Why do they have to go? Personally, I'm a fan of striplights as long as they don't interfere or take the place of other lighting instruments. For example, I wouldn't mind having a
striplight immediately before
electric 1 (also known as
x-rays), but I would not like striplights in favor of
electric 1. I'd want to have my cake and eat it too. It would be nice to have a set in front of or behind the mid
stage traveler also.
How long did you say these were? Too bad they can't ship. Otherwise I'd say remove the lenses and
send the rest to me. I'd pay up to $200 to ship them if the actual
unit was no more than $50 (more than what you'd get for scrap metal). That's the thing with strips. They're a huge pain to do anything with unless you just leave them hanging.
Another question: Are these A-lamp strips or R-40 strips?
(A-lamp strips have an aluminum
reflector for each lamp which the
roundel clasps into, whereas R-40 strips use R or
PAR lamps and sandwich the roundels in a special frame). The type will have some determining factor in what you can get if you were to scrap it out. If you remove the reflectors, you can get a little extra money for them. Leaving them in will get you less because the aluminum would be considered "dirty".
Totally agree with Less on this concept of why get rid of them and his other salvabe concepts. Sorry but as a student, you have no ability to do stuff to the gear such as cutting it down for shipping in more useful lengths for resale or even in doing so. Can recommend and even recommend that they stay at the theater in just leaving them be. Agreed that they can be useful and there probably is no need of replacing them. This as long as safe. Remember some similar fixtures at a 1926 hemp
house that just left them to hang with the origional non-locked
donut weighted fly
system. In upgrade to the
grid, the ones not to be touched needed to go. A pull on the rope caused each rope to break but luckily too much age and friction in the
system to move far in crashing. This other than the old rope winding up around me each time I pulled on each of the three bars of light strip. Safe removal of the gear was possible with other means.
Still though a 32' long section of boarder / strip light isn't
portable or easily transportable. This much less would require a service
call at best if not total re-wiring. Useful if not moved and inspected for
safety, leave it there and you esecially for the blues can help especilly with a night scene, or for a
cyc wash... why not just keep it if safe?
For resale... it's 32' long and wouldn't fit int even most rented trucks even if sold. Thing's too long and would have to be cut up. At that
point more worth labor and parts in scrap metal in making it into individual fixtures, but Len and other's further ideas of what to save are good and perhaps not bad to do in saving elements of it even if the rest scrap metal.
There are some fixtures best suited to live at the theater if useful and never leave. Short of that, the scrap yard is their end result unless you can find somewhere else to hang them in saving them with lots of effort. Remembe back.. about 25 years ago, my high school theater had lots of catacombs and rooms set aside for
flat an scenery storage. We were eventually locked out of the
asbestos lined catacome lined crawlways beneath the rest of the school. With permission in not getting much scrap metal
return for the
fixture, just move it off
stage and somehow into storage for a future generation to want or get rid of, leave or want. If not useful for your
current needs.. perhaps for a future generation.
That or as I was given a 1962 Dyna Beam and some stip lights 20 or thirty years later in freeing up some space, perhap some lucky later student in wanting it, might have a use for such things. The Dyna Beam is even now
lobby sculpture, the strip lights I used for a few years than sold off to another theater later. This granted they were only 6' versions and that length of
fixture is the key. Short of a semi-truck trailer, there is no way to economically transport a 32' long strip light. Saving it and hanging in storage might be the best option for later if you can, or given what it is, scrapping it would be the option in not feeling too bad for it. Save what you can and afterwords, it served it's usefulness if it is no longer useful or able to leave hanging
