Wondering how those who design or use trap stages secure their plugs. We have a trap stage built in 1962, pictured from below here. The plugs are true 2" thick fir planks, under fir T&G, under our hardboard wear layer. Each is held tight (in theory) to the pictured steel beams using four 1/4" jaw/hook turnbuckles going to 1/4" eye bolts.
To me all the hardware is wrong. When I gave it all a closer look recently, I saw a mixture of forged and wire eyes, all without shoulders and side loaded (and therefore mostly bent and/or loose). The turnbuckles aren't moused, so I found lots of loose ones. The traps haven't been used in years, because the trap room happens to be our costume shop, and that's a PITA.
The lack of use has also, I'm a bit ashamed to say, led to a lapse in now-obviously needed inspection. I started looking at this situation because during a dance rehearsal recently, a turnbuckle fell onto a sewing table. Fortunately, nobody was in the room at the time. As far as I can tell, the turnbuckle worked loose enough that instead of pulling on the eyes it actually started pushing them apart with every stomp from above (20+ member step dance group). Eventually, it snapped the bottom eye (which was forged in this case) and the hook on the other end fell out of the top eye.
So, I could do a direct-ish replacement of all of these, using forged hardware, shoulder eyes, and moused jaw/jaw turnbuckles instead of jaw/hook. I'm skeptical that 1/4" hardware is even enough in this application, but I'm not super confident in evaluating the stresses at play in this situation.
Or, I could do something else that you smart people know about. Ideas?
To me all the hardware is wrong. When I gave it all a closer look recently, I saw a mixture of forged and wire eyes, all without shoulders and side loaded (and therefore mostly bent and/or loose). The turnbuckles aren't moused, so I found lots of loose ones. The traps haven't been used in years, because the trap room happens to be our costume shop, and that's a PITA.
The lack of use has also, I'm a bit ashamed to say, led to a lapse in now-obviously needed inspection. I started looking at this situation because during a dance rehearsal recently, a turnbuckle fell onto a sewing table. Fortunately, nobody was in the room at the time. As far as I can tell, the turnbuckle worked loose enough that instead of pulling on the eyes it actually started pushing them apart with every stomp from above (20+ member step dance group). Eventually, it snapped the bottom eye (which was forged in this case) and the hook on the other end fell out of the top eye.
So, I could do a direct-ish replacement of all of these, using forged hardware, shoulder eyes, and moused jaw/jaw turnbuckles instead of jaw/hook. I'm skeptical that 1/4" hardware is even enough in this application, but I'm not super confident in evaluating the stresses at play in this situation.
Or, I could do something else that you smart people know about. Ideas?
Last edited:
