How do we do it?

Clockwork Scenery believes in both the traditional scenery building techniques, as well as the more modern aluminium framed CNC clad option. We mix timber, steel and aluminium construction methods to find the right balance between strength, weight and cost, especially where flying and automation are concerned. Each element of your set is then clad, covered, painted as per your references, pre assembled in the workshop before being delivered and installed.

Services we offer include:

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Metalwork - Carpentry - Finishes & Scenic Art - In House CNC plasma - In House CNC Router - Led Installation - Drafting & Digital- Props & poly carving - Sub contracting

METALWORK 

Fabricated steel frames frequently form the structural basis to Scenery. Stage engineering is used to build scenic trucks, large flats, and flown pieces due to its strength vs. weight advantages, as well as its resilience in a tour environment.

A lightweight steel frame can be clad in the same materials as timber flattage but can often be lighter than a timber solution.

As Aluminium Scenery Builders we work closely with the client to produce high specification, high finish scenic elements that simply ‘work’ for all involved, in both weight and finish.

We build the usual suspects such as truck bases, Flats, decking, tread units, revolves and bridges, but welcome the unusual builds.

Utilising a great selection of modern metalworking machinery allows us to work both the usual mild steel, stainless steel (Singing in the Rain) and aluminium for high specification Cruise ship work. We use our in house CNC Plasma to cut up to 12mm thick, CNC routers for templates and jigs, Lasers for finer detail, and Waterjet processes to ensure repeatability on batch work, and speed up / remove processes to minimise the labour element if necessary, often allowing for reduced costs.

We regularly work with structural engineers and theatre consultants, ensuring we can come up with solutions to your engineering problems making sure your scenery looks and ‘works’ as it should.

All our steel work gets a good coat of black and is ‘burr’ free, ensuring the scenery is safe to handle and protected from the elements. There’s nothing worse than seemingly ‘unfinished’ frames.

Heavy Plant includes:

• Macc chop saw

• 3x Mig rigs

• Pedestal Spot welder

• 2x AC/DC TIG,

• Pillar Drill,

• Engineering Lathe,

• 1250x1250 Plasma

Carpentry

Wood is the traditional material used in scenic construction & scenery building, mainly due to its cost and ease of use. Traditional 3×1 mortise and tenon flats are the staple to theatre scenery, however due to costs most scenery companies are choosing the ‘on-edge’ method. We build using both methods, and NEVER use wiggle pins!

Carpentry in theatre can often be more ‘joinery’ such as staircases, with timber baluster rails, doors, both 2×1 on edge lightweight and solid timber doors, sash windows, flooring units suitable for tours and quick get-ins.

The finer elements of scenery are often timber based and add that extra level of detail. (Although normally it gets covered over with a load of artex or idenden-!)

We have invested in our own CNC router to facilitate intricate fretwork/carving and the more modern construction methods speeding the process up and ultimately reducing costs. It’s been a triumph and is constantly whizzing about doing something.

Heavy Plant includes:

• Sicar Table saw

• Compound mitre saw

• Spindle Moulder

• Thicknesser/ Planer

• Moticer

• Bandsaw

• P&J Dust extraction

FINISHES & Scenic Art

We have a great team of Scenic artists and do a lot of the scenic finishing in house, all sorts of textures and finishes can be applied, whilst obviously working closely with the designer to ensure the finished scenic element matches the model or references and the ‘look’ required.

We powder coat the majority of the aluminium scenery we build, and can do a range of finishes, as well as doing smaller components in house with our own Powder Coating gun.

Heavy Plant:

• Screw Compressor with dryer

• 8ft x 8ft Spray booth

CNC PLASMA 

We recently added a 1250 x 1250 CNC Plasma to our equipment list. This alows for rapid prototyping and quick response for production needs.

We were recently asked to make a speaker grill as the lorry was being loaded, it was drawn and cut in under 3 minutes.

With capacity to cut upto 12mm mild steel, its perfect for castor plates, signage, and all those odd brackets!

CNC ROUTER 

As well as using our in house 10 x 5 ft AXYZ router for our own construction needs making all sorts of parts, we also offer a CNC router service to scenery companies and others looking for a professional, reliable service.

See Clockwork-CNC for more info.

We can work from your drawings in a wide variety of formats or can design your project from start to finish.

Please call 01483 375 777 for more information.

LED Installation & set electrics

As the cost of LED based products has become more affordable we see a big trend in adding detail strips to our sets.

We work closely with your Lighting designer and Prod LX to ensure the desired effect is achieved.

From simple faux Neon strips, RGB, RGBW, Pixel tape, Cabouchon, Digital cababouns, and much more.

We make our own stage boxes, cut folded, powder coated and populated in house.

We only use high quality drivers and tape to ensure the effect lasts.

Control is usually through DMX, although it can be a simple switch!

Drafting & digital

We use the latest Autocad software across the office. Working in 2d and 3d often to digitally build your set or job to ensure accuracy.

We work from your drawings to develop the build drawings, working everything out so it looks like your render or model.

We can provide renders of your proposed commission so you can see what you’re getting.

With the advances in large format printing we can work with you to guide you through the process. We check and adapt your artwork, or can provide the artwork, checking for size, bleed, resolution. We then work closely with our printer to get you a cost effective solution.

We work with the Adobe suite of products.

Software:

• Autocad 2023

• Sketchup Pro

• Adobe Illustrator

• Adobe Photoshop

• Adobe Lightroom

• Vectric CNC

Props & Polycarving

We often get asked for oversized props which are in effect bits of set, colossal chairs, elephantine eggs, massive masks.

Whether a steel, timber or polycarved project it’s all part of what we do.

Upholstery and specialist finishes are all part of this departments skills.

Sub Contracting

As well as providing all the above and more we are often asked to build for other scenery firms whether it be to relieve some of the pressure on time and space or that they don’t have specialist metalwork or CNC capabilities.

We’re more than happy to help other firms and are more than willing to look at short notice builds.