Revolving Door

[mrtrudeau23]

Working on a project at the moment that involves a revolving door. The door needs to function, needs to come onstage (rolled) and needs to be anchored to the stage to stop it from drifting into a fly piece. All this needs to happen in a normal scene change time. The four panels for the door would be on a piece of plywood with a radius of about 2'6" to 3'.
How would you anchor it to the stage in a manner that is simple for a crew to do in a reasonable amount of time?

 

[Footer]

Cane bolts is by far the best way to hold a piece in place. You can buy them at most hardware stores. They look like this...

Mount it to the piece and drill into the stage to set stop. After the show is over go back with dowel rod to fill the hole. Glue in the dowel, use a pull saw to cut flush... and sharpy to complete the fix.

If you can't drill into the stage, a wagon brake is your next best option. Do a search for wagon brake and you will see many variants on the design.

 

[shiben]

I would say wagon break, just because that only requires that you mount to the set piece, not drilling a hole in the floor. Also, you dont need to hit 2 holes in the dark, you need to get the thing in the spikes. Lining up holes with everything painted black might be tough. We use them in our theater all the time to great effect, and they are easy to use. Not quite as secure as the bolt thing, but much less work in the end, in my opinion.

 

[Van]

Or a combination of both the above mentioned methods. A cane bolt system to locate the piece and a wagon brake, or similar system, to secure it. I alway like to refer people to Destaco < De-stay-co, even though a a lot of folks pronounce it < Des-Taco> at www.destaco.com is a wonderful manufacturer of braking, clamping systems. I'm particularly fond of plunge stops that are used to physically lift the casters of a wagon off the floor.

 

[MNBallet]

Can you design the door system fully contained in a wagon? My thought is to is to build a small revolve that sits on a wagon, basically a wagon on a wagon. If you build up the area fully around your revolve, it keeps it in place while still freely rotates. Then use wagon breaks on the unit and you're set in place on stage while still freely rotating your door.
Also there are big box stores that sell lazy susans that are rated up to 1,000 pounds. very low profile. I think putting a lazy susan on the top side of a wagon is a easy thing to do.

Kenneth Pogin
Production / Tour Manager
Minnesota Ballet

 

[sk8rsdad]

Instead of trying to secure the door to a base with a central pivot (which is what it sounds like you're trying to do) you could try making a rigid assembly out of the 4 door panels then mount a swivel lock casters to each of the 4 door panels out near the ends. Let 2 of them swivel freely to track it on and off stage and lock them all perpendicular to the door they are mounted on to make the assembly rotate in place.

 

[mrtrudeau23]

After thinking a lot about this, I am going with a circle of plywood, on which is mounted three smart casters with brakes. On this trolley, there will be a lazy susan type of device, and on the opposite side of the lazy susan will be another plywood circle forming the base for the door panels. The actors will be walking around the doors, just pushing them from the stage deck to give the illusion of passing through the doors.
Thanks for all the suggestions!

 

[shiben]

Instead of trying to secure the door to a base with a central pivot (which is what it sounds like you're trying to do) you could try making a rigid assembly out of the 4 door panels then mount a swivel lock casters to each of the 4 door panels out near the ends. Let 2 of them swivel freely to track it on and off stage and lock them all perpendicular to the door they are mounted on to make the assembly rotate in place.

Thats really elegant. I like that a lot.

 

[MNBallet]

I think you will be better off without the casters on the bottom. If you make the unit light enough, I think you would be better off building a dolly for it. 2 crew members lift the door onto the dolly, roll it out into place, lift if off and set it down. Then walk away with the dolly in hand. I really think you are going to be fighting the locking casters. During the scene change, you are most likely going to have to reach down under the unit to even get to the locking device on the caster. Do the plywood sandwich with a lazy susan, but move the unit with a dolly. More stable and lower profile on the floor during the scene, and will be easer during scene changes to not fight locking or unlocking a caster.

Ken Pogin
Production Tour Manager
Minnesota Ballet

 

[scenerymaker]

Like others, I've used wagon brakes successfully, until they get hit and bent by another set piece during load-out. On my last show, The wagon rolled in or out on a straight line, so I put a pair of fixed casters on each end, that were raised and lowered with an upstage handle. Roll it in, flip the lever on each end to raise the gear, and the wagon sat solidly on the stage. Total elapsed time,: 2 seconds! What's more, it even worked!