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Answer Box
By Thomas H. Freeman
On
a
Wing
and a
Router
Model Spitfires take flight,
crash and burn onstage.
The Spitfires onstage in The Fortunes of King Croesus
Opera North, in Leeds, England, had something special in
mind for its production of Richard Keiser’s The Fortunes
of King Croesus — eight Spitfire airplanes. Scale models
with a wingspan of 25.6 inches (650 mm), each of the Spitfires
also needed to accommodate a small function and be constructed
from a robust material that could be reengineered
to add future functions. They also needed to be mounted on
poles, allowing them to be “flown” on stage by performers.
Additionally, three needed mini smoke machines to be mounted
in their engine compartments, two needed to have snapping
wings and one a breaking tail. Two also had to catch fire during
the battle. And, oh yeah, the designer wanted them in gold.
The bodies of the planes, carved from a block of epoxy
To fill all these needs, Opera North’s prop buyer Mandy
Barnett initially approached Phil Martin of Bath-based
Theatrical Props. When Martin was confirmed for the project,
production Set and Costume Designer Leslie Travers
sent him a model Spitfire for a starting reference.
After looking at all the requirements, Martin contacted
Fineline, a lighting and set/prop construction company, to take
advantage of the production possibilities of the company’s
five-axis router. Darren Wring managed the project at Fineline,
and Wring and Martin looked at various options on the materials
front before deciding on a 0.77 density solid epoxy resin
board. The basic elements
of the planes were rough
cut and shaped from epoxy
model board by the CNC
router. To cut the exact, correct
Spitfire shapes, Fineline
obtained the 3-D files from
the Turbosquid Web site.
The planes were produced
in seven sections The finished Spitfires in the shop
over three days on the router
using a 6 mm and a 12 mm
bull-nosed cutter. It was a difficult task for the router as the
wings were so thin. The propellers also needed to be
durable, so Martin brought model plane ones and filed
them into the correct Spitfire shape.
To have the planes catch fire, Martin custom-designed and
built flame paste holders and then installed them in the engine
cavities of the planes, complete with a safety cutout that automatically
extinguishes the flames once the planes are placed
onstage. To get the gold sheen, the planes were finished in a
high-gloss gold, applied through vacuum metalization.
The planes take center stage toward the end of the first
act of the opera, during the battle between King Cyrus of
Persia and the Lydians, of whom Croesus is king.
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44 January 2008 • www.stage-directions.com