I am restoring a light sculpture from the 70s and hoping you all might supply me with some basics on gels. Short version: Can you recommend a line of gels that I can safely use with a 500-watt halogen bulb? The long version has background on the sculpture and the safety issue . . .
The sculpture is one of my father's from his early artist career. It is a flood light retrofitted with green plexi in place of the usual tempered glass. It has two timers that sync up randomly, plus a delay relay that turns off the light after 10 seconds. The effect is the room is briefly flooded with intense green light at random intervals.
The original has a safety issue. Although the light turns off after 10 seconds, a failure of the electronics could result in the light staying on indefinitely and causing a fire. (It's a 500-watt halogen pointed at plexiglass.)
These lights haven't been run in years, and I want to bring them back into commission. My plan is to rip out the flammable plexi and replace with a theater gel placed over tempered glass. Does this sound reasonable? Should I be looking for gels with higher heat resistance? I see that Lee's High Temp Filters are rated to 220 C.
I don't have a way to measure the heat produced by the halogen bulb, but it's currently 1.75 inches from the plexi cover.
Photos of the piece below for reference. Pardon the appearance--it's been sitting in a garage for decades.
The sculpture is one of my father's from his early artist career. It is a flood light retrofitted with green plexi in place of the usual tempered glass. It has two timers that sync up randomly, plus a delay relay that turns off the light after 10 seconds. The effect is the room is briefly flooded with intense green light at random intervals.
The original has a safety issue. Although the light turns off after 10 seconds, a failure of the electronics could result in the light staying on indefinitely and causing a fire. (It's a 500-watt halogen pointed at plexiglass.)
These lights haven't been run in years, and I want to bring them back into commission. My plan is to rip out the flammable plexi and replace with a theater gel placed over tempered glass. Does this sound reasonable? Should I be looking for gels with higher heat resistance? I see that Lee's High Temp Filters are rated to 220 C.
I don't have a way to measure the heat produced by the halogen bulb, but it's currently 1.75 inches from the plexi cover.
Photos of the piece below for reference. Pardon the appearance--it's been sitting in a garage for decades.