I do not know how I missed it all this time, but apparently doityourselfchristmas.com has sub-forums dedicated to specific elements and most have a lot of posts showing what methods people are trying to accomplish similar elements. This is really amazing. Unlike websites or blogs where you see how one person made something (like Matt’s youtube walk-throughs), you get to see a myriad of approaches to the same task. It really does open your eyes to different materials or designs that could be used, which might fit in your budget over other designs.
The display items forum page can be found here. Everything from people working with coro (corrugated plastic not dissimilar from cardboard box structure) to mega trees, arches, wireframes, matrices, and even motorized elements (which it likely not something I will tackle).
Note: You will have to have an account and be logged in to see the pictures from the posts (which really makes it worthwhile).
Cool ideas I found (to also bookmark them here for myself):
- PEX medium tree designs – note the lights are run through the pex as it is translucent. Pic are links in the post.
- More mini-trees – i like the build, not sure it is for me. Updated link to pics is on page 3.
- Arch bases – clean idea but not sure I could weld that yet.
- Discussion on PEX vs HDPE – since you can typically get PEX (sharkbite) locally and normal HDPE comes in huge rolls. Also has nifty folding-legs arch build.
- Cool coro 3d stars – i would like to make these possibly
- Megatree pixel density – good discussion and a couple pics
- Megatree size ratio – good posts with one post summing up some in use ratios
There are a ton more great threads than this. I may even add some more to this post over time, below this section, as I prefer this to having 4000 bookmarks in chrome that I can’t find anyways.