I always loved working outside and had one end of the TN shop completely open and reading these threads on the Café. You never know who might chime in with some good information. Magic is still fun after all these years and I was glad to see you on here. You probably don't remember but you helped me out with some great advice in the Kozak show days. In fact, the story is in Tabman Magic. Those HF did the trick. Thanks again.

-=tabman

BRodgers, how much for a set of deceptive steps?

Sent you a PM.

Re: cardboard.

Cardboard may be expensive, but building a piece out of good lumber or plywood, or whatever, then finding it won't quite work ain't cheap either.

Although it's nice to have large sheets of cardboard to work with, gluing together smaller pieces from old boxes is better than making a costly mistake.

Thom

Thom is 100% correct. And in a pinch, you don't even need glue. Just use duct tape.

Can't agree more with the idea of building a cardboard prototype first. Years ago, we had a custom set of steps made for us by a great ilusion builder over here in the UK.

He suggested a size that he thought I could fit into and we thought it sounded far too large. We made a mock up ourselves completely out of large appliance cardboard boxes acquired from electrical stores and were literally shaving off half an inch at a time until we got the size down to as small as we could without being unworkable.

We then took the mock up back to our builder who was delighted that we had gone to that much effort to get the size down as small as we could. I think in the end, we managed to shave off about 4" from his original design.

Stu