Any interest in a module tree frame?

[stiebs]

Hi all,


I am currently in discussion with a plastics fabricator about manufacturing a modular mini/maxi tree system. It will consist basically of the corner pieces required to assemble a tree from 10mm rods (eg plastic, wooden dowel, aluminium tubing etc).


It would have the corner pieces required for the base, additional support pieces (and possibly bracing) mid-way, as well as a capping piece.


The design is such that with specified rod lengths (and additional support components for larger trees), you could easily assemble a tree anywhere between 1m and 3m high.


The ratio of design and tooling costs vs materials and manufacture is obviously going to be pretty high for only a small run, so I'm throwing it out there to see how much interest there is in the community to be able to purchase a kit like this, and how much would you be willing to pay for such a kit?


I would sell it either as a set of just the connectors, plus detail on suitable rod lengths, or as a full ready-to-assemble kit.


I have yet to finalise the design, but it will be either 5- or 6- sided, and will definitely accommodate easily both a spiral/horizonal wrap as well as a vertical wrap.

 

[AAH]

Some pictures of what you're talking about would probably let us visualise a bit better and therefore might get more people interested.

 

[stiebs]

Here is a wireframe sketch of my design. So what will be manufactured is all the corner connectors for the base, for the mid-point support and optional cross bracing, plus the top cone to hold it all together.


In the attached sketch, there is a second set of horizontal bars right near the top which will allow for wrapping a vertical light string run around. For a vertical wrap, you would also be able to add short legs on the base, so that the bottom horizontal bars are lifted slightly off the ground.

 

[daryl]

This looks similar to trees built with PVC... unless there is a decent price difference or a feature that cannot be done with PVC.

 

[stiebs]

The main objectives are to undercut the cost of a PVC tree, and also to have it readily disassembled for off season storage.

Unless someone has a better source for PVC than I can find, a PVC tree can get quite pricey...