Odd yellow gunk on handles of S4s?

Yoplitein

Yoplitein

Member
I was up on our catwalk yesterday, focusing some of our PARs that we use as rehearsal lights (they were the only form of proper stage lighting we could actually turn on, because nobody was around to unlock the control room, and we had an assembly in a few minutes..) While I was up there, I noticed on some of the handles (proper name?) of the PARs there was this odd, yellowish gunk on them. Is this normal? What could this substance be? Is it harmful?
 
Can you shoot us a picture of it. Wondering if it is just tape residue....
 
Here's a picture. It's not tape gunk, I can tell you that for sure.
proxy.php
 
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It looks to be some sort of fungus or mold. (is mold a fungus...?)
Whatever it is, it looks rather gross. I'd clean it off with some wet paper towel, and probably spray some disinfectant. As for how it got there, I'm clueless. I have found mold on some things we've stored in the crawlspace under the stage, but that is a crawlspace. Unless you make a habit of keeping your venue hot, humid, and stagnant, perhaps it grew there before they were hung and whoever hung them didn't care? That's the best I can come up with.
 
That is mold. Perhaps dangerous mold. I would want to contact someone who knows about that kind of stuff before I touched it at all. Perhaps a biology teacher/professor in the area?
 
Mold prefers dark, damp spaces, but don't necessarily need heat to be active. (look at stuff that's been in the fridge too long)

I do agree with shiben, get someone who knows what they are looking at to inspect it and give you tips on how to safely remove it, but check first that it doesn't mess with the powder coating on the yoke. You have to be very, very thorough, because if you miss even a tiny bit, you'll be doing this again soon.
 
emac said:
Hmmm. It looks like some sort of condensation or some sort of spray adhesive or insulation. Is it tacky or gooey?

Did your venue have any remodeling or work done over the summer/lately?
Click to expand...

Agree... The colour and consistancy, as well as the location, suggest spray insulation to me as well... Still, for the OP: Better to be safe, and work under the assumption of mold... But it looks an awful lot like spray insulation.
 
It really looks like spray insulation. Put on a rubber glove and touch it. If it is firm/justbarely springy then it is probably spray insulation. Acetone would remove it - if you really REALLY wanted to remove it. Spray Foam is very often used in ceilings/ roofs to provide a thermal break between the people space / sheet metal roof / roofing material, and it SHOULD be flame retardant.

If it smears - it could be a fungus (not the right shape for a mold guys) - but on low carbon steel, I highly doubt that it is anykind of living organic matter.
 
looks like over spray from a spray urethane foam job
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if it is you can scrape it off with a plastic putty knife

I would not use acetone as that would just melt it into a toxic jelly like substance.
 
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Sort of also looks like a crystaline formation, from some mineral leeching from the clamps are they aluminum clamps ? Aluminum and Salt air often have a reaction which can look sort of like that.
But my bet is on either as previously stated over spray from a foam job or someone with a flocking gun gone on a rampage. That's right, someone has been flocking with your lights and really flocked them up.
 
Yoplitein said:
...I noticed on some of the handles (proper name?) of the PARs ...
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The only handle on a S4-PAR is the phenolic Tee Handle used to lock the tilt of the fixture. The picture provided shows a portion of the c-clamp, which as stated above is composed of iron/mild steel and thus inhospitable to organic substances. So the "odd yellow gunk" had to come from an external source. It's probably harmless. Look around to see if anything else nearby has similar contamination.
 
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Oh and my very first thought was that if these are very new units it could be Polyurethane foam from it's packing. A lot of times they will put the fixture in a plastic bag, squirt some 2 part poly into the bottom of a box put the fixture < in the bag> in the box then fill the rest of the box with 2 part poly. Sometimes if the bag has a hole in it the poly will get on the product, and with lights that's icky cause all you can do is burn it off. I found that out with a shipment of Leviton Fresnels once.
 
Van said:
Sort of also looks like a crystaline formation, from some mineral leeching from the clamps are they aluminum clamps ? Aluminum and Salt air often have a reaction which can look sort of like that.
Click to expand...

Plausible, the author is from East Bay, CA, which is on the water. But why would there be so much "sea air" inside a building?

Besides the Mega-Clamp, are there any other aluminium clamps?
 
zmb said:
Is it on the same side of the c-clamp of each instrument and on anything besides your instruments?
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I noticed it on the clamps of the other PARs, not in the exact same area IIRC.


Van said:
Sort of also looks like a crystaline formation, from some mineral leeching from the clamps are they aluminum clamps ? Aluminum and Salt air often have a reaction which can look sort of like that.
But my bet is on either as previously stated over spray from a foam job or someone with a flocking gun gone on a rampage. That's right, someone has been flocking with your lights and really flocked them up.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what they're made of. And, no, there were no flocking guns on our catwalks. On stage, maybe, but not the catwalks. Also, I lol'd.

derekleffew said:
The only handle on a S4-PAR is the phenolic Tee Handle used to lock the tilt of the fixture. The picture provided shows a portion of the c-clamp, which as stated above is composed of iron/mild steel and thus inhospitable to organic substances. So the "odd yellow gunk" had to come from an external source. It's probably harmless. Look around to see if anything else nearby has similar contamination.
Click to expand...
Yeah, my terminology isn't that great. I can describe stuff, but not necessarily name them. I didn't see anything similar on our normal S4s.

zmb said:
Plausible, the author is from East Bay, CA, which is on the water. But why would there be so much "sea air" inside a building?

Besides the Mega-Clamp, are there any other aluminium clamps?
Click to expand...
We're a fair distance from water, actually. Maybe a mile or so?
 
Actually, I see this all the time on the S4 PARs that we use as work lights in the theatre. In fact if you look at my work lights the back fo the fixtures are covered with it. As I am located in Utah, the second driest state in the country (even the water is dry) it seems highly unlikely to be mold. The conclusion that I came to is that this build up is ash/dust. Since you are using the fixtures in essentially the same manner as I am (rehearsal/work light) they are on for extended periods of time and get pretty darn hot!

I would imagine that since you are at a school that you probably do a bunch of your construction on stage so you probably kick up plenty of dust. We do the same here.

Another reason why this is certainly not mold is because every time you turn that light on for any length of time, the heat generated would kill it.

Therefore, I would not worry to much about it aside from periodically cleaning your fixtures so they don't actaully start a fire.
 
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