Most people who play around with dominoes or tip over blocks work mostly on a floor surface, hopefully one that is large, clear, and stable. From the start I’ve wanted to have some sort of structural elements that let me bring the fun up off the floor and into different elevations. I also wanted this to be a modular type thing that allows me to change and reconfigure it frequently. As a child I had a box of wooden play blocks and some scrap plywood boards that I used to make structures to have my dominoes run up, down, and around. It may be worth considering making these again to play with, but this time around I’m exploring a different approach. That of something called grid beam.
Several years ago I bought a book about building with grid beam. It seemed like an interesting concept, but I never did anything with it. A major problem is that there isn’t a quick, cheap, easy way to try it out. You will either spend a lot of money buying ready made grid beam or you will spend a lot of time making your own.
When thinking about this block project though it seemed like just the thing. It’s very modular and adaptable. I should be able to bring a big pile of the sticks into any space and then find ways to assemble them into structures for the blocks to run on. It’s like a big Erector Set! The question then was, do I find a place to buy grid beam or make my own? If you know me you know I didn’t spend too long contemplating this and instead got to work doing some tests to drill my own. One of the first things I needed to figure out was what dimension to make the sticks and I landed on 3/4 inches in diameter in order to get a pleasing visual ratio with the size of the blocks. From what I could see there wasn’t anyone making grid beam with this dimension anyway.
I made the initial sticks from some straight grained scrap wood I had, ripping it down into the required square format on my table saw. Later I found to my delight that the local lumber store had a type of molding they called “check stop” that was exactly 3/4″ square in 14 foot lengths that was very economical, esp. considering how much I’ll end up needing and how hard a time I’d have finding lots of clear straight grained wood in scrap bins to rip down my own lengths!
In my first test pieces I measured where each hole had to be, making a mark. Then it was a matter of trying to keep everything lined up perfectly with my drill press. It quickly became apparent I would need to develop a drilling jig of some sort. I had created some jigs for a past iteration of this project that ended up getting shelved. I found I was able to use one of them already set for a 3/4 inch width piece of wood with the right diameter drill bushing in place to perfectly guide the drill bit to the center. Then I dug out a long length of aluminum plate and carefully drilled holes to use as stopping points. I made a little stop rod to plug into the holes and was set to go. I won’t say it’s good for true mass production as this still takes a lot of labor and time to drill holes on all sides every 3/4 of an inch. However, since I expect to be using the grid beam I do make over and over again it’s good enough for the “one time” production I’ll need to do.
After figuring out how to manufacture my grid beam sticks I needed to have the hardware to connect them together. I’ve actually got a ton of different sized screws salvaged years ago from a place that went out of business. I initially thought I’d be able to find one of those sized screws that would work perfectly. Sigh… No such luck. They were all either too long or too short, or just too wide. So I started trying to determine what would be ideal since I’d have to buy them. Ok, I did briefly consider making my own. I have a tap and die set. It’s rather fun and empowering to make your own screws. However, that fun would wear off quickly and grid beam construction uses a lot of hardware!
Anyway, I came to the conclusion that I wanted #6 screws in 3 different lengths that should work perfectly with more decorative, but also more functionally limited acorn nuts. I wanted them to be black, and I wanted finish washers to give a better appearance. These won’t just being functional. There will be a lot of them so they’ll have a big visual impact on the piece. It’s more challenging to find screws for sale in bulk than I thought it would be. It also seems that what I wanted wasn’t all that common. It would seem there is a leap between selling them in tiny amounts and large amounts. In the end I dropped more money than I wanted on screws but got several thousand of each. Like the grid beam itself these should be getting reused over and over so I probably won’t have to purchase screws again.
Once I had some grid beam and the hardware to assemble it all I began playing with what sort of structures I could make to get the domino block action up off the floor. I was trying to envision how the blocks would run around on these. What sorts of gadgets would I need to make to move the run up and down? How could I incorporate panels or drawings? Do I make lots of individual towers/buildings or should I just start with a central structure and keep building lines and structures off of that? How is this going to be arranged? What will it look like from various angles?
I quickly found I wanted to make structures of a reasonable size to allow for a decent domino run before they reached an end point or corner. This first structure I made was also far more wiggly than I’d like. I had to make that extending arm you see in the photo above to stabilize it. When I first started placing dominoes on one side of the construction without that extra arm extension it threw off the weight balance and began to tip over! That wasn’t the sort of tip over action I wanted! (Though it is something to keep in mind for future consideration.)
