# Using Dutchman (wheat paste) for softcovered flat seams.



## wemeck (Oct 28, 2003)

Does anybody still use Dutchman (wheat paste) with strips of muslin to cover seams on flats anymore?

I had to make a stone wall a few years ago, and we did not want to use foam, so I used newspaer balls drapped with square sheets of muslin that we doused in Dutchmen. I used a long steel rod that had a triangle shape bent out of the rod on one end as a whisk with the drill press. Stuck the muslin down on the wall surfgace and places a few staples around the perimeter of the muslin to hold it down. It worked quite well. We still have the scenery units today.

I just have not scene people using dutchman. For lost in Yonkers I used a combination of white gaffers and wide masking tape.


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## TechnicalDirector3-W (Jan 19, 2005)

Dutchman is still used in my high school theater that i now work in. we have many different uses for it such as covering seams. Some of the students have tons of fun with it and make a huge mess...


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## wemeck (Jan 19, 2005)

Well it is almost a year later and still have not seen any dutchman in use. 2" masking tape seems to be doing the job nicely. I had a large soft-covered flat flying wall for Hello Dolly! last summer and I used masking tape and then just used some of the left over 'size' to base the tape. The size was made from a recipe I got from Assistant Professor Valerie "Kate" Brugh. The recipe contained one part white-glue to one part paint, and 1/2 part water.


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## TechnicalDirector3-W (Jan 19, 2005)

Were these just soft flats with a frame and muslin covering that you used as a wall?


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## techieman33 (Jan 19, 2005)

We still use dutchman's at my old highschool, and at my current college. But i think it's becoming something of a lost art, i don't see it used much anywhere, most people use gaff, or masking tape.


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## propmonkey (Jan 19, 2005)

we still dutch. just usually white primer paint or what ever color we're using.


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## wemeck (Jan 19, 2005)

TechnicalDirector3-W said:


> Were these just soft flats with a frame and muslin covering that you used as a wall?



These were muslin soft covered flat that was made up of two sections that were 20' feet long and 16' tall. The assembly or layout of the walls was far from text book. I had to use pre-existing soft-covered flat inventory with limited supplies to build or repair. One of my master carpets helped lay-out the wall to the point where we needed to build only two flats. a 2x8 and 2x4.


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## TechnicalDirector3-W (Jan 20, 2005)

with our flats we have now started to build them to specifics as that we have started making a few more set with them and saving them after thus saving money on the set. But we make the frame with 1'4"s and luan as keystones and toggles them cover the size frame in muslin and just use a 1/2 white paint and 1/2 elmers wood glue spread on with a paint brush as a fastener... it works really well.


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## sallyj (Jan 22, 2005)

It has been my experience that Lauan is not the best thing to use for keystones or cornerblocks. I have seen fasteners blow right through lauan. 1/4" Plywood, although more expensive, is a better material to use. 
Our theatre doesn't dutch any more. Heck, we rarely use standard flats anymore. 

SJM


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## wemeck (Jan 23, 2005)

sallyj said:


> It has been my experience that Lauan is not the best thing to use for keystones or cornerblocks. I have seen fasteners blow right through lauan. 1/4" Plywood, although more expensive, is a better material to use.
> Our theatre doesn't dutch any more. Heck, we rarely use standard flats anymore.
> 
> SJM



We only use ours for masking and flying walls. Everythingelse are hollywood flats.


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## theaterscout (Jan 29, 2005)

I know that I am going to sound stupid asking this question, but what is dutchman? I have never heard of it before.


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## wemeck (Jan 29, 2005)

theaterscout said:


> I know that I am going to sound stupid asking this question, but what is dutchman? I have never heard of it before.



It is a wheat paste that becomes a fabric addhesive when you add water and stir very very well. You then saturate a 2" to 3" wide fabric usually muslin and then you smooth the strip over the seam of two soft covered flats and then paint when dry.


Or if you want to make a cobble stobe wall you can cut hankerchef size muslin and then saturate in dutchman. The next step is to ball-up a full newspaper sheet and then drape the wet piece of muslin over it. Repeat process until the desired density and size of cobble-stones is created. Then allow time to dry and paint.

Hope that helps.


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## TechnicalDirector3-W (Jan 30, 2005)

I think I know what the answer is but can someone explain the exact difference between a flat and a "Hollywood Flat"


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## wemeck (Jan 30, 2005)

TechnicalDirector3-W said:


> I think I know what the answer is but can someone explain the exact difference between a flat and a "Hollywood Flat"



1.) They are hard-covered with luanua instead of soft.
2.) The 1x4 frame is put together like a platform, so the 3.5" side is perpendicular to the luanua skin.

I have limited shop space so I try to keep about 15 4x8 & 4x4 hollywoods and a few 3'-6" x 8' hollywoods.


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## Peter (Jan 30, 2005)

From what I can tell, the duchman you are describing is alot like paper-mache (or however you spell it, i think it has an accent mark or two). Just you dont use it with paper, you use it with flats... someone please correct me if i am wrong! 

