FWIW the 40,000 pound seat wagons at Schermerhorn
Hall are steel rollers on wood floor in use, on concrete slab for storage. They do clean pretty thoroughly before moving.
@BillConnerFASTC In the same FWIW vein, There are four seating wagons in Hamilton, Ontario's Hamilton Place Great
Hall, two per lift x two lifts with rows EE - HH storing one
level down and rows AA - DD storing two levels down below the
trap room,
instrument storage and the hydraulics room for the two lifts. In their storage areas, they run on permanently installed steel tracks comprised of approximately 1/4" x 6"
flat bar with inverted steel angles welded atop. The two wooden
stage lifts have flush metal inserts with threaded fillers installed. When the seating wagons are required on the lifts, similarly constructed tracks are rolled into place, their storage / transit casters removed, the fillers are unbolted from the inserts, the tracks positioned and specially machined Allen head cap screws secure the tracks laterally while gravity holds them securely in place. Been that way since 1973 and, to my knowledge, still works well. I've seen people try to reinvent the wheel a few times but, thus far, the wheel appears to keep on winning. The architect's original design had the wagons supported by ~8" to 10" swivelling casters with locks for the swivel's rotation and the rolling of the
caster. This just
DID NOT work as it was too, too, time and labor consuming trying to correctly align the four wagons when on the lifts. Trying to have them
line up neatly around all of their perimeter edges without damage due to overhanging edges was its own little time and labor intensive nightmare. Once we got through the six week opening festival, the general contractor brought in his brother in law and the steel tracks with vee-wheels
system came into being. The four wagons motor along with each powered by a reversible
electric motor through reduction gears to a pair of approximately 10" pneumatic rubber tires forced tightly against the floor by a stout compression spring. The pneumatic tires attain adequate
grip on the concrete floors in the storage areas and leave only easily washed off dirt marks on the darkly finished wooden
stage decks.
The
hall is one of two Russell Johnson / Artec designs in my area with the other being in Kitchener Waterloo.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
