1950s era Century floor pocket cover replacements

A large, late 1950s civic theater is embarking on a maintenance program. Some of that requires the replacement or refurbishment of stage floor pocket covers and i wonder if anyone has a source (or contact) with someone who does. Sought, are pocket covers in good condition like the one pictured.

Younger readers might not be aware of how well used these used to be and because they are less used now, i’m thinking there may be a shopping cart full of them in some theater basement somewhere.

Similarly, this theater had a few shopping carts full of glass rondels in three colors and i found only one use for them—an artist who had stumbled across the existence of such things and was using them to make coffee tables. Very nice, they were.

These floor pockets might be upgraded to include modern cable type terminals. but the floor plates come first—as many as 8 of them, but probably fewer.

IMG_5667.jpeg
 
Why replace ?.

Altman and ETC sell these new, but why bother ?. Nothing the new ones do differently.

We upgraded in ‘04 our FP’s to hold 6 dimmed circuits and had ETC cut 2 additional slots for cable.

But functionaly there’s no difference from what it replaced.
 
Adding to what Steve said, My venue was renovated 20 years ago (1999) and has the exact same covers. Our audio floor pockets are smooth and smaller but our lighting pockets have the same openings and "grip" texture. So they're still pretty common.
 
If it is the cast lid and surround that has the issues, you might check out having replacements cast. A quick google search showed lot's of metal casting companies in NYC. The trick would be to sort out all the jewelry casting companies.

EDIT: Here is one company in my quick search:
https://www.uscastings.com
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back