Obviously the liquid flameproofing chemicals won't soak in to these materials.  But are they what are called "inherently flame retardant"...like gels for lights?

 

I never gave it much thought before, but it would be good to find out more about it before the next show where we use printed banners or split rain curtains.

 

Thanks, Dana

 

I used a deep blue gel a 2000 watt ellipsoidal that had a 6" lens once.

I pulled up the dimmer and walked out into the house to see how it looked. Then noticed a funny sound "speesss-futt" (it's hard to spell it). When I went back to check it out, there were tiny fireballs of gel falling from the light to the floor. That is the only time I ever saw that happen though.

 

 

By the way, I have about 300 cuts of Roscolux gel, mostly blues, that have holes the size of quarters burned through them from my darn 750 watt Source4 lekos.  The reflectors are defective and no matter how I bench focus them, they still burn a hole through dark gel in about 30 seconds!  (But I found some gel extender tophats that help...and try to buy a few more extenders with each show budget...100 more to go!)

 

 

 

Speaking of the old days. We used to use gels that were actually made of gelatin. They went away pretty quick when quartz lamps came out. A light with one of the new lamps would burn right through even the lighter colors in short order. One of the few good things about real gels was that you could wet them down and mold them around low wattage light bulbs to make colored lights.

 

The problem with my particular Source4's is that the reflector mounting springs were manufactured to the improper tolerances, making the focal point of the beam converge right at the gel frame.  So it's like a kid burning ants with a magnifying glass!  (Although a few instuments have the opposite focal quirk, where they project all the little squares in the glass reflector like some funky gobo!...and still others project starburst striations all over the place.)  But don't get me wrong, ETC is my favorite company in the industry and they give tremendous support.

 

Well, I'm not old enough to remember gelatin gels, but I once knew all the Roscolene numbers by heart!  Roscolene was much thicker than Lux, and after a while the colors would fade and it would get brittle and crack. 

 

 

I got a pile of old cassetes & got our warm props to roll the tape out & make up the slash curtain.

It was very effective & the cast had heaps of fun knocking it up.