Camera Stand

Originally on Attila's Workshop channel Aug 2020 I didn't even know what a camera stand was until I stumbled across a video by Robert Cowen. He was showing us his latest bargain find (and what a bargain!) on Craigs List and the first thing I though was 'I gotta have one of those'. I can't really convey what a pain it is to continually futz around with tripods, I have three of them and still can't get many of the shots I visualise. So I hit the auction sites, camera stores, google, for the next six months trying to replicate that bargain find. These things are incredibly rare, at least down here in oz, so I gave up and decided to build my own. Well that was about two years ago, I purchased a two metre piece of 2080 extrusion and little plate with four wheels ready to start building but other things came along and those parts just sat around gathering dust until April this year when I finally started building........................................ Thanks to Robert for the kind permission to use part of his camera stand video, check out his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPOTPYuDsKnXP9I-ph4yMgg Just the facts ma'am: In the opening shots where I'm assembling the wheels, each pair of bearings needs a washer between them, but while filming this looked clumsy, so a couple of wheels were assembled without washers and fixed up later. Apparently Roberts stand can be had from the factory for about twelve grand.Ouch. I spent somewhere between 350 and 400 Aussie bucks on mine. The most expensive part was the steel tube, 90 bucks. I bought a dozen wheels from Ali Express in March and they hadn't arrived by June so I got a refund. Two days later they arrived. Oops. The only functioning part that my stand doesn't have (when compared to the Foba) is the rotating column. I just couldn't figure out how to make this and keep the column rigid. This is the longest video I've made even after discarding many clips and not showing many operations, it still came out over twenty minutes. I bought my first lathe a couple months ago and the first part made on this was the counter weight pulley. I didn't even film the first part of making this because it was my first go and wasn't confident that the part would be successful, but it turned (no pun intended) out OK. In my shop a lot of the floor is covered in rubber matting, some solid others with large holes. The stand glides easily over the smooth mats but can get bogged down when it hits a hole, so those mats will be replaced with more smooth stuff. Sometimes I'm a little disappointed upon completion of a project as I feel it didn't quite meet my expectations, but with this project I'm surprised with how well it turned out. The sliding action of the various components is smooth and the boom arm when fully extended, and carrying my fairly weighted camera/monitor set up doesn't flex at all. As usual I've seen stands made from wood and much simpler in design but I was never going to do this. I really wanted to do some welding, something I'd only done a couple of times before and enjoyed the experience. Parts List: Steel tube 100mm x 100mm x 2400mm (for column) Steel plate 6mm, 5mm, 3mm (for base) 24 dual bearing 24mm 'V' wheels. (for sliding carriages) 12 aluminium 6mm spacers. 12 6mm eccentric spacers. Pulley and bearing for counterweight. 10mm x 20mm aluminium bar for axle carriers. 8mm, 5mm, 3mm, 1.6mm sheet and angle to fabricate carriages. 1.5 metre length of 20 x 80 extrusion. Stainless cable and suitable material for counterweight. Machine knobs and handles for brakes. Lots of screws and nuts, M3, M4, M5, M6, M8. Of various lengths. Heavy duty castors. See my main channel 'Attilas Workshop' here: http://www.youtube.com/@AttilasWorkshop