I know Leah said in her SPS sticky that your cake must be 4", but...Does the cake have to be exactly 4"? Will it still work if the cake is a little bit shorter of higher- like 3.8" or 4.2"? I'm going to be trying this system for the first time tonight! I have to transport a 3 tiered cake about 2 hours a way and won't have time to assemble it once I'm there. Thanks!

I bought the SPS system too! Im thinking if your going to transport them the have to be level with the cake. You can pm leah-s so she can explain what to do, Sorry im no help but i think if you tried to transport them in the air they might slide off the SPS system, JMT

Cake+filling+icing on top needs to be equal to about 4 1/16 to 4 & 1/8 inches tall. Did you take the collars off?

No, there should never be any sliding unless you don't follow the directions. Which would be hard anyways, because there is a peg that holds the board to the plate.

I haven't even tried it yet- its being delivered this afternoon! From the directions though, it seems that the plates don't even directly touch the cake below though, right?

On mine, they usually hover right about 1/16th of an inch off the surface. The little round areas do push into the icing.

I am by no means an expert on this but I can only speak from my own experience with sps. If it is a very minimal difference in size it will work fine. I have noticed that if my cakes fall short slightly the gap between sps plate and bottom cake is slightly more noticeable. I've usually been able to fix this with a double border or a more elaborate border. If my cakes are slightly about 4'' (and do mean slightly, not too much) then the gap is very minimal.

i have used sps a few times, i know it can be hard to get the cake the exact right height but it will be okay, if by chance you are a little under 4" it means there will be a little space between the tiers. I personally just pipe a boarder around the base of it once I get to the site. I had one on my sisters wedding cake that I had this issue with, it is the 5 tier one in my pics. I am in no way a pro but it works.

Oh the one thing i did notice, make sure you have double checked all your legs before you place the place, make sure they are all the way in and thight.

Let us know how it goes.

THanks everyone! I will let you know how it goes- or I'll be back on later tonight asking for more help I'm using ribbon at the base of each tier so that should help cover up any gaps I have.

Te Friday Night Cake Club will be online tonight on the Cake Decorating Forum at about 10:30 pm EST.

Thank you everyone for your help- i just finished! My tiers were a little short of 4" but I was able to cover it up with ribbon. I'll post a picture later- please wish me luck for my 2 hour transport tomorrow!

I just wanted to say thank you again to everyone for your help! leah- I understand now why you keep preaching about SPS- worked awesome! I drove from 2 hours from Ct to Mass with all three layers (I put the topper on when I got there) and nothing moved
I can't get the picture to attach bc of the size but it's the 3 tiered blue cake with snowflakes in my photos.