Quick change cake firing pad

[pyrogeek]

I'm thinking of making a board that will allow me to hold a cake securely in place, but also be able to quickly change it out for a new cake without needing to drag along bricks, hunks of wood, etc. My shows aren't absolutely huge, and the main part of the show is usually fountains with 1 cake after another going off in the background. I wondered if anyone else has made anything like this, and if so, how did u make it? I'm thinking of a plywood base, some pieces of 2x4 as braces, and a bungee to strap it in. It will need to hold anything from the smaller 16 shot repeaters to the large 19 shots.

[MNPyro]

I haven't made this so it may sound weird, but it looks good in my head :-)
Why not, the plywood base, with 4 cut groves, in each of the groves is a bolt with a wing nut...attached to a piece of wood say, 4" long? make the groves close enough so you can hold your small cakes, but far enough apart to hold a nice size 500g.
All you have to do to adjust is undo the wing nut a little bit, slide the pieces of wood out and tighten the wing nut back down. Truly, you could even have 1-2 sides permanent, and just have the other 2-3 sides moveable.

Like I said this looks good in my head, tell me whatcha think :-)

MNPyro

[St1dinoh]

2 fixed sides is the way to go. then you can use a V shaped piece which is loose to go on the opposite side of the fixed sections. then use either the strap or some of thoes quick grip clamps to secure the loose to the fixed part. mabey even use some carpenters tack strip (small teeth) on the inside to prevent the cake from wriggeling free. then you'd have an adjustable box that could grip the cake and not allow it to tip over.

[JoeRatman]

Do you mean you want to change a cake during the show? Or are you thinking just a reusable board?

If you are thinking a reuseable board, you might look at this and just make the board a bit wider for the cakes.
http://www.pyrouniverse.com/fprojects/sawhorse.htm

[lwoodpyro]

I started with a small piece(2' x 4') of 1/2" plywood. I placed a 2 x4 around the outside edges on the bottom. I secured a 2x4 on it's side on the top of the long sides. On one of the 2x4's, I drilled 1/2" holes spaced 12" apart, for 4 holes. I hammered 1/2" wall anchors into the holes. Now I can place a cake on the board, place a loose piece of 2x4 on the side where the anchors are, & using a 1/2" bolt, I can screw the bolt in against the loose 2x4 piece, securing the cake against the solid rear wall. I've only built the one board, at a cost of $8.00 using scrap wood I get from work. I have not fired a cake from this, but I did secure a cake in the "vise", & was able to lift the entire board by lifting the cake. I think it's pretty secure. I plan on testing the board this weekend, as well as my round rack. Soon as I get my digital camera back from my sister, I will post pics of both.

[bbd4193]

Last year in a pinch I used a tent stake. Drive the stake into the ground till it's just below the top of the cake. Place the cake next to the stake an rap duct tape around both. I used a razor knife to cut the cake loose.

[animeguru]

Some of these solutions seem overly complicated. If you're only planning on doing one cake at a time, and you want something to secure it to, but be able to quickly switch it out, why not just do this??

http://www.animeguru.com/images/cakestand.jpg

You could easily do this out of a single piece of plywood and a band clamp like that one runs about $13 at Home Depot. So, for less than $20 and a bit of prep time, you'd have a quick release, reusable cake stand.

Basically, its just a large board for the bottom with a corner built on. Put the cake into the corner, wrap the band clamp around it and tighten it down. The wide base of the board should ensure stability and the band clamp will keep the cake attached.

Set it down so that the wood corner is facing the crowd. That way if by chance the cake did fall, it'd fall pointing away from your audience.

This setup should work with square, rectangle, round, octagonal and triangle shaped cakes. The only downside to this setup would be a z-cake since most of them are somewhat V shaped and it wouldn't fit into the corner too well. You might be able to do a one wall setup and wrap the clamp all the way around or you could do the corner setup, but with one of the walls shorter so the angled part of the cake would extend over it.

Good luck!

[pyrogeek]

Thanks for the great input. Yes, I want to be able to change cakes quickly. I plan on building two, and alternate firing from each platform, so I can get a non-stop effect without fusing together a bunch of boards. I will mount my finale to boards and fuse it together, but for the main part of the show I want to be able to light one cake after another, and be able to change them quickly and safely in low light conditions.

[Deweycoon]

I don't want to put a damper on this hole thing but what happened to staying away from cakes for 30 minutes before you approuch them!
Are you going to water them down before moving them?

[St1dinoh]

Some of these solutions seem overly complicated. If you're only planning on doing one cake at a time, and you want something to secure it to, but be able to quickly switch it out, why not just do this??

http://www.animeguru.com/images/cakestand.jpg

You could easily do this out of a single piece of plywood and a band clamp like that one runs about $13 at Home Depot. So, for less than $20 and a bit of prep time, you'd have a quick release, reusable cake stand.

Basically, its just a large board for the bottom with a corner built on. Put the cake into the corner, wrap the band clamp around it and tighten it down. The wide base of the board should ensure stability and the band clamp will keep the cake attached.

Set it down so that the wood corner is facing the crowd. That way if by chance the cake did fall, it'd fall pointing away from your audience.

This setup should work with square, rectangle, round, octagonal and triangle shaped cakes. The only downside to this setup would be a z-cake since most of them are somewhat V shaped and it wouldn't fit into the corner too well. You might be able to do a one wall setup and wrap the clamp all the way around or you could do the corner setup, but with one of the walls shorter so the angled part of the cake would extend over it.

Good luck!

lol....thats exactly what i was talking about only i fail at drawing pictures. :lol: . only thing different would be that the metal pieces would be replaced by another wood piece, with metal tack strips nailed to the inside so it can grip the cake. that way it won't fall over. but on second thought using the metal "L" 's is a much beter idea. mabey using thoes tack strips and bending them into an "L" shape....

but anyway nice job animeguru, that pic you posted is exactly what i was trying to say. *googles "how to use MS paint"

[Dan]

I am with Dewey, while this SOUNDS like a good idea, I think the point of putting together a "cake board" is so you can fire many cakes, WITHOUT having to go over and change a cake out, with one that has just been shot. Dangerous, in my opinion.

I'll stick with 4x4 sheets of plywood and glueing multiple cakes down on it, and calling it good

Dan

[animeguru]

but anyway nice job animeguru, that pic you posted is exactly what i was trying to say. *googles "how to use MS paint"


Well, using Photoshop everyday at work for the past 6+ years makes it easy to whip this stuff up in a couple minutes. ;)

[lwoodpyro]

I am with Dewey, while this SOUNDS like a good idea, I think the point of putting together a "cake board" is so you can fire many cakes, WITHOUT having to go over and change a cake out, with one that has just been shot. Dangerous, in my opinion.

I don't plan on changing out cakes during the show. I have multiple angle boards, & was concerned about how to secure them. One method would be to secure all the cakes to individual boards, then glue those to the shims. I wanted a reusable board that could securely hold multiple cakes of the same size in varying angles up to 15 degrees. The 30 minute rule should never be broken.