HELLO, we just got done doing Les Mis here in Glen Rock, PA and we used a 20' motorized
revolve....under your layers of plyboard, you need to find the exact center, this is very important then use a 1 or 1.5" metal flange with a piece of the coresponding metal pipe, threaded on one side to fit the flange (lowes or Home depot) and cut to just short of your final height of the
turntable. then you want the closest
fitting metal pipe that will fit over this 1 or 1.5" pipe and you need to do the same, use a metal flange and threaded pipe that is just long enough to slide over the pipe attached to the underside of your
platform, this
bottom pipe should just be long enough to tough the top flange, nount this to a plyboard circle that is about 3 feet wide, make sure to use a lubrication and don't be stingy, we used a spray called white lightning (i think), it is kind of a foam. then you need to make (what we called the web because that is what it looks like) strips of plyboard about 4 inches wide and these should form a web like
pattern when your done, you would need to do the math for your size
turntable to figure out the angles and length for each piece of plyboard. attach all these starting at the center smaller circle and either mount to the floor or you can use some fly
rail weights just be sure to keep them shorter than your
platform from inside to inside of your plyboard circles. after all this is set-up you want to use 2, 2.5 or 3" casters at the most, you want the rubber kind that are kind of rounded around the edges and do not use locking casters and they have to be swivel style. mount these to your web of plyboard with 2 on each piece on your small section of ply then add as you go, 3 on the next set, 4 on the next, so on and so forth, be sure to keep them all on the correct angle to flow smooth and be sure to mount upside down to let your
platform revolve on top of the wheel part of the
caster. make sure to add either
luan or .5 " ply pieces to the bottom, outside
edge of your
platform that follow the curve neatly, this gives the outside casters a stopping
point so that your
revolve does not get out of
line...when this is all completed, you should be abel to spin very smoothly with minimal noise (assuming you are not motorizing it which is a whole other story) then
build your surrounding
platform around you
revolve platform making sure that all of your cuts are as clean and accurate as you can get them, trust me, it's worth the extra time to be careful with these cuts. to spin manually, you can use a
spade bit (probably a 1.5") to cut a few holes near the outside edges of your
revolve and your crew can use a pipe to stick in the wholes for a scene change and spin it....there are other ways to do this, but this is the easiest...hope this helps....it sounds confusing, but take it step by step and you will be fine...good luck
Joe
