Rolled Gel

[Dk85jones]

Hi All,

Simple question! I have discovered some gels that have been stored for a while, in rolls. I've cut them into 'premade' cut sizes and want to put them in a filling cabinet - ready to grab on a set-up.

However, the sheets keep curling up because of their time in rolls - is there a way to 'flatten' them so they sit better in my filling cabinet?

Thanks

 

[RonHebbard]

Hi All,93

Simple question! I have discovered some gels that have been stored for a while, in rolls. I've cut them into 'pre-made' cut sizes and want to put them in a filling cabinet - ready to grab on a set-up.

However, the sheets keep curling up because of their time in rolls - is there a way to 'flatten' them so they sit better in my filling cabinet?

Thanks

@Dk85jones Purely by luck of the draw, when a theatre I was with wanted to create two four drawer filing cabinets full of stock, pre-cut gels in four sizes of three brands, it coincided with a civic election; one of our board members was planning to run for some civic office, bought a skid full of 1/8", pre-finished, white Masonite intending to have the Masonite cut and printed to sizes for election signs then changed his mind. Our theatre found itself with a fork lift skid of 1/8" white Masonite pre-cut to ~ 24" x 36"; a table saw and sander made quick work of cutting filing dividers and the white sides were perfect for labeling with a magic marker. The 1/8" Masonite was a bit too thick and heavy for the job, and we definitely wouldn't have paid for it, when it was delivered to our truck dock as a gift we put it to work.

Our Head Electrician was purchasing gels by the roll, initially Strand's Cinemoid, then Lee, Roscolene, Roscolar and eventually Roscolux.
No matter how long the gel had been rolled, the heavy white Masonite far outweighed it resulting in our pre-cuts eventually giving up the curled gel fight.
Thanks for my memories of 1973.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[SteveB]

Hi All,

Simple question! I have discovered some gels that have been stored for a while, in rolls. I've cut them into 'premade' cut sizes and want to put them in a filling cabinet - ready to grab on a set-up.

However, the sheets keep curling up because of their time in rolls - is there a way to 'flatten' them so they sit better in my filling cabinet?

Thanks

All our gel is in marked file folders stored in a standard file cabinet, the type that has a sliding metal partition. It helps to “compress” the cut sheets.

 

[JonCarter]

Flatten 'em out & leave them under a scrap of plywood for a while. They'll flatten out fine.

 

[NateTheRiddler]

Something I've done:

I've noticed gel changes its memory a bit better when warm. So I grabbed my rolls, placed them in between sheets of heavy opaque plastic that I had lying around, and put them outside in the winter sun, making sure that no portion of the gel was directly exposed to sunlight. With the warmth of the sun on the plastic, however, the gel flattened out, then "muscle memory'd" itself to stay flat. Popped the nice warm gel into our storage drawers after a nice casual whiff of the fantastic plastic smell, and voila.

 

[Dan Fischer]

Agree with all of the above. Pressure, heat or both. Overtime in a compressed file folder they will flatten out. If you are in a hurry some heat with a hair dryer (heat gun would work but don't leave it in one spot or it will start to wrinkle like high saturation gels do overtime in the fixture) or both. Just warm it up a little and when it cools being compressed in the folder it will straighten out. Make sure you mark each gel with a china pencil. Many ME's like to mark the gels in the corner under the gel frame but I like to write it inside the ring of the gel frame so I can look up into a fixture during a focus call and know immediately what color I'm looking at.

 

[almorton]

Agree with that about writing the gel number where it can be seen. I've also got into the habit of writing the frame/lantern type on the gel, that way if it can be reused (and we often reuse the paler colours a few times) it's easier to find the right gel for the lantern to hand.

 

[RonHebbard]

Agree with that about writing the gel number where it can be seen. I've also got into the habit of writing the frame/lantern type on the gel, that way if it can be reused (and we often reuse the paler colours a few times) it's easier to find the right gel for the lantern to hand.

In a roadhouse + another pro' theatre constructing and producing their own productions, all of their lighting instruments used one of four different sized cuts; they stored each size separately in separate drawers of filing cabinets: 4 sizes or Roscolux, 4 sizes of Lee, 4 sizes of the very few GAM colours they stocked and 4 sizes of some VERY old Cinemoid from the 1970's in two or three colours they couldn't bring themselves to part with (Cinemoid #8, 44, and 47 come to mind [The 70's & 80's are fading from my memory]).
Toodleo!
Ron Hebbard