Display a Bunch of Banners
March 2, 2010 3:50 PM Subscribe
How to display a bunch of banners-on-poles in an attractive, cost-effective way?
A group of clubs will come together and some will bring banners that represent their organization. The banners are all of a similar design: roughly 18" wide, hanging from a dowel with a braided suspension cord, and held upright for display by a length of broomstick or similar type of pole. These poles seem to range from around 4-6 feet long. No two are the same length, to my recollection.
I created a stand for ours when it's the only banner on display by disassembling a finished wooden stool from Target and screwing a steel pipe floor plate to it, with a six-inch length of larger diameter steel pipe threaded into that to accept the bottom of the banner pole. This works perfectly well and looks medium-OK -- the wooden disk looks nice, but the steel fitting looks, well, like plumbing.
But I also don't really want to spend $200+ to hack up stools for a temporary display of banners at one weekend's event. So, looking for ideas about inexpensive, functional, and hopefully attractive methods to stand somewhere between 5-11 banners. Most of my ideas so far get expensive quickly (fabricating a wooden display "stair-step case" with an arrangement of widely spaced holes), or are just sort of tacky (buckets with cement and a hole to drop the pole down into).
Design pluses include easy or compact to store and easy to transport in a small car. As the poles people attach their banners to are various lengths, a tiered approach is nice (short ones in front, tall ones in back) for a unitary display, or else easily arranged discrete stands. Design ideas welcome, or even pointers to inexpensive source materials like heavy discs and attractive tubing. All the premade stands I can google are far too expensive.
This is obviously not a matter of earth-shattering importance, but sometimes folks are terribly clever and think of things I never would never even conceive of. If you're a brainstorming sort, would love your ideas.
A group of clubs will come together and some will bring banners that represent their organization. The banners are all of a similar design: roughly 18" wide, hanging from a dowel with a braided suspension cord, and held upright for display by a length of broomstick or similar type of pole. These poles seem to range from around 4-6 feet long. No two are the same length, to my recollection.
I created a stand for ours when it's the only banner on display by disassembling a finished wooden stool from Target and screwing a steel pipe floor plate to it, with a six-inch length of larger diameter steel pipe threaded into that to accept the bottom of the banner pole. This works perfectly well and looks medium-OK -- the wooden disk looks nice, but the steel fitting looks, well, like plumbing.
But I also don't really want to spend $200+ to hack up stools for a temporary display of banners at one weekend's event. So, looking for ideas about inexpensive, functional, and hopefully attractive methods to stand somewhere between 5-11 banners. Most of my ideas so far get expensive quickly (fabricating a wooden display "stair-step case" with an arrangement of widely spaced holes), or are just sort of tacky (buckets with cement and a hole to drop the pole down into).
Design pluses include easy or compact to store and easy to transport in a small car. As the poles people attach their banners to are various lengths, a tiered approach is nice (short ones in front, tall ones in back) for a unitary display, or else easily arranged discrete stands. Design ideas welcome, or even pointers to inexpensive source materials like heavy discs and attractive tubing. All the premade stands I can google are far too expensive.
This is obviously not a matter of earth-shattering importance, but sometimes folks are terribly clever and think of things I never would never even conceive of. If you're a brainstorming sort, would love your ideas.
I was thinking you could do some sort of tiered riser system made of 2x4s with holes drilled into them. Hard for me to explain I guess, but I think you could rig something up with a little bit of cheap carpentry.
posted by Think_Long at 6:01 PM on March 2, 2010
posted by Think_Long at 6:01 PM on March 2, 2010
Wait, do you want to have one rack per banner, or a long rail that holds several banners?
You could take a sawhorse-like shape (i.e. a sawhorse that you build to look classier) and attach a broom holder clip (1,2,3) to the back of it, so that from the front it looks like banner-poles leaning against a rail, but each pole is held securely on the back.
Are the poles narrow enough to fit into the hole in a brick? If you didn't want the fixed-pole approach, you could use the two-point support approach (like a picnic-table umbrella - a loose hole in the table, and a base that keeps the end of the pole in place)
Your display could be a single shelf with holes in it to hold each pole at about 3 feet off the ground, and each pole has a brick underneath to hold the end of the pole in place.
If you want an individual-banner system, you could take a 18" square of plywood and a 3' 2"x2" piece of lumber, send a screw or two up through the plywood into the end of the lumber, and now you've got a 3' pole on a plate, that stands up stably. To the end of that pole, you can fasten a broom clip, which will hold your banner. Conversely, you can require your banner contributors to screw pieces of plywood to the ends of their banner poles.
posted by aimedwander at 7:43 AM on March 3, 2010
You could take a sawhorse-like shape (i.e. a sawhorse that you build to look classier) and attach a broom holder clip (1,2,3) to the back of it, so that from the front it looks like banner-poles leaning against a rail, but each pole is held securely on the back.
Are the poles narrow enough to fit into the hole in a brick? If you didn't want the fixed-pole approach, you could use the two-point support approach (like a picnic-table umbrella - a loose hole in the table, and a base that keeps the end of the pole in place)
Your display could be a single shelf with holes in it to hold each pole at about 3 feet off the ground, and each pole has a brick underneath to hold the end of the pole in place.
If you want an individual-banner system, you could take a 18" square of plywood and a 3' 2"x2" piece of lumber, send a screw or two up through the plywood into the end of the lumber, and now you've got a 3' pole on a plate, that stands up stably. To the end of that pole, you can fasten a broom clip, which will hold your banner. Conversely, you can require your banner contributors to screw pieces of plywood to the ends of their banner poles.
posted by aimedwander at 7:43 AM on March 3, 2010
Response by poster: Wait, do you want to have one rack per banner, or a long rail that holds several banners?
I'm open on that. Single stands are easier to move around and more flexible as to how many clubs choose to bring their banner. A rack is less likely to be knocked over by a klutz but might look sad if only a couple of clubs bring banners. I'm leaning toward standalone bases.
Liking the broom clips along a rail though. Clever and simple. Maybe a nice vinyl fence rail of some sort. Definitely will explore this option.
I despair of my woodworking skills, but if I could find smallish plywood or other circles that would be cool - I could paint them and they'd probably look nice enough. Before I chopped my wooden stool, I could only find too-large round table-tops at Home Depot - I thought about cutting my own but I have a hard time drawing a straight line with a computer, never mind skil-sawing a circle :-) I guess a square would work just as well. I'll renew my search for smaller pre-cut tabletops.
Plastic patio umbrella stands can work, but they expect a much thicker tubing than a broom handle and look pretty oversized for the job.
posted by cairnish at 10:48 AM on March 3, 2010
I'm open on that. Single stands are easier to move around and more flexible as to how many clubs choose to bring their banner. A rack is less likely to be knocked over by a klutz but might look sad if only a couple of clubs bring banners. I'm leaning toward standalone bases.
Liking the broom clips along a rail though. Clever and simple. Maybe a nice vinyl fence rail of some sort. Definitely will explore this option.
I despair of my woodworking skills, but if I could find smallish plywood or other circles that would be cool - I could paint them and they'd probably look nice enough. Before I chopped my wooden stool, I could only find too-large round table-tops at Home Depot - I thought about cutting my own but I have a hard time drawing a straight line with a computer, never mind skil-sawing a circle :-) I guess a square would work just as well. I'll renew my search for smaller pre-cut tabletops.
Plastic patio umbrella stands can work, but they expect a much thicker tubing than a broom handle and look pretty oversized for the job.
posted by cairnish at 10:48 AM on March 3, 2010
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posted by Old Geezer at 4:48 PM on March 2, 2010