Illustrated Theatre Production Guide, 2nd Edition

352 Illustrated Theatre Production Guide 2 ed

But welding the fillets alone does not connect the

steel parts as securely as the face welds do. If you are

concerned about the structural integrity of what you are

building, it is best to weld all the seams together. If your

welding skills are good, you won’t really need to grind

that many of them, especially not those that don’t show

and don’t affect the assembly of the parts.

If you are making a large number of multiples,

weld all the frames on one side first, and then stack

them with the unwelded side up. That makes it easy

to weld all of the reverse sides at one time. You can

attach the ground to the bottom frame, and it will not

need to be moved until the entire stack of frames has

been completed. Contact will be preserved through the

entire group.

A PRACTICAL EXAMPLE

The following concept of how to arrange steel square

tube supports for decking is based on using three stan-

dard 4×8 platforms that are joined together with casket

locks. The finished deck will be 2 feet tall. When design-

ing decking systems involving square tubing, it is best

to think of the platforms as a group, rather than as sepa-

rate pieces. The system is put together from five main

subassemblies that bolted together to form an overall

structure. Here is a drawing to use as an example:

The decking frames require an upright member

about every 4 feet when using

1

1

2

″ 16-ga steel square

tube. That spacing is enough to hold the weight of the

decking and a reasonable amount of live load as well

(live load indicating movement, as with people). It

is critical to keep the upright members vertical. The