Vintage Lighting Free gear.. no customers

[ship]

A little disappointed in the budding store front theater types, or am I really that out of date.

Back in my day’s of store front theater (early/mid- 90's), I at times wished “My Kindom for another Leko!” in design and had to make do with what I had to fill in as best I could at times with invented fixtures. Worked other shows at other store front theater’s where there was literally clip lights at times to “design” with. At other times it took more work to make the dimmers working and lights functional than any pay I got, and still had to borrow lights from my home theater in making magic.

About two weeks ago, I listed on CB Classifieds “for free” a lighting package of lights. Something like best to Northern Illinois area in picking up as opposed to having to figure out shipping.

2x L&E PAR 64 steel can w. 1Kw flood lamp.
2x Altman PAR 64 steel can w. 500w flood lamp.
4x Altman 360 radial 6x9 with 500w or 750w lamp & gobo slots meaning last generation.
6x Major 6" Fresnel (stock Fresnel design.) No lamps.
8x Century #1480 radial 6x9 Leko, (Centry/Strand type lights of this type are well known for the quality of their optics.)
2x Kliegl #1368E 8" 1-2Kw Leko if wanted.
TBA
4x Hub 4.5x6.5 radial Leko’s
2x Major 6" Fresnel
etc. including spare lamps and gel package.

Modified in list.

Enough gear for free to make a theater’s show in getting quality lighting for it. Ancient Engineer the only reply for gear wants the fresnels and this point will probably get them in making space but also in breaking up the lighting package for bulk of the lights.... A Fresnel is a Fresnel no matter the age after 1938. He is in Ohio though so shipping will include a cost, and it was hoped all lights would stay in Illinois. Sorry to keep him on the fence.

Fresnels are almost done in having been re-wired, re-surfaced, sanded and re-painted and brought back to, or better than modern factory spec. My spec is better than factory spec. Leko’s - the Century 6x9's should not take much time other than re-wiring and some re-surfacing. They are a quality light. PAR can’s and Altman Leko’s are done and ready to get out of my garage. For the most part lamping up half of them for 500w normal usage would be the only cost.

Cannot figure out why nobody in the Chicago area or Illinois area, does not want such fixtures that would be like new - even if older generation. Reached out some without reply. Even one of anything requested for home museum.

Problem for me is I often acquire or have knowledge of elder lights which with work on my part factory spec mechicanally, I can bring back to great and new condition. Lamp sockets re-surfaced have years more life on them as the lest component and this no less than expected by a new lamp socket normal lamp socket life. I even replace parts such as a cracked 6" Fresnel lens with a new one in not making a profit. Just bleed off my stock in parts to help others.

So why is it that free especially the radial Leko’s back to factory spec.. nobody wants them? I have to at some point stop working on the fixtures if nobody wants them. That would be a shame in me throwing into the dumpster lights I could make viable.

Photo of me Skil Saw with metal cutting blade cutting up 40' long strip lighs not inserterted. Some pleasure in me cutting them up, and the tool cut thru like butter. This after deckades of me re-wiring them to make viable, cutting them up was a sorry but good spark making end to me doing that care for them in disposal.

Main question becomes than... do I not care for the radial 6x9 Leko that I could fix and make as good as new? Cannot imagine throwing a perfectly viable radial especially 6x9 Leko into the trash... but if I have nobody wanting it.... a shame,. A few years ago I made some L&E Leko’s into A-19 GE “Reveal” 100w medium screw based fixtures. I can do it with such futures and these radial fixures and probably make money.. In genearl... I could make money in resale. But I won’t. Would not do this to my past teachers in lighting. Such an insult,. What I got for free I work on in making safe in providing to my family for free.

On projects I get notice of pallets of lights which will soon become trash because a few LED PAR’s “will do the job” by way of barbarian lighting the scene instead of design. Hard to turn a blind eye, but even for Fresnel’s.. only one person wanting them for free...

On a past project I let the pallets of lights go away. What should I do? I can fix the lights but nobody to send them to. No network in who wants gear. Still I’m sure designers are designing with clip lights and or un-safe gear once from college out there. I have safe older gear, just no place to send it to. Concerning as per industry.

 

[Les]

I have found that the CB Classifieds section has a fairly small audience. Even I find myself only checking a few times a month, and then it's usually when I'm looking for something specific that I'm hoping someone might have for sale. There are Facebook Groups that probably have a broader reach, but in the interest of not driving traffic away from CB, maybe you could post pictures to the Facebook group(s) and then direct those interested here for further communication with you. You would encounter your share of lighting snobs who respond by posting a picture of a dumpster, but I know for a fact* that there's a need somewhere.

*Case-in-point: I recently gave a budding church a package of six Colortran 5/50 ellipsoidals and a half-dozen Source Four Pars as they were moving in to a building and were, for the most part, out of money. Then I directed them to a $40 Lightronics console on eBay and a $38 Leviton 1kw/ch dimmer pack. That'll get them started. I told them to keep their eye out for more dimmers so we can bring more fixtures online as they acquire the infrastructure. They're appreciative and will probably use those lights for years. Their church service is contemporary but simple and 12 channels of instruments (likely lamped down to 375w) won't really cost them much to operate.

I have an Allen & Heath mixer that I'm afraid I'll have to pay someone to take if I don't get more proactive about selling it. It cost the theatre a lot of money a little over a decade ago!

A lot of small theatres are erring on the side of super cheap LED fixtures rather than older conventional fixtures. It's a great plan on paper - less power needed, multiple colors from one fixture, less heat, etc. But the reality is that they buy the "12 pack Amazon Specials" and those who have to design with them spend most of their time fighting the instruments. A little over a year ago I strayed from my home theatre and designed for a friend at a tiny blackbox theatre a few towns over. They were completely outfitted with the crappiest LED fixtures you could imagine, and I would have much preferred using three dozen Par 38's and four actually nice LED fixtures instead. Their system was a rats nest of 3-pin DMX cable, cube taps, and extension cords. Relocating one instrument would upset the entire system. Whomever designed that system really only thought of one aspect of the lighting package, and while I'm sure it seemed like a forward-thinking idea at the time, the end result is a nightmare and I will never go back to that theatre. Not even as an audience member as I got well-acquainted with their "rigging" while making sense of their mess.

On the other hand, I am again helping a different friend at a theatre a few towns over in the other direction. Their system consists mostly of Pars, Fresnels, and maybe a handful of Source Fours. All being driven by an Ion, rather than the DJ-oriented software the last place used. That's the type of place that would benefit from your package. They'll probably go LED in due time, but like my home theatre, we are adding LED on a slower timeframe as opposed to outfitting our theatre with the cheapest stuff we can find. Still plenty of uses for conventionals in the meantime. And I still like the look of a Fresnel over almost anything LED. That's the shame, is that we are losing a lot of purpose-built instruments in favor of a few instruments that can do most everything - albeit not as quite as well as their conventional counterparts in terms of optics.