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[Ivan Beaver]

Here's another one:  My home made tri-angle truss... back in the early '80's as I recall.  I recall being astounded by the cost of pro-built, and figured "how tough can it be?... it's just some tubing and rod and welding.", so I got to it.  I constructed them out of 1 1/2" EMT and some junk-yard "3/8" steel rod".  As with most things, it turned out to be more difficult than it initially looked... I cut my losses on the first one and mulched it well before finishing it... and faced the fact that I needed to construct some serious jigging... couldn't do it "by eye" and a tape measure.  So after not much more than a month of working on them, the 2nd thru 5th turned out "looking pretty good"... and would actually mate if enough persuasion was used (big hammer)… and getting them back apart (unmated) was simple... just lash the end of one to the drawbar of a tractor or similar handy anchor point, and hook the end of the other to the trailer hitch on a pick-up and give it a really good tug.  I only attempted to mate and un-mate them a couple of times as I recall... otherwise one worked ok individually for laying on the stage behind the drummer for affixing PAR cans to for up-lighting effects.  As I recall, they were put to final use jammed in a ditch to hold some rotten hay bales to mitigate an erosion problem with a ditch in a field.

Here is a photo of the square truss and crank trees that me and my guys built, back last century

I'm just glad that camera phones did not exist back then------------  Just sayin'

[duane massey]

Ivan, I DIDN'T DO THIS!!! but there was a country band locally in the late 70's that built 2 pieces of "truss" using wooden 2x2's  10' x 6" x"6. It did not end well.

[Taylor Hall]

Ivan, I DIDN'T DO THIS!!! but there was a country band locally in the late 70's that built 2 pieces of "truss" using wooden 2x2's  10' x 6" x"6. It did not end well.

Not well, perhaps, but definitely spectacularly!

[W. Mark Hellinger]

Here is a photo of the square truss and crank trees that me and my guys built, back last century

Along with my home made triangle truss project, I also dove into crank tower (one) manufacturing.  Again, the naive premise was:  "How tough could it be?"  The one I actually finished turned out "pert-near pro" (looking)... but it was a stupid amount of work.... but "hey": the "savings" may have been full pennies per hour considering my time investment.  I still have and occasionally use that tower... I modified it into being a drywall panel hoist.

[Rick Powell]

Homemade light board, it was basically a wooden box with standard light switches installed in the top. On the inside, 3 steel rails that carried both legs and a neutral that all the switches were wired to by nuts and bolts. With dozens of 500 and 1000w PARs on stage, there must've been about 20,000 volts going through that box that wouldn't pass any kind of electrical inspection. It was connected with a range plug on the box end to our power drop, which itself was a breaker box mounted atop a wooden cable spool with 100' of welding cable, terminated by three battery jumping clamps. We "hot-tapped in" to the lugs of breaker boxes all over the US...I recall we had to run it out the window of one club in New Mexico to a pole-mounted transformer. Fortunately, no one got killed or seriously injured, although a few sparks would fly when something accidentally was touched while doing a hot tap.

[Dave Garoutte]

Homemade light board, it was basically a wooden box with standard light switches installed in the top. On the inside, 3 steel rails that carried both legs and a neutral that all the switches were wired to by nuts and bolts. With dozens of 500 and 1000w PARs on stage, there must've been about 20,000 volts going through that box that wouldn't pass any kind of electrical inspection. It was connected with a range plug on the box end to our power drop, which itself was a breaker box mounted atop a wooden cable spool with 100' of welding cable, terminated by three battery jumping clamps. We "hot-tapped in" to the lugs of breaker boxes all over the US...I recall we had to run it out the window of one club in New Mexico to a pole-mounted transformer. Fortunately, no one got killed or seriously injured, although a few sparks would fly when something accidentally was touched while doing a hot tap.

OSHA would not approve!

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