Rope System

http://www.ia470.com/primer/flies.htm

Pinrail
--Borrowed from square rigged ships, a wooden rail with holes for belaying pins, where ropes are tied off.
Usually double tiered rail.
Lower bar used to tie off scenery at low trim.

Pin rail located at floor level or on catwalk above floor; flyrail.

Today main system is rarely a rope system; but often included as auxiliary system.
Used for temporary or custom rigging; rope systems easier to adapt than counterweight or winch systems.
Well equipped theatre often a flyrail on both stage left and right.

Scene loft or fly space: large open area located above stage; curtains and flown scenery stored here.

Gridiron, or Grid for short, on which are the pulleys for the fly system.
Pulleys also called Blocks, a naval term for pulleys on a ship, or Sheaves.
May sit directly on the grid with pulley (wheel) up, called Overhung, or be fastened above grid to the ceiling, pulley hanging down, called Underhung.

Often main loft blocks located on pairs of heavy support beams with a gap between, called loft block well.
Floor of channel irons fill area between.
Channel irons can supporting lightweight temp rigs, called spot lines.

Grid may be made of subway grating or similar lightweight metal grate; old theatres the grid and beams were of wood.

In some theatres built on the cheap the grid dispensed with; rigging is underhung from the ceiling beams.
Makes maintenance difficult and temporary rigging almost impossible.

Head blocks: above rigging rail, a set of loft blocks where multiple lines from rail spread out over grid to individual loft blocks.
Head blocks usually multiple blocks, i.e. a single block with several grooves or pulleys, or may be a set of individual pulleys used in association. Last scheme occasionally found in older hemp houses, but rarely used today.

Headblock well: massive I-beams designed to resist both vertical and horizontal loads.
Pull on the headblock well consists of ALL the weight on the fly system both down to the rail and across the grid sideways to the loft blocks.
If not accounted for, sideways pull can bend headblock well open, causing headblocks to collapse down the well.

Traditional material for rope systems was manila hemp rope, usually 1/2" or larger.
Replaced by polyester double-braid rope; stronger, stretches less, reacts less to humidity, rot proof, no slivers.

Weight of scenery, curtains, lighting on battens can be tremendous; needs counterweight.

On rope system, done using sand bags, secured to the purchase lines with clew, cast iron clew or wire rope sunday.

Sandbags come in standard increments, e.g. 10, 25, 50, and 100 lb. when filled with dry sand.
The weight of the sandbags must be slightly less than the load on the batten but must be nearly weight of load so the flyman can control easily and safely.

At trim, the load is held in place by tying the lines to pinrail.
Sunday is just below headblock when batten is in.
Note: a batten can never fly out higher than the distance between clew and pinrail when the batten is in.

Counterweight systems:

A metal frame, called an arbor, is raised and lowered by an "endless" purchase line passing over headblock and under a floating block beneath rail.
Purchase line passes through rope lock mounted on rail.
Set of wire ropes attached to top of the arbor (usually aircraft cable) are loft lines.
When line beneath arbor is pulled down (usually the rear line), pulls arbor down, raising the batten.
When other (usually front) line is pulled, raises arbor, lowering the batten.

The arbor is kept in line of travel either by "shoes" engaging a T-track, or by guide wires. The first is called a T-track system and the latter a Wire guide system.

Metal counterweights are placed on bars of the arbor to balance load.
This weight ideally should exactly balance load on the batten so that the endless purchase line can pull the arbor both up and down.

Pipe weight: part of load representing weight of the empty batten; should be left on arbor when load is removed.

Trim chains: chain lengths attached to the batten end of lift lines in a counterweight set. Pipe battens at trimmed to level by adjusting these.

Counterweights are usually iron or steel, cast or flame cut from heavy plate.

Counterweights are often referred to as "bricks" or as "pigs" (for pig irons).
Come in semi-standard sizes, e.g. 10, 20, 30, and 50 lbs.
Cast weights usually made to an actual weight. Cut weights may be uneven size, such as 26 or 38 lb., since they are often made to an even dimension rather than an even weight from a standard thickness of plate.

Lead is cast, perhaps as a 30 lb. brick (about 1/2" thick). A similar size steel weight will be about 15 lb. or so.
If both lead and steel weights are used, place leads on top of the steel but not visa versa; lead may flow from beneath the weights above them.

Two main flavors: Single purchase and Double purchase.

The Single purchase simpler, more common.
The arbor/purchase line travels between floor and ceiling; arbor travels one foot for every foot the batten travels, must put the same amount of weight on the arbor as the load weighs.

Everything, travel and weight is in 1:1 relationship.

The main drawback: one entire wall must be dedicated to the system; full floor to ceiling travel of batten requires full floor to ceiling travel of the arbor. The system doesn't work well from a fly rail, as pipe is at mid-travel when arbor is at rail.

Double purchase system: similar to reversed double pull block and tackle.

In Block & tackle, rope doubles back through a floating pulley: 2 feet of rope is pulled for every 1 foot of rise of load, but your need only pull half as hard. The load is twice the weight of the pull, and moves only half as far.

