NikonGear'23
Gear Talk => What the Nerds Do => Topic started by: Matthew Currie on June 28, 2019, 03:03:38
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Every once in a blue moon I wish I had a gimbal for a big lens. The 200-500 is pretty good hand held but it gets tiring when lurking for birds.
Did you ever notice how much the arm of a Wimberly Sidekick resembles the leg of a mountain bike fork? I did.
This is definitely a shade-tree project, booger welded out of left over bicycle parts, assorted hardware, a clamp that I broke running over it, and a pad that I made that didn't come out right, but it balances and it works.
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Well done - a nice repurposing of the bike parts. Necessity is the mother of invention as they say. :)
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Well done. Looks good.
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Clever re-use!
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Looks so neat that I didn't understand what you were talking about at first. Amazing job!
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Matt:
You would have to call this Yankee ingenuity ! How smooth is the action/movement?
Nice job.
Randy
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Matt:
You would have to call this Yankee ingenuity ! How smooth is the action/movement?
Nice job.
Randy
It's pretty smooth. The top portion is made from a cut down steel bicycle hub, with a cup and cone ball bearing at the lens end, and a bronze bushing at the other. The axle is just a 3/8 inch bolt, and tension is achieved by tightening the clamp as a nut.
When I ran over my tripod a couple of years ago, and broke the clamp on the ballhead, I rethreaded it, and it now has a stud whose hole goes all the way through to the 3/8 inch mounting stud. So once the drag is right, I can sock down that stud, and lock it in place.
It all would have been neater if I'd been able to weld aluminum, and if I weren't so farsighted that my welding is often in the wrong place, and ends up pretty messy. I used a Mig welder, but in retrospect I probably should have brazed it.
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Matt:
thanks for the additional info! Perhaps a tig welder in your future? Very clean and pretty welds, if a bit fiddly to learn.
Depending on your RX, and how much astigmatism you have, often a simple pair of readers can be used under your hood for easier close up work.
Cheers
Randy
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Matt:
thanks for the additional info! Perhaps a tig welder in your future? Very clean and pretty welds, if a bit fiddly to learn.
Depending on your RX, and how much astigmatism you have, often a simple pair of readers can be used under your hood for easier close up work.
Cheers
Randy
Indeed, readers under the hood do help, but I was lazy and the ones I was using in the shop were not very good. I welded outside in the sun, and well, excuse after excuse....
Unfortunately, one thing I cannot correct is fine distance judgment. A very nasty bicycle accident broke my trochlear nerve, so although my eyes work not so badly, and I have partial binocular vision at distance, up close I see double, and my eyeballs are tilted relative to each other, which is not correctable, so close welding is a bit of a gamble. For bigger stuff, I find it much easier to stick weld with a "drag rod." My bead may wander, but I'm not quite so likely to be welding the sky.
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Looks so neat that I didn't understand what you were talking about at first. Amazing job!
+1
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Instead of calling it a Sidekick, using bicycle parts.......You made a "KickStand."
(Is that a Bogen/Manfrotto 3001/190 on the bottom?)
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It's a Bogen 3021 Bpro, which I bought at a yard sale a few years ago for $12 along with a 3029 three way head and spike feet and an L bracket and an added video tilting column. Oddly enough, I did not dicker over that one.
The Kirk ballhead is a later addition.