@Smatticus I've posted this on Control Booth before but your post today is bringing back an educational memory.
In 1990 I found myself accepting the position of Head Electrician in a newly constructed
theatre, brand new from the foundations up. In preparation I had purchased several spools of 3/4" black cotton
flat twill tape and cut one spool into measured lengths of approximately 30" to have a decent
stock of tie-line on
hand to begin our first season's operation. The
theatre's founders had begun decades prior in the Montreal / Ottawa area and had been in Hamilton for nearly 20 years but always renting performing spaces by the week, NEVER having owned, maintained or been responsible for their own building. The owners had opted to
purchase all of their
soft goods from a company in England and scheduled their delivery for their anticipated date of occupancy. You can imagine how that went, construction projects rarely are complete and certified for occupancy on schedule. Of course the British supplier shipped on time and the many heavy cardboard cartons sat on fork lift skids in the mud outside the
theatre with the owners wrapping them in plastic as protection against the rain, sleet, snow and mud of our Canadian winter. As you can imagine, the heavy
velour absorbed appreciable moisture and WEIGHT in spite of the several layers of thin poly / plastic.
FINALLY the official Certificate of Occupancy was awarded less than a week from the scheduled, and SOLD OUT, grand opening.
Tie
line was provided by the fabricators for all of the borders, legs, sky cloth and both scrims but, due to their weight, the fabricators had recommended the
purchase of chain to hang both black travellers and the extremely heavy and
canvas lined
House Curtain / Grand Drape,
call it what you will.
CHAIN? Hell no said the carpenters, who'd never spent any appreciable time in a building with a
fly tower and line-sets let alone a motor powered line-set.
Heck no.
It was decided hanging the
house curtain should be the first order of business.
A
forklift was required to elevate the damaged cartons one at a time on muddy skids up on to the truck dock.
On
stage, the carpenters laid a layer of thin poly on the dirty
stage then proceeded to
lay their pristine
velour face down on the
deck with the
burlap reinforced and grommetted
edge down stage below the motorized
line set #1 and the weighted lower
edge up stage. The heavy curtain had been fabricated in two overlapping halves with both on-stage edges folded back and finished to allow for classy, paiged, centre
bows. The carps had the first half unfurled and spread out
flat and were forking in the second half when they realized they had the SL half on SR. The thin plastic they'd laid down was already ripped and in disarray when they commenced their kicking / shuffling walk attempting to move the SR half across to SL.
It didn't help at all that various contractors were still trying to traverse the
stage with a variety of heavy steel
road boxes and muddy wheelbarrows as they tried to vacate the site via the only truck dock.
Once the carp's had the
velour positioned on the
deck they elected to un-crate the curtain's heavy light-tight liner and position it
face down on the
velour.
Around about now they noticed the fabricators had failed to include ties for either the
velour OR its
canvas liner AND THEN they read the included notation suggesting the provision of chain.
CHAIN! Hell no!! We don't need no stinkin' chain! We'll just grab a few fist-fulls of Ronnie's pristine 3/4"
flat cotton black
twill tape. I tried to tell them, honest I did. I even tried to offer them a carton of jack-chain I had on
hand from lowering
fluorescent fixtures over several sewing machines up in wardrobe but HELL NO! We don't need no stinking chain. We're CARPENTERS and we KNOW what we're doing.
Their boss, the Head Carpenter, produced his key and lowered the electrically winched line-set in to it's
preset lower end of travel limit. So far, so good. Then the Head Carpenter produced a second key and dispatched a carpenter
minion to the
grid to over-ride Hoffend's lower end of travel limit.
Now we're in scarier territory.
Knowing when I've met my match (along with being seriously outnumbered) I escaped to the relative
safety of approximately the tenth row and got comfortable to watch the performance.
They lowered the powered line-set 'til it was practically on the
deck; threaded one of my
flat 3/4" cotton twill tapes through a
grommet in the
canvas liner, through another
grommet in the heavy
velour house curtain then tied the free ends together with various types of knots and hitches.
If you're paying close attention, you may have noticed no one had added anything to the bright yellow pipe-weights Hoffend had thoughtfully strapped to the single-purchase
arbor.
Again, with the simultaneous use of two keys, they set the speed control at minimum and began to raise the line-set.
They cleared most of the other line-sets to the
grid and began their process.
Motor up a little.
Stop.
Kick, kick. Shuffle, shuffle
down stage 'til the powered line-set was close to vertical again.
Motor up a little.
Stop.
Kick, kick. Shuffle, shuffle
down stage some more 'til the powered line-set was close to vertical again.
Repeat, repeat and repeat again until the curtain eventually cleared the floor.
I've mercifully skipped over the chaos that ensued when the motorized grooved
head block lost its
grip on the supporting cables where they contacted the
head block for 90 degrees.
If / when you appreciate the cam-operated limit
switch contained approximately 8 limits which had previously been carefully
preset to slow the drive in four stages during its ascent and a similar four to slow it during its descent, you'll have a fore-shadowing of what's about to follow.
At some
point it dawned on the carpenters that they might need to add counter-weights to the
arbor.
Did they have any idea how many?
HELL NO! But that wasn't going to stop them, remember, they're CARPENTERS.
Meanwhile I've lunched at the
catering truck who was still visiting the site four times daily and was gleefully enjoying the matinee.
Finally, sometime prior to dinner, the carps thought they were done and, with the speed control still set at minimum, raised the curtain all the way to the
grid, stopping it by releasing the up and over-ride buttons as there were no longer any meaningful limits.
Again, so far, so good.
Next they manually lowered the curtain in 'til it just touched the
deck.
They boldly increased the speed just a little and flew the curtain all the way to the
grid again.
Now, with their chests swollen with pride, they cranked the speed control to the max' and pummeled both the down and over-ride buttons withdrawing both fingers as the curtain neared the
deck.
AND THEN IT HAPPENED.
Remember this was an SEW Euro-drive with no meaningful limits remaining, only the hard End Of Travel limits on the
block wall behind the
arbor.
When the Head Carpenter removed his two fingers from the two
momentary buttons, the heavy and damp
velour curtain jerked to a sudden halt then the over-stressed single wraps of
twill tape snapped beginning with the extreme SR end rapidly continuing like a zipper faster and faster until all of the SR half of the
velour and its
canvas liner were in a damp mound on the
deck whereupon the counter-weighted
arbor SLAMMED into the bottom stop with this second sudden stop causing the entire SL half of the
velour and its
canvas lining to over-stress the remaining 3/4"
flat cotton
twill tape ties and suddenly descend to the
deck ALL THE WAY from the
grid.
The carp's presented one heck of a matinee. Their finale was stunning but they never came out for curtain calls.
When they rolled in the next morning I had all of the jack-chain I had in
stock pre-cut and waiting for them, I even provided two pair of 10" Craftsman
channel-locks as an additional courtesy.
I learned several lessons:
Gravity was still working and not to waste my breath attempting to educate carpenters.
Some things you can depend upon.
@TimMc I'll bet you've got a few similar experiences to fall back on.
EDIT: To clarify; I'm MOST EMPHATICALLY
NOT suggesting common plated #10 jack-chain is rated or recommended for
overhead lifting applications but merely suggesting it is far superior to 3/4"
flat cotton
twill tape (and I won't even get into the non-cotton twill tapes)
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