A double purchase system is similar, except that the load is on pull side, and arbor on the load side.
Arbor moves only one foot for every two feet of travel of the batten; can therefore be run from a flyrail located halfway to the ceiling, and still allow the pipe to come in to the floor.

The major drawbacks: needs twice as much counterweight on arbor as there is on the batten (2 x the weight, 1/2 the travel).

Loaders typically must handle larger weights.
A single purchase "single" brick typically weights 20-25 lbs.; for double purchase a "single" brick weighs 40-50 lb., and a "half" brick weighs 20 lbs., the same as a single purchase "full" brick.

Double purchase systems cost more, are more complicated to use and maintain, and must have twice as much weight on hand for a full compliment (weighs are naturally sold by the pound, or ton).
Also, flymen can't double as deck hands because they are on a catwalk overhead.

Another place double purchase can be useful is where the side walls are lower than overhead grid, as with a grid located partway up a gable.
A single purchase would not allow full travel floor to grid, but double purchase with "muled" headblocks and loading rail halfway to the ceiling would allow full travel of the batten.

Proper procedure for loading battens should ALWAYS be followed when remotely possible.

• Send loading crew to loading gallery (rail).
• Flyman calls "Heads UP" loudly and lowers empty batten to floor.
• Flyman gives clearance to deck crew to hang load on batten.
• Crew loads the batten.
• AFTER load is on batten, flyman estimates weight and calls up command to the loading gallery to load the arbor with appropriate weights to equal the load.
• Loaders raise and secure locknuts and spreader plates, leaving one plate on top of the batten weight, and add the required number of bricks. If many bricks are needed, another spreader plate should be slid down between the bricks about every two feet or so.
• When weights are on, loaders slide down remaining plates and lower and lock off lock nuts, and call down that the arbor is locked and secured.
• Flyman calls to deck to "Clear the batten", then carefully unlocks rope and tries to fly goods to see if it is heavy or light.
• If weights are off, flyman calls corrections up to the loading rail, who follow above procedure to adjust weight to suit.
• Once weight is correct, flyman calls "clear the batten" and flies batten out to trim, locking ropelock and securing handle with keeper ring.

To unload, reverse the procedure:

• Bring in batten, unload counterweights to batten weight, THEN unload the goods from the batten.
• Always call "Heads Up" when flying things in and "Clear" when flying things out.

Motorized winches:

Primary advantages: can be run remote control by single operator. Using a control console, the operator can select and run several line sets at once.
Some forms of winches can handle far heavier loads than could be operated manually.

Drawbacks: more expensive per lineset than other systems.
More complex than other systems and so need more frequent maintenance.
Lack "feel", operator is disconnected from the piece being run and has no direct sense of when trouble is happening. On a counterweight or rope system, you can FEEL when lineset fouls or hits something. First indication on winch may be when something breaks.

BUT, for very large loads (electrics bridges and moveable ceilings) winches can be superior.

Winch systems come in several forms.

Chain motor rig:
A form of almost-synchronous winch system commonly used for show rigging.

Consist of industrial chain hoists, typically one or two-ton models, rigged to run inverted, used in sets to lift trusses or other loads.
Most chain motors are designed to be hung from ceiling, and the chain is lowered for the load.
Theatrical chain motors modified to be attached to load, and the chain hook is attached to ceiling.

Really the same motor with contactor inverted. These motors are fairly consistent in speed over their entire load range, and are single speed only. They are NOT identical, but they can work because:
a) they are set up and taken down regularly so that the accumulated errors don't add up.
b) they can be run both individually and together, so that single motors can be adjusted to line up with the others.

Disadvantages; get out of synch quickly, noisy, and slow.

BUT, allow you to fly heavy loads (in multiples of a ton) with a system that can be quickly set up anywhere the overhead can support the load and accommodate the chain attachment points, including outdoors with a ground supported roof trussing.

Large single motor and shaft which raises all the lift lines on a batten or truss.

Used for most motorized lighting bridges, a form of truss work specifically intended for supporting permanent electrics and sometimes including a catwalk for focusing. It is also used to lift the large lineal loads.
System is big, heavy, noisy, and slow, and runs at one speed only, BUT it allows the safe movement and support of heavy loads without the need for counter weighting.

Synchronous winch system:
One winch for each line on batten, all controlled by the same control signal.
Each motor MUST be exactly identical in speed to the others in the system; otherwise motors get out of synch fairly quickly, and the pipe will come in crooked.
Systems are usually single speed, as it is difficult to create a motor with variable speed AND uniform lift capability. Running a motor at slow speed also lowers effective power, so the motor will stall under load.
Biggest drawbacks: expense of all those motors and the ease with which they get out of synch; even a small variance accumulates over several runs.

The most common use: multi-use auditoriums where ceiling can be re-configured for different acoustics. These work because the loads are predictable and the motors are carefully tuned.

Spotlines:

Special purpose temporary rigging sets, usually with one lift line holding a single object, such as a chandelier. A loft block is placed in position and a line dropped where needed.
Often rigged as cable picks (pickups to carry bundle of electric cables offstage).
May be rigged for line sets in out of ordinary positions, as for battens run diagonally across the stage.
Spotlines are typically rigged using rope system rigging, but can be set up with chain motors, winches or counterweight arbors.