So here's the braking solution that I learned last summer for wagons. We used it for all of our musicals because the typical
wagon breaks just don't cut it when theres dancing going on on the platforms.
Alright so to start, you want to place an extra 3/4" plywood pad under the
downstage wheels of your
wagon. Flip the
wagon over and your
platform should be slanted with the high side
downstage and the low side upstage. Next you are going to make the brake, cut a piece of 3/4 ply that is roughly 1/3 the square footage of your
platform. For 4x8 plats I use a 2'x6'
wagon brake for the OP's
wagon I would use a 3'x2' piece of ply for the brake. Next you are going to cut 2 6"x6" 3/4 ply pads and 2 strips 3" wide strips of 3/4 ply that are the same length as the longest side of your brake in this case 3' long. Now glue and screw the two strips onto one side of the brake(now the bottom), they should be flush to edges. On the other side which is top you are going to glue and screw the 6x6 pads, approx 6" in from the ends along one of the longer sides. You should now have a completed brake pad. If you look at it from one of the end grains you should see what looks like sorta a squashed letter h cause it should only be 2.25" on the thicker side. Now you are going to take two
Barn Door Hinges(the ones with a square side and a Triangle side) attach the triangle side to the 6x6 pads on top of the brake. Now place 3/4" blocks under the upstage wheels of your
platform. This should make the top of the
plat level with the
stage. Screw the rectangle side of the hinges into the upstage side of the
plat, centering the brake pad in the
platform. Remove the
block under the upstage wheels.
The way this works is that when you lift the brake the upstage
edge of the
plat lowers and the wheels come in contact with the floor and it rolls but when you put the pad down it lifts the upstage
edge off the
deck and the wheels are no longer on the
deck.
I know this probably doesn't make sense to most people so if there are any questions I will be happy to answer them. I wish I had Pics, but I never bothered to take any of the brakes. But yeah this should help on
Marley because of the large contact area of the break so it wont damage the floor