ID Old Fixtures? (Major/LECO)

msawyer52

Active Member
New to the group, great inforamtion.
I'm trying to help a local high school with their theater lighting. Can anyone identify these lighting fixtures? They are anodized aluminum bodys with cast front and rear caps. I can't find any ID on any of the units. They use Medium Prefocus lamps in the 500-750 watt range.
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Thanks
Mike
 
I've seen those before! The shorter ones are really old fresnels, and the longer ones are really old ellipsoidals, if I remember correctly. No brand ID though, I didn't get that good a look at them last time I saw them.
 
The main body is actually a gold anodized aluminum. When you take the unit apart it's in 4 separate interlocking pieces on the side plus the front lens and rear panel.
 
I'm pretty sure that they're Kliegl Bros, I couldn't find anything that resembled them on the Strand Archive website, and I seem to remember that they were Kliegl when I saw them. The other brand that I think they might be is Century, before they merged w/Strand.
 
My first thought at seing them was Kleigl, but ... are you sure its aluminum ? I thought Kleigl was out of the biz by the time cast aluminum was affordable and practical to the entertainment industry. I may be blowing smoke however.
 
Yeah, they're definitely aluminum, the ridges help cooling I suppose. Really unusual design, if you take the off the back and front, the sides just fall apart into 4 separate pieces. Checked out the kleig site and didn't find anything that was close enough. Didn’t consider Kleig because their unit are usually bigger and higher wattage units. These are all 6” fesnels or lekos. Originally thought they were old Strand or Century but still can’t match them with anything.
 
I'm taking a shot in the dark, but I'm going to say that they're Capitol. The few Capitol lekos I've seen had that fluted lamp stem. I don't think they're Kliegl, most Kliegl's I've seen have a silver (Aluminum?) lamp cap.
 
Still those ridges on the lense stem look so much like the Capitol and Centruy fixtures I've worked with. How do you remove the lamp caps? The Century lekos I worked with had this "spring latch" mechanism.
 
Sorry for the necropost, but as the original question was never answered, and the entire thread happened before my time on CB...
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I'm 95% certain they're Major fixtures. The 5% doubt is that they could be LECO (Lighting Equipment COmpany). See the threads http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting-electrics/16892-identify-lighting-instrument.html and http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting-electrics/10595-who-heck-made-these-fixtures-quest.html . Major, LECO (first owned by Grand Stage Lighting, then sold to Major?) were, at times, all one and the same, and all based in Chicago.

From a post on the SML:
The Major corporation was begun by Roscoe Major in the early 1900's.
The earliest address I found for them was 4603 West Fullerton Avenue
in Chicago, but they moved to newer and better facilities out in
Crystal Lake Illinois in the mid 60's. When I was involved in their
equipment, Father Major's sons Frank and Ross ran the operation.
Interestingly, the bread and butter of their business was
manufacturing reflectors for traffic signal lights, which was a
natural extension of their capability to spin and hydroform aluminum
reflectors and apply the highly reflective ALZAK coating found in
theatrical instruments.

The Major EXAL series of ellipsoidals and fresnels were so named because of
the body panels made of EXtruded ALuminum, sporting an anodized rather
than painted surface. At the time, the design was quite advanced and,
as Mr. Price experienced, they enjoy (or suffer) a long life span.
 
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The Fresnels look almost identical to 16 eight inch Fresnels that I have. They are Electro-Control circa 1976. The gel frame holder is just a bit longer and the zoom control is set back just a bit, but the finned aluminum sides and yoke are exactly the same.
As Derek has pointed out, they might be Major. The fact that Major purchased and ran Electro-Control for a short period, just before it was purchased by strand, might explain the very similar appearance.
 

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