College’s CNC mill helps simplify chorale’s stage set construction

The mood at the upcoming [Brazos County Chorale] (http://www.bvchorale.org/) ’s pops dinner concert will be enhanced with a stage set fabricated at the College of Architecture’s [Digital Fabrication Facility] (http://www.arch.tamu.edu/inside/services/digital-fabrication/) , located at Texas A&M’s Riverside campus.

The concert, “E!ntertainment,” is scheduled at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 25 at the College Station Hilton.

Choir members Alan and Kathleen Wolfenden, who create the stage sets, were spared many hours of manually cutting lots of letters “E” to illustrate the group’s theme — “Exciting, Extraordinary, Enlightening” — by enlisting the help of fabrication facility manager Chuck Tedrick, who used a computer numeric controlled milling machine, or CNC mill, to create the letters.

“When we did it by hand it took three or four weeks,” said Alan Wolfenden, admiring the mill’s efficiency. “We used to take a foam board, draw the shape and cut it out with a scalpel. If the edges were straight it was easy, but if there was a curve we’d have to sand all the jagged bits to make it smoother. It used to be a lot more labor intensive.”

The mill, said Wolfenden, produced all of the letters for the stage set, smoothly cut, in a couple of afternoons.

Last year, in another community service project, Tedrick used the CNC mill to help the chorale create stage props for its cabaret-themed concert.

More information about Brazos Valley Chorale, it’s Feb. 25 “E!ntertainment” concert or its 42nd season, visit the groups [website] (http://www.bvchorale.org/) .