ol 12V output, at 300 mA....*checking* ...Yep. The driver's a little whiney, but can be either isolated or replaced. Dang! I'm tempted to haul over to the Chicago 'burbs for some post-Xmas Glansa, now....
Another fine find o' the holiday season was some nifty color-changing LED lights, gotten at half-off from Menards...Strings of ten little ones, or six larger ones, or six big (6"?) glass-globed yardlight style, all with the same three-diode colorchange setup. The smaller ones were about eight bucks, and came with a wall transformer AND a battery box with a great little momentary-contact button marked TRY ME that I immediately removed to put into an art project. The batteries (AAx3, for 4.5 volts- Ditto, the wall wart.) run 'em for a LONG time, and they're gonna be great for a number of little playa projects.

capjbadger · Post by **capjbadger** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:46 am

12 volt eh? Perfect.

Das Bus · Post by **Das Bus** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 6:36 am

K:

There's Glansa being sold over on eBay. You might be able to find some good deals there. : )

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