Through my current set decoration independent study with UCF professor Andy Wood, I had the opportunity to make the meat grinder for UCF’s production of Sweeney Todd. In the beginning of the process I was given a Vectorworks model with dimensions of each of the pieces. From there, I ripped the model apart and decided which pieces were going to be cut into wood by the CNC machine and which I was going to create out of foam. The structured base of the meat grinder is made out of wood, while the central cavity and funnel of the meat grinder were made out of foam. Additionally, the circular openings for the pieces made out of foam, such as the top of the funnel and the front/back of the meat grinder, were reinforced with circular pieces of wood in order to give them more durability and help ensure that they keep their circular shape.

          They wanted the meat grinder to actually have “meat” come out of it, so I modeled out an internal gear system that was then CNC cut and installed into the pvc pipe cavity of the meat grinder. The way that the system works is that as the wheel is spun, an internal gear intertwines with a track that pushes a circular panel forwards or backwards in order to push out or refill the “meat”. After all of the pieces were put together, I then painted it using stippling and sponging techniques using 4 different colors.

          Once the look of the meat grinder was complete, there was one more problem to solve: what would the “meat” be made out of? It needed to be something that wasn’t too chunky, not liquid based, and definitely as non-messy as possible. I came up with the idea of using kinetic sand, which solved all of our problems. I then mixed pieces of red, purple, and brown kinetic sand, which created the exact look that they were hoping for as it fell out of the meat grinder. This prop will be used during UCF’s production of Sweeney Todd which will be performed at the Dr. Philips Center from April 11th through the 14th, so expect to see some onstage photos soon!

Pictured above are photos of the process, final product and initial Vectorworks model. The initial Vectorworks model was created by Jackson David. The table that the meat grinder sits on was created and painted by multiple individuals from Theatre UCF.