What do I do with 700 x 15lb counterweight bricks?

[Jonverse]

Yes it does seem crazy but I joined a new theater some time ago where the install company of the fly system left 900 x 1/2 bricks on our flyfloor!

We mainly use full size counterweight and not these 1/2 size, why they gave us so many, who alone knows although they must have thought us too week to manage a full size 30lb brick

Finally because we were scared the load gallery might collapse under the weight we are moving these bricks down to tera-firma!

Now what to do with them - yes we can easily get a metal merchant to take them away but seems a waste - these things retail for roughly $12 each so surely someone might have a use...?

Please let me know if you have any ideas we are based near Philly.

Thanks

 

[tjrobb]

We sometimes use them to help de-wobble scenery. Basically a rigid sandbag. Very useful when the pieces aren't done yet so the structural integrity is spotty.

 

[chausman]

They probably gave you what the Structure could hold safely. I would keep them and use them for scenery, or in case you need more weight for whatever reason.

 

[MNicolai]

I agree with chausman. Usually they give you no more weight than your roof can support, which is why it's generally a bad idea to ever bring more weight into a theatre than the theatre already owns should they need more for an event. It's the rarest of rare circumstances that a theatre will ever use all of their weight, but the idea is that it's there if you need it.

There's probably not much money in the bricks for you. A dealer may be willing to buy them by the pallet from you at a low price to resell to another theatre, but the local shops here in the Midwest have been repossessing so much gear from theatres that were built and then couldn't pay their bills that I know most of our local shops have as much weight as they could ever want already. The one shop had to rent a tractor trailer just to store all of the repo'ed gear from one of their installs in. If we tried to sell some weight to them, it's possible they'd laugh at us.

 

[kicknargel]

The heaviest garden sculpture ever created?

 

[gafftapegreenia]

Sell and engrave them with donor names to create a unique walkway to the theatre.

 

[zmb]

Stack two together and have it welded together if you're looking for more larger weights.

 

[josh88]

Sell and engrave them with donor names to create a unique walkway to the theatre.

They'd have to be inside though unless you're alright with rust

 

[DuckJordan]

Actually there are times we use the half bricks to bring linesets more closely to match what's on the batten seriously using muscle to bring in that weight or expecting a rope lock to hold weight is silly.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

 

[MNicolai]

Actually there are times we use the half bricks to bring linesets more closely to match what's on the batten seriously using muscle to bring in that weight or expecting a rope lock to hold weight is silly.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

Same here, but I believe the problem the OP has is the ratio of large bricks to small bricks. Our consultant decided to spec us roughly 1:1 in weight. Half of our weight is in full-bricks, the other half is in half-bricks (which means we have probably twice as many half-bricks...).

At most, we'd need 20 or so half-bricks for getting closer to the target load than we can get with full-bricks, but our weights were bought on the cheap and repurposed from a former theatre, thus we were kind of stuck with what was available. I've got ~320 half-bricks then.

The other caveat to that is that depending on who you buy from, you may have to purchase your bricks in bulk. JR Clancy sells by the 1,000# pallet. Means if you want some half-bricks, you have to buy them in chunks of ~45 bricks.

 

[Teber]

Put Aircraft Cable around them, hang them outside and make awkward wind chimes... haha

 

[tjrobb]

If you can hear the chimes a hurricane is near...