Transportable Track
/The StageZero is based on a beautiful six foot rail, which is easy to set up, but very difficult to transport easily. It's so big that i cant safely fit it and passengers in the car, roof-rack transport only.
So how do you fly with a six foot rail?
You cut it down to size.
At great expense I hired a saw to make one cut. Just one. (Actually I practiced on some soft wood first). Measure three times, cut once.
But then how do you join it together? Fortunately the cross-section of the rail has three holes which are usually used for screwing in end caps. I had thought that I would find a way to tap a thread into these holes, then machine down a bolt with a similar thread so that it would screw into one rail and the shank would fit into the holes of the other rail.
Well that was pretty complicated. I discussed this with a friend and his boss actually had a machine shop at home. I handed over one of the rails and I had delivered back the rail, three smooth machined pins and a connecting plate.
It worked perfectly.
The pins sit neatly in the holes and align the rails. The plate then slides over the join and four bolts tighten contained nuts to lock the rails steady.
I now have 2.6 foot and 3.4 foot lengths of rail which is easily transported, although, I really should take the .4 off the other rail as it's just slightly too long for the bags I have. I can transport the shorter rail well enough though and still get great results.