Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rick Strader on June 3, 2013 at 2:24pm

Worked with this situation on many tours and low ceiling or lack of fly space stages. You are talking about Olio drops.They were used in Vaudeville numbers that were performed between the acts of the principal show. In the early days of Vaudeville, specialty acts did their numbers in front of an oilcloth curtain while the stage was being set for the next part of the show. The word "olio" is Italian for oil. Also sometimes used to refer to the drops between supporting acts in a vaudeville bill. This was rolled up and made it easier to have more than one drop in a close area with no height except for the Valance of the Grand drape. Now a days most are rolled up on an thin wall aluminum tube( 4" thick and wider than the drop by about a foot and a half on each side of the drop ) and line rolled the cylinder onto and off the stage.{do not use PVC...it will sag } A pipe above has a single pully on one end and double on the other that the rope goes through and is wound onto the 4" cylinder as it is lowered and rolls off as it comes up just like a roll blind.

Permalink Reply by Bill Jenkins on June 4, 2013 at 8:10am

Thanks for the reply!

Permalink Reply by Rich Dionne on June 3, 2013 at 2:27pm

Ah...the roll drop!

Ok. So...

• You can roll down off a drum, roll up off a drum, or some combination of both.
• You need a really strong drum--usually aluminum tubing, roughly 5" diameter, depending on the width of your drop. (Anything heavier than aluminum, and you'll likely get too much deflection at the center.)
• Usually, the tubing needs some kind of shaft running along it's long central axis; you can use the shaft to add some additional support to prevent deflection as well.
• The shaft rest in pillow blocks on either end. Pillow blocks are--for simplicity's sake--nothing more than round bearings that support the shaft, allowing it to spin freely. The pillow blocks will anchor your drop--either to the ceiling, the floor, or a pipe batten of some kind.
• Typically, you'll tape the drop to the drum, and make sure you have about three or four wraps of excess drop at the top to wrap onto the drum. (For a 5" diameter drum, you're talking about a foot and a half per wrap, or five feet or so.)
• You'll need some way to control the drum; a continuous-rope system is best; one end wraps around the drum when it gets rolled up, which you pull on to release the drop; the other wraps as it unrolls. You run the line through a bottom/tension pulley on the floor, if you're using a top-drum system. You can probably mount the tension pulley to the ceiling if you're using a bottom-drum.

Hope that helps. Happy to talk more, if you need. You may also check out Jean Burch's blog which has some helpful information on olio/roll drops here.

Permalink Reply by Bill Jenkins on June 4, 2013 at 8:11am

Great! Thanks! I will check out the blog. May need some more guidance so thanks for the offer to talk more.

Permalink Reply by L Jean Burch on June 4, 2013 at 7:53am

Thanks for the reference Rich. You covered most of what I was going to say! I would add:

-For the spooling / unspooling to work one rope wraps from the front and the opposite from the back.

-In a top supported roll drop you have the benefit of adding a center support to the drum. On a bottom supported drum the fabric will help support the drum, but unless the drum is sufficiently rigid it will smile (and it gets worse as the drum is lowered). Also on the bottom drum I have noticed that there is more wrinkling that occurs. My recommendation would be to use a top supported drum unless you specifically want the look of an old olio.

-The rolls I have used recently are all top supported on a 10-12" drum and motorized. I don't know the specific thickness of ours off hand though. Much of the research I have done says that irrigation tube works well, but may be limited if you don't live near an agricultural area.

Permalink Reply by Bill Jenkins on June 4, 2013 at 8:11am

Thanks! I will check out your blog.