Counterweight Floating arbors

[jklonow]

Are floating arbors out of date? I was told that our floating arbor needs to be upgraded to a T-wall. Is this good advice?

 

[rochem]

I assume by "floating" you mean it's wire-guided (probably two aircraft cables running vertically that the arbor runs on) instead of attached to a t-track on the wall, yes? As far as I know, there's nothing code-related that prohibits the use of these, at least in my area. I've seen installs as recently as last year that used a wire-guide system, although they are definitely on the way out.

What's the maximum travel of your battens, or how high is your fly tower? Above 25-30' or so, wire guided systems become pretty ineffective, and a T-track would definitely be the way to go, but below 20' or so, wire guide is cheaper and probably alright for your purposes.

Also, welcome to CB! Stop by the New Member Board and introduce yourself over there.

 

[Footer]

If you were to completely re-do your fly tower, its not a bad idea. As long as you are not having issues with arbors crashing into each other you can stay with wire guide. The one advantage T-track has is you can put arbors much closer together. Pipes on 6" centers are becoming the norm in todays world and wire guide can't do that. However, upgrading to T-Bar would basically mean a full gutting of your rigging system involving everything but the pipe, head blocks, and loft blocks. It would not be something you would want to do unless you had to.

 

[MPowers]

Counterweight systems have two basic methods of guiding the weight arbors. Wire guides or tracks. Wire guides used to be exactly that, heavy metal wire with or without a turnbuckle to provide tension. The wire was often kinked or bent. 1/8" GAC has replaced the solid wire for any new installations and the solid wire guides are rarely found today except in very old systems. Wire guides are perfectly fine if there are only a few line sets, they are infrequently used, used at low speeds, the arbor travel is about 30' or less and they are at least 12" apart. In fact, I will be installing a brand new wire guide system this summer at a small stage with only 5 moving line sets and the remaining battens dead hung. Another nationally know firm is installing a wire guide system in a small college space in the northern part of the state as I write this. If you do a lot of musicals with frequent, high speed changes, if your battens and arbors are closer than 12", if you have experienced arbors clipping each other as they pass, then you need to replace the wire guide with "T" or "J" bar guides. If your system is in need of a lot of maintenance and repair, it might prove economical to replace the wire guide with track guided at the same time, but I really can't say without knowing more about your system.

If you would be so kind as to describe your system and it's condition, we could offer a bit more accurate advice. HTH.

 

[FatherMurphy]

Another benefit of t-bar systems is that there is no constant lifting force being exerted on the lock rail/floor. One common mistake with wire guide systems is to try to reduce arbor banging by making the wires tighter and tighter, until they end up pulling the lock rail loose from the floorboards. Lots of small turnbuckles can add up to lots of force!

I've seen as much as 35' being suggested as a maximum travel for a wire-guide system, it depends on use and compactness as much as length. The longer the travel, the more extreme the mid-range sloppiness will be.