[SML] Tracking scenery on a budget

[Kim Hartshorn]

We often use something that we call a 'flapjack' to push and pull castered
units.  We have used them succesfully on units up to about 6x12 with actors
as riders.  Use straight casters on the units, the straight casters will
prevent movement perpindicular to the caster alignment, movement in the
parallel direction is locked by the flapjack.  The flapjack is simply a
long push bar that is hinged in the middle and locked into the deck at the
offstage storage position and connected to a convenient spot on the unit.
The geometry of the hinged push bar does several things, acceleration is
easilly controlled (when the jack is flat on the floor the unit barely
moves until the hinge joint has risen about 2 feet off the floor, as the
jack is raised to full height there is a smooth acceleration until the unit
is offstage.  This is also useful in the other direction as the unit
decelerates and does not crash into anything..  For the most part these
jacks are not noticable in use.  There are some limitations, we have found
that travel more than 24' (12' hinged jack) is problematic, weight can also
be an issue (but 600 lbs of actors and scenery is certainly doable).  For
units that travel sporadically during a show it is not necessary to track
the unit if care is taken aligning the straight casters, but we have also
used the flapjacks to move tracked units.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kim Hartshorn
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://theatrical.net/pipermail/stagecraft_theatrical.net/attachments/20161111/eda9ea55/attachment.html>