I went out to the pole barn where I had a larger clear space and tried putting these sticks together in other ways. I could focus my attention on small areas and like what I was seeing, but when I took in an overall view I hated it. Is this just because I’m not working in a nice clear room, such as a gallery space? Instead all I’ve got at home are clutter spaces with way too much visual activity in the background. Because these are just thin beams the background space is very important. It changes some when they are filled with blocks lined up waiting to fall, but there is still lots of open areas to see through. Do I need large panels to block views, making walls of sorts within the structures? If I get my drawings involved will these function in that way? I have to keep drawings from having stuff in front of them though or you can’t see the drawings well. That means block runs and grid beams can’t be getting in the way. Argh! This still looks like crap. I’m also feeling like there is too much of a gap between the floor where lots of domino action would be happening and the elevated beams. When there is so much open space this becomes an even bigger visual problem to me.
The bigger grid beam constructions weren’t doing it for me. Maybe if I went smaller it could still work even though the block runs on them would be so short? I also tried to keep it simpler. Still too much empty space in my opinion. I tried some more complex that I didn’t photograph. It was all just a mess, an awful disheartening mess.
I kept wondering if I’m making judgements too soon, before I have all the various elements developed. The look can change dramatically with new elements in place. I’d been getting very dismayed, not being able to effectively visualize this coming together well. Visually to me it was just a busy, chaotic mess. The project was not going well and I was about ready to call it quits.
Then I had a bit of a breakthrough realizing that the way I tend to design, and think about design is in layers. If I mounted these on the wall I would suddenly be dealing in layers again. I would also have a solid visual background to work against instead of the wide open visual chaos of my rooms. So I tried mounting some on the wall. In the process realized I needed yet another type of screw! $%#@$&*! I did manage to find screws that would work at the local hardware store thankfully.
Unfortunately I’m still a bit limited in suitable walls to use, like I am with wide open floor space. For the time being this wall in my bedroom is the best. The wood paneling (Yay 1960’s mobile home designs) is more visually active than I’d like but it’s way better than seeing the whole room through the open areas of the grid beams. I think this will look better with a simple white wall behind it.
I realized there some potential fun in how I deal with turning corners onto another wall. There will also be some potential issues where spacers are needed to get all the holes of the grid beam to line up as these turns are made. I’m liking how things are looking much better though. In this initial set-up I was just playing with the visual look of the sticks. Then I was also trying to set up various intersection types so I’d have examples of the different obstacles I’ll run into and need to make gadgets for.
I like the wall mount approach so much better than the structure on the floor approach. It feels much more solid and stable, and that’s with my flimsy trailer walls! I think when I’m looking for venues to host installations it will be much easier to find one with walls I can work with than ones with stable enough floors.
This wall mounted grid beam has allowed me to start to wrap my head around the gadgets I need to make and how I might better design an overall visual look to the project. It kept me from quitting a while back. That said, I’ve still found myself unsatisfied with how this project is going. I’m not happy with the look yet. One problem I’m having is that the grid beam, blocks, and metal gadgets/parts are all roughly the same small size. When I focus in on a small area I can like the look, but when I view it more broadly it’s still a mess without quality focal points.
I recently shot a short video of the wall mount set up with many of the blocks in place. I’ll embed it here so you can see what this looks like.
I was stewing about this earlier today, still not happy with how it’s looking. Right now I’m thinking that as far as the grid beam goes it can work well as a wall mounted approach. I’ll certainly have the ability to pull a line off away from the wall as I wish, which might be interesting in an installation. What I did wrong with this particular set up though was focus on the grid beam construction as the base to later insert gadgets and other visual elements like those drawings or chased panels. I guess it’s natural for me to do this since the grid beam is what I have made already. However, I think I’ve got it all wrong in terms of starting with it for the overall design. My guess is that if I focus instead on a larger gadget, trick, or visual element as the initial focal point and then add in the grid beam lines around this as needed and only where needed I’ll be much better off in achieving a cohesive look with stronger visual impact.
I’m also thinking if this project is going to progress I NEED to stop fussing with all the basic elements I have yet to design and instead make one or two of the strong visual, or kinetic motion parts where I really get into the decorative art part of it. This has to happen so I can see some results I’m actually happy with!
Anyway, for the time being I think the grid beam part is set. Later on I will have to decide if I want to leave the wooden beams bare or do some sort of oil finish to them. For now I’m generally happy with the way they function, the hardware connecting them all, and the wall mount approach.