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December 25, 2025

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Best Practices: Pipe Clamps

A baby pipe clamp The pipe clamp is the electric department's most common way to hang light fixtures. It is a ubiquitous tool for us. It is strong and easy to use. Pipe clamps are specifically intended for hanging lights on steel pipes; typically used in studios. Pipe clamps will damage alloy pipes like speed rail and truss. Here is a closeup of speed rail with some pipe clamp damage: This pipe is not only gouged but dented from the pipe clamp being over-tightened Sometimes you will see an old piece of speed rail with so many dimples it is almost golf ball like. A rigger showed me a trick to protect pipes. Simply put a penny between the bolt and the pipe. It works great. Don't over-tighten pipe clamps. It is unnecessary and does not make the connection anymore secure. Pipe clamps are designed to be unable come off the pipe even if it is slightly loose. Of course, always use a safety cable, too. Generally you never use p...

Bad Location Electric

I was working on a commercial at a farm last week. This is the electric in one of the barns. Sketchy at best; no cover, sloppy wiring, and probably never inspected. I see a lot of this kind of thing on location. It always makes me cautious. We often are shooting in old locations for looks like vacant factories, abandoned buildings, etc. The electric in these locations is often in poor condition. If you see bare wires, assume they are energized. They often are. I don't really have any great words of wisdom about this other than to assume the electric is possibly not usable for anything other than the minimal service. Even then, it is worth checking for problems like reversed neutral/hot, no ground, and even voltage present on the ground. I've got many war stories. Here are a few I remember: I was gaffing a commercial at a factory. We kept immediately blowing the lamps in tungsten fixtures. A house "electrician" explained that some o...

The State of LED Lighting

The last 10 years have been exhilarating and frustrating for a gaffer. The lighting world has been changing rapidly. My first 20 years as a set electrician, changes came at a slow and steady pace. Tungsten heads, especially Mole Richardson lights dominated (with technology that hasn't change much since the 1930s) and Arri HMIs for daylight work. One of the big revolution was the rise of fluorescent lighting especially Kino Flo. Then came LEDs. They were mediocre at first coming in awkward form-factors with poor color quality. For years, if I had the choice between tungsten or HMI lighting versus LEDs, I would always recommend the former. At first, LED technology improved slowly, but then came the deluge. LED lighting is now advancing so rapidly, I can barely keep up with the changes. All the improvements have been exhilarating. I can do things with lighting that I only dreamed of before. Then there is the frustrating par...

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