(I know paper-mache can also be made with elmers glue, but i think you can do it with flour too)


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## TechnicalDirector3-W (Jan 30, 2005)

yes it is a lot like paper mache, although paper mache would not have quite the same effect and or hold up the same as dutch.


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## WAdramamama (Jan 21, 2011)

wemeck said:


> We only use ours for masking and flying walls. Everythingelse are hollywood flats.


 
Don't you use dutchman to cover the seam between two hollywood flats when joined together?


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## Van (Jan 21, 2011)

Holy Necro posts Batman ! good question though. I think we've hit it in a couple other threads but in short, ducthman - ing doesn't always work so well on Hollywoods. The dutchman tends to be too thick and leaves a visible hump. Personally I prefer to hit the seams with painters chaulk. disassemble the wall, then when you move to the theater rejoining the soft edges is much easier. Or you can wait and hit them in the theater, time allowing. There are, however as many techniques as there are painters, I'm afraid.


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## martyclynch (Jan 21, 2011)

I have had great success using plain old joint compound on hollywood flats. If I need to cover a seam I can use tape but it rarely comes to that. I will say that there was one show I painted where the shop had the time and the money to basically cut out one single piece of muslin for the entire unit set and glue it on (sort of an omni-dutchman). I can vouch for its effect but I wouldn't exactly recommend it.


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## rsmentele (Jan 21, 2011)

I use dutchman quite often when I have moving joints that I need to cover, its works well to cover the hinges and stays flexible for long periods of time.


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## Van (Jan 21, 2011)

I should state, as well, that on average my audience is 5 to a max of 30' from my stage so any bump is a huge bump !


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## MPowers (Jan 21, 2011)

A couple of points here. A dutchmen is *NOT* the wheat paste used to adhere a fabric strip to a joint between two flats, it *IS* the strip of fabric itself. Although historically it is a strip of muslin, roughly 3" to 8" wide, frayed at the edges and as long as the flats are tall, the definition fits any strip of something adhered to the flats and used to cover/hide a seam/joint and then painted over. When dutchmen were first developed, there was no such thing as adhesive backed tape or they probably would have used it then. Gaff tape and masking tape are excellent for joining hard cover flats and in the sense that we will always have flats, platforms and facings with joints and gaps that need to be covered we will have "Dutchmen" because the term itself means to cover an obvious gap. The following is a reprint from a post of mine on another stagecraft list.

Subject: Dutching flats - History 101
From: Michael Powers <[email protected]>

There are many ways of Dutching flats, many ways, all are correct for different situations.
My personal favorite works best on mus covered flats, hard or soft.
paint the area where the dutchman will go, feather the edges, pull two
or three threads to fray the dutchman strip edge, paint the rear of
the mus dutch strip with the final brush strokes running center to
edge to straighten out the fray edges. Flip the strip and put the two
wet faces together. Now starting at the center more or less, paint the
dutchman face, feathering the paint as you work out to the surface of
the flat. Voila! Perfect dutchman.

In the 19th and early twentieth century, touring shows and shows
moving from shops to Broadway used gelatin glue to put the dutchmen
down. The strip could then be carefully peeled off and rolled up to
re-apply at the next stop.

While writing my thesis about stone age stagecraft (when it was still
State-Of-The-Art!) one of my thesis committee members decided that I
was using the wrong verb form of the word. He insisted that "to
dutch" was correct and "to dutchman" was incorrect. Another member
disagreed. So, it took about 4 years of search and research, no
internet, www or personal computers back then! To find the correct
form, I had to find the origin of the term. Turns out, somewhere in
the 1700's there was a famine of sorts in the lowlands and a large
number of dutch moved to England. English workmen still used full
wall, wattle and plaster to finish walls and every wall had to be
completed in one work session, while the dutch had developed a form of
dry wall for difficult areas and to join areas worked on at separate
times. For nooks and crannies and specially formed areas, they would
apply a plaster and straw mix to a plank and then apply a thin smooth
slip coat over that. when set, they would put the plank in place and
using linen strips dipped in very wet plaster, cover the joints(the
birth of trowel and tape!). The English workmen derided the practice
(until they discovered how much faster and accurate it was) and coined
the term "Dutchman" to mean poor workmanship or either the act or the
material, of covering up poor workmanship. The research proved rather
interesting and I suspect that was actually the reason for the initial
dispute, as the end result showed that either of the forms of the word
were correct.


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## cdub260 (Jan 22, 2011)

At the Pageant, we make extensive use of dutchmans on our scenery, and not just for seams. Since we're trying to recreate pieces of artwork on a large scale, most of our sets must appear to be perfectly flat under stage lighting. We use variations on the dutchman to cover seams, various openings and parts of the set that may jut out to ease the transition. Depending on the application we may use muslin or lycra, as lycra, being more flexible tends to work better at easing the transition from a rounded footplate to a flat piece of scenery. Also depending on the application, we'll use either plain white glue or animal glue. We even go so far as to fully cover all of our flat sets with muslin, even those with a luan facing to eliminate all seams.


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