the aj blog

"Project SteaDIY"

Yay!

I actually had some time and got around to building the Merlin clone. I think I might nickname the project “Project SteaDIY”. My first and foremost problem was the pipe I had ordered. I had had no idea what wall size to order, so I just went with 1/8″. Big mistake. That stuff is like, the type goons carry around to whack people with. Not the kind I can bend in a wooden form. So, I downgraded. Going out to the local hardware store, for about $2 I purchased somthing like 8 feet of thin wall steel conduit. It’s steel, so it’s heavier. But it was bendable. I used a 4.5 inch radius plywood form to bend the semicircle, with a lever type mechanism as described here. It worked, with no kinks either! I crimped something like the last 2 inches in a vice, making it flat.

Attaching Everything

Although I certainly did goof quite a bit when it came to the drilling measurements, resulting in off holes, it all worked out in the end. At Wal-Mart I found some Stanley Line Levels which, after beating into submission, I was able to bolt on. I had the balance bolts ready for a while, also making it easy to bolt. As for the handle, I don’t have anything special that works yet. I tried a kind of gimbal that I had made, more a piece of art than anything else, which broke under the strain of the rig. So, sacrificing stability for simplicity, I merely chopped up something that would work for a handle and bolted it on too. I really need to get a better handle-rig mount that will allow more handle jiggles and less footage jiggles.

The Price?

Amazingly, I think it was under $50 for everything. The most expensive was the plate, which was special order 6061 alloy 1/8″ aluminum, at about $10 including shipping or something like that. This is, of course, not including a camera.

The Synopsis?

I’m not done yet. On my to-do list: better weight balancing, and a better handle mount. The rest works fine, all good.

Shipment Arrived!

Yes!

Finally, the climax of all that shipment tracking has come! Delivery! My OnlineMetals aluminum arrived today. The plate looks great (no rhyme intended) and although the pipe is a tad thicker than imagined, it’ll work fine most likely. Sadly, I can’t get to my workbench, tools, or anything at the moment, so any actual work will have to wait for about a week. I can merely think about what I’ll do with the pipe and plate before then. Although, I do have some ideas in mind…

Drill Pattern

For the plate, there will be three or so holes right in the center, all aligned. Or perhaps a channel cut through for ultimate positioning? Anyways, my 1/4 coarse bolt will go through it, permitting me to mount a camera. This is the top of the thing. I will drill 2 holes, also aligned, on the ends of the plate, for my balance bolt system. I might even have to add weight on the other side to compensate for the weight added by them. I might drill other stuff, for things like a level or whatever.

Tubing Bend

I have found an instructable on how to bend tubing without it kinking and such. It looks prominent. I plan to make the form the next chance I have, hopefully it’ll work and the powers of the Internet would have succeeded! If I’m not too sleepy from my next experiment, that is. Oh, we’ll find out about that later…

UIP (Unrelated Interesting Photography)

What’s That Picture?

Since this article doesn’t particularly have a very tangible topic, I chose to fill in the blank space with a shot of me holding a freshly toner-transferred PCB.

OnlineMetals

If you even glanced at my steadicam draft, you’d probably see it involved some tubing and other various metal parts. Finding these in a local store and having them meet your specifications is pretty hard, so I turned to the Internet. Being an avid subscriber and reader of MAKE, I started searching through their blog. I found out that, through a partnership with a certain metals company, they were offering a 5% discount. The particular company was OnlineMetals.com. Although I don’t really have any experience in any other metal sources, their service was really good. You can order any of their various metals online, and they arrive at your door in a week or two via UPS. A cool feature is the ability to “custom cut” your plate, tubing, or pipe. There is a relatively small fee for the cutting, but it’s worth it. Awesome!

What Did I Order?

Anyways, for the main part of my Merlin clone I needed a length of arced aluminum tubing. I settled on 2 feet of 3/4″ OD 6061 aluminum alloy tubing and a 5″ by 6″ 1/8″ 5052 alloy aluminum sheet. The sheet is for holding the camera on top, and the tubing is the main bones of the whole thing.

How’s it Going to Look?

The balance bolts get mounted underneath the plate, upside-down from the picture previously featured. I might paint the tubing black, merely for cosmetic reasons. Scheduled to arrive on 2/10, this guarantees to be awesome!

Steadicam Sketch

The Steadicam

Ah, the Steadicam. A miracle for the video industry. A horror for the no-budget hobbyist. Sure, this has probably been done before, but I have found (almost) nothing as beautiful as the original versions, such as those made by Tiffen. Who says that making it pretty has to be expensive?

Why?

The stability of professional stabilizers is unmatched in either software or camera internal stabilizers. Who wouldn’t want something that works that good? Oh, and professional models do all kinds of crazy things with little motors, but balancing the weight is the best easy method of stabilization. So I decided to try and recreate one of the lower-end basic no-trick steadicam models.

How?

One day when I was bored, I sketched out a DIY version in my journal. You can click on the thumbnail for a bigger picture. I estimated the cost to be around $40. Around 20 in random assorted hardware (think washers, nuts, and bolts) and like 20 in essential structural components (think aluminum tubing and plate). There’s also a lot of other random junk on the scan, so take it with a grain of salt.

The Disclaimer

I have plans to perform this and produce a video or something on it. Since I have documented and published these rough plans, I retain the copyright until further notice. Please, if you do anything involving this article or its assets, provide attribution and a link. There will be more updates as I progress further. Thanks for cooperating!