How I built my Nativity Stable

[D. Moyer]

Hello everyone,

Just thought I would share with all of you how I built my Nativity Stable. I have been getting a few PM's about it so I figured I would start a thread about it.

It is built out of three fork lift pallets and two 2x4's. It's held together using brakets and dry wall screws. I first lay out the pallet that will be the base, then I attach the back pallet. After that I attach the two 2x4's which are supports for the front of the top pallet. Then I put the top pallet into place and secure it. The first pictures are of how I have everything together.

[A.F.NUT]

Looks great has the rustic look that is so important! I had one built like that once, but had no place to store the pallets but it does look nice built that way! Tom

[D. Moyer]

A few more pictures....

[D. Moyer]

Last picture of how the basic stable is built.

[D. Moyer]

I also thought I would share how I attched my Angels to my Nativity Scene this past year and how I flew them.

Four of them were on pipe and two of them were mounted to a piece of wood.

We had some old gas pipe laying around so I figured that would be good to use to fly my Angels and the Star.

First of all, I had to come up with a plan as to how I wanted the Angels to be around the Nativity Scene. It took me a little while but I finally came up with a plan as to how to position the Angels and the Star around the Nativity Scene.

The Star would go on a piece of pipe that is 10 foot tall and the Angels would go on pipe that was 10 foot and 7 feet tall. I had to add a little piece of broom handle to the top of the pipe for the Star because I wanted the Star to be higher than the Angels. It worked out pretty nicely. I just zip tied the broom handle to the pipe up top where I wanted it and it stayed. I then attached the star. I used the hole on the Star that is already in the Star to hold the Star to the piece of wood. Then I zip tied it at the botton of the star. I didn't want to have to put any holes in the Star. But I ended up having to because the one night the wind was so bad the Star fell down so I had to re-mount it. So sadley I had to put two holes in the star to hold it to the piece of wood. Next year I plan to put two pieces of pipe together to do my tree. Right where the wood and pipe met is where I strung my lights from to form the Mini Mega Tree. I guess that is what it would be considered because measuring from the top of the Star the tree was only about 12 feet tall.

After that I started mounting the Angels. The two in the back next to the star went on 10 foot pieces of pipe while the front middle two Angels went on 7 foot pieces of pipe. (I had to cut two 10 foot pieces of pipe to make the 7 foot pieces because all we have are 10 foot pieces.) Then I drilled four holes in each Angel then secured them to the pipe with zip ties. I am learing zip ties work great! I have attached a diagram I drew up showing how I mounted the Angels to the pipe. I am not an artist so I hope you can understand my drawing. There are also pictures of the Angels from behind showing how I mounted them.

(When I drew the drawing I thought I was going to be working with electrical conduit, but it turned out we had some extra gas pipe laying around and that worked out just fine.)

Lastly, I mounted the last two Angels to the top of the Nativity Scene. I painted the piece of wood black and then mounted the two Angels on the piece of wood using drywall screws.

I used metal stakes to secure the Angeles into the ground on either side of the Star and I used a large metal stake to secure the Star and tree. I attached the two Angels on the pieces of pipe to the Stable itself.

So that's how I did built my Stable and flew the Angels and Star. Hope this helps everyone! Any comments are welcome! Also, if you have any additional questions or suggestions feel free to post them here in this thread or PM them to me.

[D. Moyer]

Some more pictures.....

[D. Moyer]

Looks great has the rustic look that is so important! I had one built like that once, but had no place to store the pallets but it does look nice built that way! Tom

Thanks for your complements Tom! We just store the pallets out back in the backyard during the off season up against the garage.

[Judd_Peiffer]

thanks for sharing all of this it gives me ideas for 2010!
Justin

[D. Moyer]

thanks for sharing all of this it gives me ideas for 2010!
Justin

Your welcome Justin! I can't wait to see everyone's displays for 2010. As Carrie said in another thread, "the 2010 Christmas Displays will be bigger and brighter than the 2009 Christmas Displays." *Not exact quote.

[RichardG]

Thanks Darrel for posting. Looks as I finally have a how to on building a stable for 2010.