Continuing the saga of the Christmas Lights....

11/22 - Painted PVC Black with plastic paint.

(Don't ask me why I didn't just get black PVC, because my theory was crap anyway.)












OKAY, since you asked... I was worried about black PVC "curling" in the sunlight, and losing it's rigidity and strength. I thought the regular white PVC was more rigid and thicker. It was all for naught, as you'll see later.


11/23 - Started assembly of the tree.

I was lax taking pictures that day because we had a family function and time was an issue. I did take a few to show the assembly process.

Used a section of 3 inch x 10 feet PVC for the bottom. It goes in the sleeve 2 feet into the ground, and is held stationary with a 4 inch to 3 inch PVC reducer. I als have 3 guy wires at the top of this section in a tripod to battle the wind.





11/23 - Hanging up the lights.

I worked with the top section upright at ground level to string the lights, and temporarily zip tied it to a ladder to do so. The top I fashioned for the top is a 3 inch to 2 inch reducer, with 13 eye hooks evenly spaced, and s-hooks to hold the strings of lights off of the eye hooks. I put 3 strings of lights on each hook, and zip tied them to ensure they don't go anywhere in the wind.

Dylan unboxed and stretched out the strings of lights in the yard, and I alternated the 5 colors around the tree as I secured them.








11/23 - Hoisted up the top section, secured it with a bolt through the reducer on each end, and guy wires mid way through the section.

I had to quit here for the day for the family function.