# Cornstalk construction



## The Skeleton Crew (Aug 2, 2016)

Yea I know which "good" tutorial your talking about. I used her tutorial, with modifications, for my faux corn stalks (hanging up in the background). I made a dozen of them using bamboo from my garden for the stalks, metal wire wrapped in kraft paper tape for the leaves and plastic "wheat" for the tassels at the top. I sealed everything with a clear wood sealer. I tried growing and preserving my own corn stalks but no matter what I used for preserving them they still got moldy. I still need to make about another 75-100 for my props and to use as accents. Some of the modifications I made were to add more leaves and not use any fake corn. Instead of corn I made smaller leaf "pockets" that look like the leaf after the corn has been harvested. Good Luck.


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## GoToTheLight (Oct 13, 2021)

Doing some more cob research.

Cobs grow up more than out. Will need to modify the mounting to reflect that.

Looking at dried out cornfields the majority of the time there is no corn visible, the cob is entirely covered in husk. I think that for this purpose the yellow cob adds detail and interest, so I am going to build most so you can see the corn, but there will be a handful of covered cobs thrown in as well.

In tattered cornfields that are left standing while the farmer waits for the corn to dry, many cobs have broken and are hanging straight down with a broken leaf below. I'll add a few of those too.


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## SkullHedge (Nov 3, 2019)

I made the leaves out of 3 inch masking tape and wire. Sandwich the wire between two pieces of tape (mine were more like sugar cane leaves so 12-24" leaves), then I cut the ends to look more natural.


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## The Octoberist (Sep 28, 2016)

This is Awesome!


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## GoToTheLight (Oct 13, 2021)

SkullHedge said:


> I made the leaves out of 3 inch masking tape and wire. Sandwich the wire between two pieces of tape (mine were more like sugar cane leaves so 12-24" leaves), then I cut the ends to look more natural.


How do they hold up to the weather?


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## GoToTheLight (Oct 13, 2021)

With summer on the wane and too many things on my plate, this is being pushed to rainy days or days where I just don't feel like busting my butt after work. Monday evening I glued up all of my stalk bases, which is just 1/2" PVC pipe scraps and couplings to make up the lengths, so no need for photos of this step. Each is 6" shorter than the finished product to take into account the tassel. I have 11-66", 8-60" and 8-54".


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## GoToTheLight (Oct 13, 2021)

Well, it rained tonight so I got to work on the project. YAY! Started making leaves.

Some tutorials use heavy duty garbage bags, I'm using a thick Visqueen that was laying around. I started by cutting some sheets (7) about 24"-ish wide x 16"-ish long. You could cut any size you like, but I found these the easiest to handle. There is no magic here, whatever works for you is fine.










Add texture by wrapping the sheets around a piece of 4" PVC pipe and crinkling/shrinking with a heat gun. Instead of regular PVC, I had a piece of corrugated drain pipe of the same diameter so I thought I'd give it a try.











Wrap the plastic around the pipe so the 24" side runs the length of the pipe and the 16" side wraps around it, allowing the plastic to overlap. The leaves will be 16" long and wrapping around the pipe helps add some curl. Start by heating the overlap carefully. The two layers will bond together here and there like little tack welds. They help hold the plastic in place while you crinkle the rest of it and should just pop apart when done. You may need to wrinkle the edge that was overlapped after you break it free. 

The corrugated pipe works great, it adds some extra texture and lines parallel to the leaf's length.










These leaves have a square bottom which will get wrapped around the stalk for a more natural look. Mine are about 2-1/2" wide.

With the 24" side toward you, cut straight across the plastic about halfway, then curve the cut so the end will come to a point. Do this for both sides of the leaf. As you go you end up with scraps from between the leaf tips that are somewhat 'T' shaped. Don't throw them out, these are your husks!










No need to be perfect, or even close. Freehand is fine.

To figure how many leaves I'll need I assumed a stalk length of 72" and started the leaves 12" from the bottom. The top 6" of stalk is tassel, so 72" - 12" bottom - 6" tassel = 54" of stalk length with leaves, which I've spaced 7" apart, so 54" / 7" = 7.75, or 8 leaves per 72" stalk. It follows then that my 5-1/2 stalks will have one less leaf, and the 5' stalks will have 2 less.

9-72" x 8 = 72
8-66" x 7 = 56
8-60" x 6 = 48

So I need a total of 176 leaves 

This is a really easy technique. Be careful with the heat gun so you don't melt through the plastic and don't worry about anomalies or differences from one leaf to the next.


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## LabMama1 (Sep 22, 2020)

This is excellent. I have tried decorating with real cornstalks in the past, but we have critters (deer, raccoons, turkeys, maybe groundhogs) who ripped them down to eat them. The nerve!


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## GoToTheLight (Oct 13, 2021)

LabMama1 said:


> This is excellent. I have tried decorating with real cornstalks in the past, but we have critters (deer, raccoons, turkeys, maybe groundhogs) who ripped them down to eat them. The nerve!


I had a couple of bugs checking out my sample stalks, so they're being fooled anyway!


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## GoToTheLight (Oct 13, 2021)

Here's an attempt at a more realistic cob mounting. This is mostly held together with scotch tape as a trial.

I started by using a heat gun to soften a plastic bottle and get some kind of a slope along the side that will attach to the stalk. This wasn't difficult, but the bottle didn't get as pliable as I thought it would. Use a scrap piece of PVC to press the softened plastic to and get a desired shape.

Once it seemed to look about right, I attached husk scraps from the leaf cutting up far enough on the bottle so they can be gathered together at the end. Then, a couple of regular leaves to cover the rest. Let the plastic hang off the bottle enough to wrap around the stalk. A few custom leaves another inch or two longer and an inch wider at the base would be best.

The leaves are unfinished in this photo to show the back of the bottle and the husks.









This is the finished side. I think once painted it's going to look pretty good. It will need one more leaf that falls away from the cob part way up. I can also see some value in leaving a bit of the cob showing on some, but if you cover the entire thing there's no reason to cover in cellophane wrap.


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## memento.kori (Sep 6, 2017)

This is great! I was recently looking for a how to on this. I love the look of cornstalks but hate the idea of paying for them every year. Would rather make something I can reuse year after year! Thanks for sharing!


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## GoToTheLight (Oct 13, 2021)

Folks, I'm afraid life has gotten in the way. My wife had to have a heart procedure and my time is taken up. I will not be able to finish this haunt before Halloween and need to abandon the project for this year. Apologies to all.


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## The Skeleton Crew (Aug 2, 2016)

Don't ever apologize for life; what we do is a hobby and fails in comparison. If you let life pass you by it will. I often spend years building my props so I can enjoy the other things life has to offer. In fact I haven't made any new props in the past two years and may not make any for another year or two. Take care of the important things and stuff like this will be more meaningful to you when you return. Hope your wife has a speedy recovery.


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## Jenn&MattFromPA (Sep 4, 2013)

I admire your effort here & think your results are looking really good! I did a lot of research on making cornstalks, because it's been an expense for us each year and it would be nice not to have to spend it! But, having two kids cut down on my ability to get everything on my list done, and this fell off. We did get lucky for a couple years with an extended family member willingly giving us stalks from their garden, so that helped. 

If you have the ability to store cornstalks, making them seems like a good idea to me! I'm sorry to hear you won't be able to complete the project this fall, but that's completely understandable! I hope your wife has a speedy recovery and best wishes to you both!


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