Main Drape Grease
- Thread starterEthan Martinez
- Start date
@Ethan Martinez Personally I've only ever used powdered graphite decades ago long before aerosol propelled lubricants became available. You needed to apply carefully to avoid excess lubricant escaping and discoloring your soft-goods. Skip ahead a few decades. I've often considered aerosol propelled white lithium as a useful lubricant and note it works well on car door hinges for example but I'm now blind and long retired from theater thus I can't comment on your specific application.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
NO!
If your track is making noise it needs maintenance not grease. Grease, in a theatrical setting, simply attracts dust and dirt and makes a huge stinking mess. then when you are ready to get maintenance done your field tech will hate you because he will get gresae all over everything. This is not to mention what happens when larges globs build up, and get thrown out of the track and drip down your curtains.
If you really, really wanted to you could pull all the carriers and find the offending ones that are making noise. Your best bet is to simply replace the carriers that need replacing. If the carriers have steel wheels or ball bearing centers you could try brushing/blowing/ degreasing them then reapply a small amount of grease to the ball bearings.
The other thing to check for is to see if a swivel or a trim chain has somehow gotten lodged in the track, it happens. it could simply be something dragging against the track. Do you know what kind of track it is?
If your track is making noise it needs maintenance not grease. Grease, in a theatrical setting, simply attracts dust and dirt and makes a huge stinking mess. then when you are ready to get maintenance done your field tech will hate you because he will get gresae all over everything. This is not to mention what happens when larges globs build up, and get thrown out of the track and drip down your curtains.
If you really, really wanted to you could pull all the carriers and find the offending ones that are making noise. Your best bet is to simply replace the carriers that need replacing. If the carriers have steel wheels or ball bearing centers you could try brushing/blowing/ degreasing them then reapply a small amount of grease to the ball bearings.
The other thing to check for is to see if a swivel or a trim chain has somehow gotten lodged in the track, it happens. it could simply be something dragging against the track. Do you know what kind of track it is?
BillConnerFASTC
Well-Known Member
Ethan Martinez
New Member
bobgaggle
Well-Known Member
Definitely locate the source of the new noise before you go at it with a grease gun. Too much can do wrong with fluids near soft goods...
BillConnerFASTC
Well-Known Member
Aluminum i-beam tracks rigged for manual traverse operation are noisy. I avoid it if possible, which if curved it can't be avoided. The suggestions to try to isolate the noise to a component is good. Als making sure things like clamps and hangers are tight. But since it seems uncertain it was ever quieter, this may be it.
How tall is curtain - eye ball - and seem like normal 50% fullness - again eye ball fine. Just trying to get a sense of weight.
And even a quick photo or several would help us.
microstar
Well-Known Member
I second the notion that you do not want to grease or lubricate the track itself. You will need to remove the curtain (after removing any counterweight) and slide off all the carriers. Chances are the bearings or wheels of the carrier have frozen or gotten gummed up by dirt/dust. I once had the issue where the curtain was very hard to pull open or closed. Removed all the carriers and found many to be frozen up. Dumped them in a bucket of WD40 overnight, and the next day wiped all of them down thoroughly, reassembled everything, and the curtain operated just like new. The track was actually relatively clean since it was the U-shaped type.
