I got an idea for a puppet that I need a little help with. I got an old tv set took out the tube all electronics. putting a square piece of foam in the where the screen should be for the face. What my problem is creating a mouthplate for it since it will be a flat face. please help!!!!
 
Thanks
Kevin

Don't have much experience, maybe someone else will chime in... I would try to cut a mouth and take a strong wire, glue a "U" shape to both lips (maybe cutting a furrow or something above the upper and below the lower lip), leaving the ends show. What do you take for a mouthplate? I assume it would have to be quite strong... glue or screw the mouthplate to the ends of the wires. The mouth should not be to big this way. Maybe you could operate the facial features with wires, especially if you add eyes, too (I'd love that on a TV- set)...

Flat can be hard to do. I've seen some success with carving or cutting a mouth that in the open position and then attaching a mouth plate into that. Since the foam is cut in the open position the mouth can often be forced closed and the foam compresses but as a rule foam can not expand it just tears so you can't just cut a slit for a mouth and expect it to work.  Also don't forget that old televisions screens where not really flat but had and outward curve to them.  I think designing that into the face might help in end operation.

I think that I would build the face up on top of the "screen" to give the puppet a little dimension. It wouldn't have to be built up very far, but that way you could have a little more room for fastening on a mouth plate. I would think that you would also need some kind of stiffening backing behind the "screen" or the weight of the mouth mechanism might drag the mouth downward and distort the face.

I had a hard time with a flat face puppet mouth.  I had to go back in and take out foam from under the bottom lip.  Because I had thick fabric covering the foam it was not evident that there was a gap there when mouth was held closed. It never did function very well it was too narrow, maybe longer mouth slit would have been more flexible. I also ended up breaking the bottom mouth plate into joints as it could not move downward as a straight piece. Hope you have better luck.

I have been dvr-ing sesame street to get ideas and such. I didn't save it, but they had an episode on a couple of weeks ago with a book puppet. It looks like they just carved and upside down U for the mouth (at a downward 5 degree angle) and attached a piece of wire to the front of the mouth to pull it down. I wish I could find a screen shot of it, but I searched and came up with nothing. Best of luck!