# loose gobo hide and seek



## Jamie (Jun 12, 2007)

I was preping a bunch of Martin Mac2kProfiles today for a gig and ran into an unusual rattle from one of the fixtures. open 'er up only to find that one of the gobos from the color/gobo combination wheel was missing....great. tilted the head back and forth to locate the rattle, and found my gobo lodged in the CMY module, how it got there i won't ask. grab some needlenose pliers only to find that this small piece of metal is jumpy. as soon as i get a grip on it and try to pull it out, the thing springs down into the lamp housing. open up the lamp housing, it's not there. little bugger got himself in the shutter. after a nice little game, i'm convinced that sometimes static gobos get jealous and find ways to get more attention


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## Eboy87 (Jun 13, 2007)

Somewhat related, on my last gig, my buddy, who was new to lighting, came running up to me and said that a gobo fell in the barrel of one of the S4's. Apparantly no one told him that the lamp casing seperates from the barrel. But I know what you mean about jumpy gobos. We couldn't seem to get a static gobo to fit right in a Roscoe gobo-rotater. First the spring sprung (that was fun trying to find that thing in the dark catwalk), then the gobo wouldn't catch on the rotater. Fun times. Fun show. Probably nowhere near loosing one in an intel, but amusing to me nonetheless.


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## stantonsound (Jun 13, 2007)

I know what you mean. I have a glass litho floating around inside a technobeam and can not get it out to save my life. It is behind the main board and I can not get to it without major surgery.


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## soundman (Jun 13, 2007)

As long as we are telling gobo storys we had four studio spot 575 CMYs for a dance show and they were struck from Tuesday afternoon until after the 1st show saterday night. Not becasue people forgot to turn them off but there was programing going on 24/7, anyway during one of the rehersals a dancer found a little peice of glass on stage after the stage had been swept and mopped (luckly it wasn't with her foot) Thinking nothing of it the show went on but on of the studio spots was sucking, looked like it was at about 25%. When I opned it up I heard a gobo rattling around inside. My theory is the long period of heat had cracked the gobo cause a chip of glass to fall out and the gobo to come ot of the holder.


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## icewolf08 (Jun 13, 2007)

If you look in the manual of the Mac 500 I believe it actually tells you not to drop the gobos or retaining spring into the fixture as it is so darn difficult to get them out.


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## PadawanGeek (Jun 14, 2007)

icewolf08 said:


> If you look in the manual of the Mac 500 I believe it actually tells you not to drop the gobos or retaining spring into the fixture as it is so darn difficult to get them out.



They need to tell you that? I think it's common sense to not stick gobos in dark places.


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## SAWYeR (Jun 14, 2007)

This spring my Highschool put on a production of Ragtime. I was the ME, and at one point, we needed to put some breakup gobos in two S4s on our 3rd Electric. The first one goes in without a hitch. The second one, however....I drop it and it falls a good 20 feet from the top of my ladder down into an open-topped wall on a set piece. Well, what followed was a good hour of me and my good friend the Sawzall performing Open-Wall surgery in this platforn to extract this lost gobo, then a half hour of stapling, gluing, and Dutchmaning this 1X1 foot piece of Luan back onto the wall. 
In conclusion: Gobos in the pocket, not the wall.


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## gafftapegreenia (Jun 14, 2007)

What is it with gobos, I think they have it out for all of us. When we did Guys and Dolls, we used a few breakup gobos. Well, I was working with a local stage electrician to focus the lighting, and he was up on the ladder changing gobos. Well, he pulled one out while it was HOT, and no sooner did he do that than I heard a loud "ouch" followed by some explative. When I asked him if he was ok, he said, "Oh, im fine, this gobo just filleted me". Sure enough there was a nice half moon burn on his upper arm. Lesson: watch out for hot stuff, especially gobos.


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## Grog12 (Jul 10, 2007)

I quickly learned the hard way how you are supposed to put a glass gobo in a mover after putting in a mostly black gobo the wrong way in a Technobeam. Its amazing how quickly they crack.


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## SAWYeR (Jul 11, 2007)

Speaking of MACs....I was at the Vari*Lite Roadshow here in Chicago recently, and they had one MAC 2K Wash to compare to the new VL3500 (3500= so much better). Anyhoo, they got the MAC 2K hug, and the head was horizontal. They turn it on, the tilts down and RATTLE RATTLE SMACK! The Vari*LIte guys and I look up in confusion. The light moves more, more noise. So they take of the front lense and SMACK! The two internal lenses fall out. So, they get another MAC 2k, and send the brokeen one to the Vari*Lite International Repair Shop in Texas. If they even touched it, I don't know...


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## Charc (Jul 11, 2007)

SAWYeR said:


> Speaking of MACs....I was at the Vari*Lite Roadshow here in Chicago recently, and they had one MAC 2K Wash to compare to the new VL3500 (3500= so much better). Anyhoo, they got the MAC 2K hug, and the head was horizontal. They turn it on, the tilts down and RATTLE RATTLE SMACK! The Vari*LIte guys and I look up in confusion. The light moves more, more noise. So they take of the front lense and SMACK! The two internal lenses fall out. So, they get another MAC 2k, and send the brokeen one to the Vari*Lite International Repair Shop in Texas. If they even touched it, I don't know...



Well if that wasn't good for marketing, I don't know what is.


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## Grog12 (Jul 11, 2007)

charcoaldabs said:


> Well if that wasn't good for marketing, I don't know what is.


Yeah sabotaging your competors lights before you do a demo agaisnt your light is good marketing


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## SAWYeR (Jul 13, 2007)

Awwwww.....but, they said it was because the MAC 2Ks internal lenses were on cheap, plastic rods. I didn't see the lenses when I helped strike, I just closed up the light and gave it a good shake to see if anything else was wrong. Also, gobos are very, very good at cutting human flesh. I've gotten so many cuts it's not even funny. And sticking a bloody gobo into a light, then turning it on, bad news there.


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