vbm Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 Hi BRers... Can anybody tell me anything about the (I suspect, long-defunct) theatrical lighting manufacturers "The Major Equipment Co Ltd", based in London NW10? Thanks, vbm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themadhippy Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 Can anybody tell me anything about the theatrical lighting manufacturers "The Major Equipment Co LtdThey made copys of strands pat 23 in a rather fetching gold/biege colour,as well as a few other clones Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boatman Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 We had Major Equipment "Baby Floods" and "Daddy Floods" at school many years ago. They were very similar to Strand Patt. 60 & Patt. 49 but metallic gold hammer finish. There's probably still some around in basements somewhere. I believe they also made resistive dimmers similar to the Strand Junior 8, but never encountered any. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynot Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 As has been said already, their gold coloured profiles did mimic the patt 23, and were a tad larger as I recall, though still used the old tungsten big round bubbles. Optics weren't a patch on the Strands of the day. I seem to recall we had a couple of heavy cast based stands as well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themadhippy Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 The libary theatre in luton had a selection of major kit,fresnels,pc's (based on pat 42 and 44' s I think ) and profiles (with additional narrow beam lenses).The fresnels weren't to bad,apart from the lack of barn doors ,the pc's and profiles weren't so good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Pearce Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 The PCs (at the Luton Library Theatre) have a lovely feature where if you hard focus them you get a lovely projection of the filament and lamp structure... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E. Ward Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 Of no help to man or beast, but... That PC projection sounds like almost all of the (new) PC lanterns I came across in Japan last summer. Who needs a jail bars gobo when you have that at your disposal? (sarcasm) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew C Posted August 26, 2009 Share Posted August 26, 2009 Think "Furse" but without the engineering "quality". Yuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoyJ Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 ;) Hi BRers... Can anybody tell me anything about the (I suspect, long-defunct) theatrical lighting manufacturers "The Major Equipment Co Ltd", based in London NW10? Thanks, vbm. The Major equipment co ltd, was the main rival to strand electric.Where Strand supplied the theatre industry, Major serviced the cinema industry,you do however find theatres with Major equipment.The main difference were colour and in my opinion build quality.This being much hire in Major than Strand.In my stock I have 2x Major 23, 1x narrow angle 23,2x arena floods 1x wing flood(patt 60 type).They also did follow spots,stands and I believe control equipment. If you can get hold of a copy of Fred Benthams book 60 years of light work,this would give you more information.The control gear used the revolutionary Mansel clutch.The optics of the Major 23 does seem more superior,although I use strand 23s as well.Hope this helps A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on. Hi BRers... Can anybody tell me anything about the (I suspect, long-defunct) theatrical lighting manufacturers "The Major Equipment Co Ltd", based in London NW10? Thanks, vbm. Sorry about this, I forgot I also have an exceedingly useful fresnel 500w,although I believe they also did a 1k version. regards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lightnix Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 We had about half a dozen Major fresels and a couple of the Patt 23 'clones' at my secondary school in Stockport - all gold and completely non-functional. One of the fresnels eventually fell victim to my first ever attempt at lantern maintenance ;) The fact that this very thread appeared at the top of the searches on the subject, about two hours after it was first started, shows how little information there is about Major online (thems intarwebs don't know everything, y'know ) I found a few threads on ControlBooth which refer to them. It looks like they were active in the States as well, especially around Chicago. There's also something in there, of a Major catalogue from the 1930s; a very posh affair by the sound of it - hard bound, with a gold, Art Deco cover. Nobody seems to know what happened to them. This thread on CB mentions a photo credit in a book from 1960 and an installation by them in 1967, but there doesn't seem to be an awful lot more. Maybe if you do some good, old-fashioned, Who Do You Think You Are? type searching of public records and libraries, you might find out something more about them. There may even be a couple of people left alive in NW10, who remember them, maybe even worked for them; but they'd be in their 60s now, at the very least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
son of lx dad Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 For this sort of thing I'd suggest dropping a line to the ABTT Archeology Committee. Joe Aboline ( apologies if thats not the right sp) has collected catalogues and leaflets from all the major manufacturers for years, as well as being the first Chief LX at the National when it was created/built (if I remember correctly). I f anyone would know he would. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoyJ Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 Hi BRers... Can anybody tell me anything about the (I suspect, long-defunct) theatrical lighting manufacturers "The Major Equipment Co Ltd", based in London NW10? Thanks, vbm. Update, I have now access to a photocopy of the major catalogue, unfortunately not complete, but covering the lantern and control equipment.If you want to send me a pm with your contact details, I will gladly send you a copy. Regards Roy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Floydey Posted September 11, 2009 Share Posted September 11, 2009 I have a couple of Major fixtures lurking around in the props container, silver painted. Might dig them out and post a picture of them if anyone is really interested. Well I would If I knew how to post images :-P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted September 12, 2009 Share Posted September 12, 2009 Upload from your computer to http://www.tinypic.com and it will have imageboard codes - [ img ] [ / img ] that you can throw into your post. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Floydey Posted September 12, 2009 Share Posted September 12, 2009 Upload from your computer to http://www.tinypic.com and it will have imageboard codes - [ img ] [ / img ] that you can throw into your post. Cheers. Here we are :huh: http://i31.tinypic.com/16ifnu8.jpg http://i32.tinypic.com/2zoav87.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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