Wow, ALL of your fixtures have Sure Clamps? That must have been expensive!
Rosco/JR Clancy Sure Clamp
99% of the time, I don't loosen the yoke bolt to pan an instrument. I pan the instrument by grabbing the yoke and pointing it in the direction I want. If I want the pool of light 5' more to the right, this is easy, even if the instrument is overly locked-down (in which case I might even deliberately loosen it off a little). [Maybe I should stress, I only do this with subtle changes and touchups -- a little bit that-a-way] If panning to the left, I always make sure the yoke bolt is the proper tightness after I'm finished. For more drastic changes, yes I use the pan screw. In my experience, it is hard to over-torque a c-clamp's yoke bolt as long as it's using a proper flat washer. Not unheard of, but I have had WAY more issues with mega clamps and their belleville washers. That and the ETC lock washers.
I should also mention that many of the venues I work in have their FOH positions so that the instruments are yoked out about 45* because of low clearance between the pipe and the catwalk deck. In these cases, the pan screw is fairly inaccessible. I use the pan screw whenever possible, but the constraints on clearance sometimes don't allow it.
I have been slowly swapping out our old Altman C-clamps out with Global Truss trigger clamps which only have the single nut at the yoke.
From the factory they come with M10x1.5 wingnuts, which we have swapped out for standard hex nuts for additional holding power when you need to mount an instrument on a vertical pipe.
You can manage it. You just have to lift up on it, and tighten it down really well. We have 2 rows of pipes on all the FOH positions so we don't usually have to top hang.
Now that I think about it, that was like $10k in clamps. Wow.
Yeah, you should stop doing that as its not designed to top hang. They function correctly when the weight pulls down on them and not the other way around.
We use essential cookies to make this site work, and optional cookies to enhance your experience.