My question is: is this going to be the wisest choice for staging top? We do two major productions a year on the stage and then a bunch of band concerts, choir concerts, miscellaneous performances.
we actually have a pine floor at one of the spaces. gaff tape rips up splinters leaving the floor worse than if we had gone hardwood. This gets refinished once a year. So why would the suggestion of a softwood come into a theater type space?
we actually have a pine floor at one of the spaces. gaff tape rips up splinters leaving the floor worse than if we had gone hardwood. This gets refinished once a year. So why would the suggestion of a softwood come into a theater type space?
I was told years ago that a pine floor should never be "finished" or painted, it should be oiled once or twice a year. that oil would help the wood heal itself from the nail holes and stage screws put into it.
the floor we were talking about had been finnished so i never did get to see how that played out.
Several great threads on stage floors here - glad to be able to bump this one - searching for a solution where a user recommended our usual top layer - plyron. If you haven't seen/used plyon, it has the advantages of hardboard (or maso or Masonite if you prefer) and few of the disadvantages - like dimpling or bubbling and sounding like an oil can - because it is basically plywood with the outer veneers being hardboard.
So these folks want something that is more "self-healing" which made al the pine floor comments interesting to read - with likes and dislikes almost alternating. I use to specify pine - like 30+ years ago - because that was the traditional material and it worked well - if it was harvested maybe 50 to 100 years ago - when yellow pine and similar species trees were allowed to grow slowly and become real dense and rather than get the last board foot out of the harvest, quarter sawing or rift sawing was practiced. Nothing as pretty and hard and self healing and tough as true quarter sawn southern pine for stage floors. Regrettably for us in the theater, it seems to only be attainable at really high cost. I bought some for a small home project and IIRC near $100/bd ft. Anyways, I can't help but wonder if the likes for pine is for old dense pine floors and the dislikes are for new plain sawn fast growth material.
So anyone have any new thoughts on this? I wondered how the plain A face ply painted worked out?
Hey Bill, Footer, Van, and everyone else.
It looks like our stage floor has finally hit the limit of its useful life (35 years I think). It looks like 2 1/4 x 3/4 pine over some sort of sleepers on concrete. I haven't pulled up anything to find out for sure. It is shredding, sheering, peeling (from years of paint), and splintering. In the last 3 years it has really fallen apart to the point that I don't think that paint will hold any more and is a safety issue due to the splintering.
Because it is a high school, we have lots of events overlapping which means most musical and drama sets have to be mobile so we can clear the drama play, have a band concert, reset the play and then bring in a weekend rental dance event, back to play rehearsal then the choir concert and finally dress rehearsal and opening nite for the play. You laugh, but this is why everything is on wheels or fly's or wagons.
We just finished Les Miserables with six sets of rolling stairs, barricades, 3 story buildings that roll in, tables on wheels and carts. Heck, even the choir risers and band shells are on wheels. It is no wonder that the pine stage is falling apart.
The big question is:
Do we go over the pine with 1/4" MDF? (assuming that the edges to doors and thrust/stair edge will allow it). Will that result in paneling causing the sheets to shift with the planking layer underneath?
Or do we tear it all up and start new with ????
What do you recommend for the stage floor and paint etc.
Thanks,
Larry
A community theater near me underwent a major renovation a few years ago, and their consultant spec'ed Plyron atop plywood for the stage floor. It came pre-drilled and countersunk for mounting screws, which would be fine, except that the pattern was a grid slightly less than 8" square, the countersinking was extra deep for ensuring clearance, and the installers of course put a screw into every hole. It worked out to something like 91 screws per panel. Furthermore, they installed in February, one of the dryest months of the year, and made sure to smack every panel as tight as possible to it's neighbor before screwing.
So, when the time comes that a panel needs replacing, 91 paint-filled screws will need to be removed, and the panel pryed up from between its humidity-swelled neighbors. In the meantime, the countersink holes, even after many coats of paint, make the stage floor look like a golf ball. Furthermore, plyron isn't available in our town. The nearest dealer is 250 miles away, and wants an extra bump on the price per sheet to break up a pallet, plus the shipping, plus the higher cost of the Plyron compared to AC plywood.
The best 'new install' solution isn't always the best 'future maintenance' solution.
1/8" hardboard faces, 1/2" plywood in the middle. Was quoted $70-75/sheet by a Chicagoland dealer four years ago, after being directed to them by Plyron themselves (Olympia Products? Can't remember), not counting the pallet-breaking and freight charges. I ended up buying a couple of sheets from the flooring subcontractor to cover my part of the project (organ lift in pit). They *might* have found a similar non-Plyron product and gotten it approved as a substitution, but I'm guessing that there's some sort of patent protection on it.
We use essential cookies to make this site work, and optional cookies to enhance your experience.