What to Look for When Considering Truss
Appropriate for dozens of applications, Truss can be used for structural as well as decorative elements in events, retail displays, trade shows, stage lighting, live music performances and more. Determining what your options are for your unique needs can be overwhelming. PSSL chats with our partners at Global Truss to get some answers to your most common questions.
PSSL: Hi everybody, thank you so much for joining me. I’m Matthew with PSSL ProSound and Stage Lighting and next to me we have Donald Hauger from Global Truss - Donald, thank you so much for joining us.
Global Truss: No problem, thanks for having me. This is going to be fun.
PSSL: We have some common questions here that we get from customers as well as some sent in by our viewers and from social media. So the first question we have is "Who are the customers or the businesses that need Truss solutions?"
Global Truss: I think, you know for the most part, I think, DJ's, mobile DJ's can use Truss in all sorts of different ways. They have lights and that sort of thing. It's a mobile application. It fits in their cars for the most part. Production companies as well. Production companies do concerts and, you know, that sort of thing. Trade shows shows are another business that needs truss solutions.
PSSL: That's a good one.
Global Truss: When you go to different trade shows - you'll see probably about twenty to thirty percent of the booths out there are using Truss. A few sort of hidden behind the scenes ones would be Marketing companies. A lot of marketing companies tend to use signs and banners and things like that. So, sign companies they need the structure. They need to get their advertisement pieces up in the air and that sort of thing. And the retail environment because Trussing is not just structural, it actually aesthetically looks good. So, as far as a design element a lot of people like to use Truss.
PSSL: You guys have some very unique pieces as well, too. I just did one for a morning news show and they even have a base plate with some castors on it. So, it can be a very innovative product as well.
Global Truss: Oh, how cool.
PSSL: Next question we have here was "What are the most common shapes and sizes of Truss?"
Global Truss: Well the common shapes are straight square and triangular pieces, which is probably the most common shape a ten foot stick of Truss. It is easy to design with by breaking dimensions up in ten foot sections. Also circular arcs and that sort of thing is pretty common in design.
PSSL: What about some of the actual finished designs that you do? I know probably the most common one for me is a goalie post where you go up, over, and then down. What are some of the other shapes that you see?
Global Truss: The most popular to start with, the most basic, would be a totem (Item # 58336 Global Truss 8.20ft Vertical Totem System). Totem is just a stick of truss that goes up vertically on a base plate. Functionally, it works well. You put a light fixture above people's head and light it from the inside Again, it's the aesthetics that make it look really good, it looks classy when you warm up into the trussing itself. So that would be probably the most popular. Then we have the goalie post design where it's up, over, and down, like you mentioned.
PSSL: Yes.
Global Truss: From there you have the common trade show designs with the 10’ x 30’ , 10’ x 20’ and things like that.
PSSL: Excellent. So another question we’ve received is "How does Truss connect together and is it universal with other pieces of Truss?"
Global Truss: Good question. Good question. The key to the connection is this guy here (showing item # 55037 Global Truss Double Ended Conical Coupler).
PSSL: So this is the magic coupler, huh?
Global Truss: This is the key to life here. You know, it is the coupler design. You know, this coupling system is actually pretty popular in Europe. That's where we adopted it. So, this, this piece here, every single piece of truss comes with that and it's a male to female connection (coupler is a male, truss is the female). Once the customer sees the hardware, or the trussing, it comes with all the hardware ready to connect.
PSSL: That is very simple. Just one piece into another. Excellent.
Global Truss: Yes. But as far as your question, does it connect with other brands, and other companies? Being that we adopted to this design from Europe, you know, it doesn't connect with the American style trussing. The American style trussing is a bolt together, end plated, with four bolts, so it wouldn't connect with that. In a general sense you could say it should fit because it's the same style, but being that this coupler is designed so precisely it’s definitely not advisable to mix brands. A millimeter off here and there could really affect the weight capacity, so I'd recommend sticking to one brand.
PSSL: That's a great suggestion, too. I've come across that a couple times with some of my clients. Can you describe some of the differences between the different series of the truss, like you might see on our website where you see F-24, F-34, F-33. What are those differences exactly?
Global Truss: So the F34, the thirty series is our twelve inch truss. (Showing F34 Truss series truss – 12 inch diameter, 4 sides/square)
PSSL: Is that this guy back here?
Global Truss: That's one of them there. That's a UJB which is the universal junction block (showing item # 54292 Global Truss Universal Junction Box).
PSSL: Nice.
Global Truss: And that's in the twelve inch series. And so this would be the F-34, and the F-33, in the same twelve inch footprint, is the triangle version. So, the series ending in “4” is square, the series ending in “3” are the triangle. Like the F-24 is the square and that's our eight inch footprint, a more decorative line, and F-23 is the triangle decorative version.
PSSL: Like this guy back here? (showing F23 series 8 inch diameter, triangle truss)
Global Truss: Yes. Which also happens to be the a la carte version for the popular truss system one and arch system. If you wanted to make it wider or taller you use the F-23 series. And then we have some of the F14 which is a four inch by four inch (4 inch diameter, square shape). And then we have F-44, 16 inch diameter, square shape.
PSSL: Excellent. I know that you mentioned earlier that some of the trussing is great for branding maybe for like a trade show booth. Probably one of the most common things that people don't know about is that we can also apply a color / powder coat the trussing with a certain color. So, for example, we have a client whose colors are gold and purple. We can actually color coat them gold and purple, and there is a wide variety from there, is that right?
Global Truss: Absolutely, it's a very easy process. Just call a PSSL Sales Advisor and they'll guide you to the RAL color scheme. Pick any of those colors and then it can be powder coated - it's a color system like the Pantone color system.
PSSL: Excellent. We have a wide variety of colors too, so we can help out. What are going to be some of the most common things that a buyer usually forgets when they're buying trussing?
Global Truss: That's an easy one.
PSSL: You've got this phone call a couple times, right?
Global Truss: With all the trussing that goes out there I'm surprised that clamps get forgotten. Typically, when you get trussing you're hanging lights and how do you hang the lights without clamps? So the most common things that a buyer forgets would be clamps and extra hardware. Extra couplers and pins and clips.
PSSL: Would you say it would be a good idea to maybe buy some extra clamps and maybe some extra pins and clips and couplers?
Global Truss: Definitely the hardware for sure. Always have extras. If you're out there in the middle of nowhere and you're doing a gig and you don't have those extra pieces, that one little piece is going to stop you from making your entire structure - that would definitely be frustrating.
PSSL: Definitely would. Donald, thank you so much for joining us.
Global Truss: No problem.
PSSL: Please be sure to join us for other upcoming videos. You can follow us on social media at PSSL ProSound and Stage Lighting or you can also follow us on Twitter at PSSL. Donald, thank you so much once again.
