It's not quiet what I'm looking for however, very helpful. These would be semi permanent positions on our third floor box positions. Slight modification to traditional setup. Think a vertical ladder with a built in side ladder. These are close to a 40'
drop so trying to figure best way to
build the
base to either A come close with weight ratio, or B design it to concrete anchor to the floor.
@DuckJordan Back in the latter 1970's The Stratford Shakespearean Festival had one
box boom position based in their first box on both sides (SR and SL) of their Avon
theatre venue; the upright was 1.5" ID Schedule 40 and it was chock full of 6" ellipsoidals and a sprinkling of Fresnels with
boom arms sprouting in three directions for its entire height. The Festival operated in a rotating rep'. Once a given production's set and
blocking were decreed set in stone, gobos were photo etched with each
ellipsoidal's
shutter patterns, the gobos crimped into their holders, the holders color coded for a specific production and tied to a specific
fixture with short lengths of tie
line. Flame resistant cardboard
gel frames were similarly color coded with their cuts and split cuts stapled in. At every elevation an open topped wooden "mail box" was U-bolted to the rear of the
boom's vertical to safely store all of the color frames for a given elevation.
The problem was access and dealing with ladders in the limited confines of the box seating space. Two of us finessed a way to secure a 20' length of an aluminum extension ladder to the
boom using sleeves around the
boom with
angle iron welded to the sleeves and bolted to the ladders. On the bottom of the ladders we had one
caster on a horizontal length of I-beam spanning across the bottom of the ladder to support it vertically. On the vertical member of each ladder furthest out from the
boom we affixed an adjustable brake with a rubber
foot to spread its pressure across a few square inches of the box seating's carpeted floor. This allowed one tech' to ascend the ladder to the top and remain at that elevation while an assistant rotated the ladder approximately 150 degrees around the
boom. Having changed all gobos and gels at a given elevation, the tech' on top would descend a couple of rungs and the other tech' would rotate the ladder in the opposite direction. Down another couple of rungs and
roll around. Down another couple and around again. Repeat as necessary until at the
base of the
boom. The bottom of each
boom was locked with a cup pointed Allan set screw in a heavy duty
Kee Klamp floor flange lagged into lead
lag anchors drilled into the poured concrete floor. Having all of the shutters fully opened with photo-etched custom gobos, meant the booms could be re-gelled and focused in full work light with zero need to light the fixtures and with zero need to wait for a previous set to be struck and replaced with the next set scheduled in rep'. Worked like a time and effort saving charm, was a little rough on the carpeting but I believe a layer of rubber matting was soon added. At three or four elevations up each
boom they were bracketed off the
face of the
proscenium with
lag screws in lead
lag anchors drilled into the
face of the prosc'
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard