Newbie - Cake Security

[ZacharyB93]

Good afternoon everyone! I'm back again with another question, this time in regards to safety.

I have been trying to decide the best way to secure my cakes to keep them from tipping/falling over while going off. This isn't usually a problem on the larger cakes, but we will be shooting off some 200g cakes that are smaller, and with larger crowds coming every year for our show, safety needs to be a top priority.

I recently seen a video where a gentleman laid out all of his cakes on plywood, and secured them with Liquid Nail. Would something like this work? How do you do it? Thanks in advance for your response.

[BMoore]

This is another topic where you will get a million answers, but it's great that your are asking the question. Gluing them to plywood is known as a cake board and it is what a lot of people do. The extra advantage is it lets you set up and fuse parts of your show in advance. Personally, I've never done this. My process is to bag my cakes individually for rain protection and then wrap them into pods with several wraps of tape. This increases the footprint so that the pod isn't going to tip. For odd shaped cakes I'll use a garden stake or section of rebar and tape it to that. For my larger 1.3 cakes that seem prone to tipping, I'll forgo the tape and put a section of rebar or garden stake on on all 4 sides. In addition to tipping/falling, also be thinking about what happens if a cake comes apart or explodes. Rare, but it does happen. This is where keeping your audience at a safe distance is essential.

[jdels]

I use hot glue on plywood that has years of use. They come off easy and a heat gun and scraper make quick work to ready for the following year.

[Birdman]

I stake dowels that repurpose from the old flags that my American legion replaces on veteran graves and tape the cake to them. I also use some rebar but that is mostly for racks. If I'm going to be fusing a bunch of 200g cakes together I'll tape them together into a "brick". if I feel they are as stable as a 500g cake then I may not stake at all. I don't typically stake 500g consumer cakes unless I feel they need it. I don't build cake boards because I have no where to store them at my shoot site so it would actually be more time consuming to do that.

Keep in mind that staking is important to safety but staking is no substitute for distance.

[schmidlapp]

Those thin sheets of particle board that are now on top of 500g cases make excellent bases to glue 200g cakes to. I use multiple 200g cakes cascade fused as the low part of my finale
I screw these down to larger 2' x 4' bases that I build to be reused. After the show these can be easily unscrewed and disposed of whole. This saves a lot of cleanup time. As we all know after the audience leaves the work begins...

[PG2159]

I use hot glue on plywood that has years of use. They come off easy and a heat gun and scraper make quick work to ready for the following year.

good grief, how much hot glue do you go through? But hey, if it works.

I used liquid nails on the bottom of my cakes for last years show. 5 different 3'x6' boards. Pretty cost effective. I always have scrap wood lying around, 3-4 tubes of liquid nails is pretty cheap. I could about lift the whole board off the ground with one cake glued down. Just be sure to cut off the paper on the bottom of the cake, and glue the physical bottom of the cake down. as BMoore mentioned, this method is great for those who prep in one location and then shoot in another location. I prepped everything a head of time, and then at shoot time, walked it all out and site setup was complete in 20 minutes.

[Engineer Cat]

I shoot my 4th show from a dock. So I use 2ft x 4ft sections of plywood and glue everything down with liquid nails. Most of the 500 gram cakes I just throw a screw or 2 through the base and into the plywood. 2 People can easily move them around once loaded up and wired up. If I'm doing an open shoot with the club, it's on grass so I just put some sort of stake in the ground and duct tape it to the stake. Also as Birdman said taping a bunch together to increase the footprint works well too.

Building safe racks is next :)

You'll see lots of different racks but this is the safest way to build a rack. Space between tubes and space between sidewalls.
6461

[jdels]

good grief, how much hot glue do you go through? But hey, if it works.

I used liquid nails on the bottom of my cakes for last years show. 5 different 3'x6' boards. Pretty cost effective. I always have scrap wood lying around, 3-4 tubes of liquid nails is pretty cheap. I could about lift the whole board off the ground with one cake glued down. Just be sure to cut off the paper on the bottom of the cake, and glue the physical bottom of the cake down. as BMoore mentioned, this method is great for those who prep in one location and then shoot in another location. I prepped everything a head of time, and then at shoot time, walked it all out and site setup was complete in 20 minutes.

Not much. five dime size spots for a 500 gram. No more than a big pack for 4x20 feet. It doesn't take much. I prep in one shoot in another as well. Clean up on all of it is no more than an hour.

[camslam]

Depending on your weather conditions (humidity, heat, cold, etc) I have had 100% success using T Rex duct tape. It is heavy duty, depending on the size cake I tear 3" to 12" strips and secure on at least 2 sides, but usually all 4. I haven't had any cakes tip ever, clean up consists of kicking the cakes off the board or pulling firmly and you're done. It is quick, efficient, and you can reuse the boards repeatedly.

[Otherone65]

I've had good luck with Gorilla glue over the last 4-5 years. Another idea that a guy I met at Wal-Mart told me about was using some screws to wedge the cake in place. I tried that and it worked well too, plus with a screw gun it's quick.

[Salutecake]

So I was just thinking- anyone ever use that Alien tape stuff? It's 2 sised and reusable. I know I'm going to have to try it - Just thinking, if it holds a cake down, it's not permanent, you might be able to move things around if need be, unlike glue, and also removal of the cake should be easier and not runing the boards? Just thinking.

I know I won't get to try this until closer to the 4th, but if any one has experience with this, please lmk. Thanks