Forgive me, I took an eye injury today (hopefully minor) and do not want to stare into my bright ipad to model this.
But I would like some engineering brain power.
Limitations: rural hardware store.
Problem. I just built a series of curtains attached to my stage right overhead beam that allow me to close off the back stage pretty seamlessly. 17-ish foot tall curtains 8’ wide. 5 of them ride in a 12’ long track (there’s only four in the drawing, but five in real life… Tired… Headache.) the track is about two inches square, and mounted to 2x4s along the bottom of a long beam, so I have mounting access all along the track and at both ends. right now the curtains are attached at the sides and center so that when they’re pulled to the outsides of the track they are nicely spaced and held in place. But I want more.
I would like to be able to stand on the deck (floor) and pull a string that comes down the last curtain and release it from it’s end-point tether so that I can drag the whole assembly open for a wide stage/backstage access, but then grab it and drag it back into its lock where it docks itself again.
… I would like to be able to do this from either side.
My brain is stuck on gate latches, but I wonder with the gravity involved in a 10-ish foot long string and having to Jimmy around to get the latch to sit in the right configuration if there isn’t a better solution that’s so easy I can’t see it.
Again… No printers or fabrication shop, no big budget… Just… My local mom and pop hardware and a home Depot if I’m willing to travel an hour.
They are each on a slot track trolley hanging off of a lose captured bolt into a halves 2x4 as a rod, so they have the ability to do full circles when they’re not tethered together. The slot track trolleys run inside the track.
Not exactly. I want to stand at one end and pull a rope that goes up to a locking mechanism. To free the curtains from one side’s lock, and then I want to walk them along the track (rope no longer in active use) until they pile up on each other like giant vertical blinds. Then I want to be able to grab them and walk them back, and have them easily relock themselves at the end so that I don’t have to go get a 12 foot ladder like I do now.
And I want to do this from either side so I can either push them all upstage out of the way of downstage or downstage and out of the way of upstage.
I was thinking gate latch mounted at the end with the bar on the curtain rod, but I think the 1/8 inch rope that I would use to open it would stop gravity from resetting the latch…
Maybe something with a spring?
I’m not totally up to date on my latching mechanisms.
I worry that it wouldn’t be enough. These are direct stage access curtains and get hauled sideways in each scene-change to allow large scenery to pass… So nervous people pulling on them in the dark while hundreds of people watch them.
Edit: I don’t really want the curtains to move during a performance. I want to be able to easily move them afterwards when I want to work in my space and not worry about damaging the curtains.
I might could get away with mounting a spring door bolt and replace the chain with the rope so it can’t be seen from the audience. I would have to figure out what the bolt latched into… But a door bolt is not exactly a captured locking mechanism, and could maybe get pulled out when the curtain swings a little.
Do they really need to ‘lock’ in place? Or just be able to pulled into the ‘open’ or ‘closed’ position without thinking?
Can you have rope / line on each end to open / close them from either end? If yes you could probably setup two stops on the line - either a simple knot or large bead / stop tied into the lines on both sides then have a block positioned at each end that the operating line passes through before it goes towards the floor. Something like a nice piece of 1" thick slick HDPE with a slightly oversized hole for the line smaller than the stop / bead, that has smooth rounded over inside edges to make the line run easily.
One stop is set for them to be in the perfect ‘open’ position when you pull the opening line, the other side set so that the are in the perfect position for being ‘closed’. You would need enough extra line to allow them to stack / fold on each other.
If you have a place on a nearby wall you could also add a stop where you can coil the extra line off the floor and add another U shaped stop that you can slide the bead into. The wall stop would keep them from opening / closing ‘by accident’ - but this would mean that you need to release the line on one end (at the wall) - then go to the other end to pull them open / closed.
The line in these images is not long enough… and I think you would want it only fixed to the the trolley furthest away from the closed position - but maybe this quick modeling gets the idea across. The line length will probably be easier to figure out ‘in real life’. This assumes that there is space for the line to run through and past all the trolleys.
Working on these again today. I’m still getting the curtains sewn and hemmed. And these photos are from the deck and looking up into the craziness that is a 126 year old theater. One curtain set is hanging, the other four are off in costumes being hemmed.
