Bracing, bracing, bracing.
And more bracing. Without it, everything will wiggle when doors are slammed. Pay particular attention to bracing the tops of the door frames back to the (side?) upstage wall. Even if you can't screw to the wall directly, let the brace press against the wall (only helps if door slams towards the (offstage) upstage -- if it has to slam towards (onstage) downstage, then you'll have to anchor to the wall). Braces should probably be 2x4's, not 1x2's or 1x4's. Of course, anchoring the base of the door frame to the floor is just as important.
If you have to connect the door frame braces diagonally to the floor, then make the diagonals as long as possible so they have a strong horizontal load capacity (this is a STEM opportunity). If possible, screw / bolt the foot of the diagonal braces to the floor, or land them at the intersection of the adjacent wall to prevent horizontal slipping.
A NOTE ABOUT SCREWS: Sheet rock (dry wall) screws are NOT good for carrying loads. Generally speaking, they are NOT the correct screw to use for about 99% of theatre construction. They are brittle and break easily. Use steel wood screws, #10 or #12 size (with pre-drilled pilot holes and countersinks); or if possible, use bolts and nuts to clamp parts together. Wood screws are NOT good for tension or shear loading, as they rely upon the wood fibers to not splinter apart. Most wood used on stage is very weak (yellow pine), and the threads on the screws just rip through the wood fibers and the connection fails. It is really easy to over-tighten wood screws (particularly if you are using electric drills / electric screwdrivers / electric impact drivers), and when you do, you are usually weakening the connection as you have just stripped-out the wood fibers that you were relying upon to hold the parts together. Teach your students to tighten the last two turns of wood screws by hand (yes, the old-fashioned way!) so they learn to feel the torque limit of the wood.
HInt: Place a small dot of tape over the screw heads
before you paint, and then you can get your screwdriver bit back into the heads later to disassemble the scenery.
BOLTS with NUTS create CLAMPED joints that don't rely upon the wood fibers for grip strength. This is almost always the preferred connection method - it just takes a little more planning and slightly more expensive fasteners. The good news is that you can disassemble the scenery and REUSE all of the fasteners. GREEN THEATRE!
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Erich Friend
Theatre Consultant
Teqniqal Systems
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-22-2017 09:22
From: Paige Junge
Subject: Set with slammable doors? (Newbie!)
Hey all,
I know there have been a lot posts about set building, but try as I might, I couldn't find much on boxed sets with doors.
We're going It's Murder in the Wings! and need to create a boxed set with four working doors. I'm confident that we can find the materials we need within our budget (Habitat for Humanity's Restore!). I'm also not worried about doing the actual building, I'm handy with power tools. But I'm struggling to find helpful resources online to help with the construction design aspect.
Our big issue is our stage doesn't have a lot of depth so stabilizing walls is going to be tricky - very little room for buttresses sticking out. Help?!
Thank you!
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Paige Junge
ELA Teacher, Speech Coach, Thespian Director
Marion IA
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