Does anyone know of any list of currently working hemp houses in the north east...or anywhere at this
point?
Thanks
@brucek Where were you hoping to go with this thread
? I'd like to think many single and double
purchase counter-weight houses utilize hemp, or similar, spot lines including multi-line
spot line sets to add additional full width pipes between their single or double
purchase counter-weighted
line sets. I miss the old terms and calls; such as: Short short, short, short centre, centre, long centre, long and long long. (Naming and referring to the individual lines in a seven
line set.) Calls such as: "Feet on!" and "Feet off!" when the flyman wanted stagehands to hold the pipe tightly to the
deck while he took and equalized tension on all the individual lines within a given
line set and then when he wanted them to stand
clear while he lifted it approximately three or four feet off the
deck and took a tie prior to the
deck carps securing a
drop, or whatever, to the pipe. One of the pains of real hemp was how humidity / moisture affected trims with the longer lines being affected more than the shorter lines resulting in not only changes in
trim heights but pipes tilting at angles with reference to the
deck. More modern
line materials better resisted changes due to humidity / moisture content / temperature. Thanks
@brucek for an interesting post sparking many happy memories. (but not the memories of festering slivers from dirty hemp) I don't much miss 100 pound sand bags and bag lines to grunt the bags a little to allow the flyman to re-trim the individual lines within a given
line set.
EDIT: In the days of wooden loft blocks, head blocks and sheaves we'd often put two head blocks next to each other to create a six or seven
line set for heavier loads. If your
venue was old enough you had wooden battens. Depending upon the width of your
stage your battens may have been supported by anywhere from three to five lines. If you were going to be flying something appreciably heavier than normal and / or you were worried about the age and condition of some of your lines; positioning a three
sheave head block immediately adjacent to a four
sheave head block allowed you to create a seven part hemp set. Oh the days of wooden grids, blocks and sheaves.
(I'll crawl back in my hole now.)
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard