RoweCine Dolly kits now for sale!

heh, i just typed the standard measurment into a metric converter on the net and thats what it gave me. man, ...there goes my rock solid belief that the internet is infallable. :)
 
Neil, I PM'd you yesterday...any idea how long it'd take for me to receive a 24 wheel kit from the time that I order?
 
Neil,
My Dad and I finally finished putting together our 32 wheel kit and filmed with it for the first time at a paid gig this last Saturday. It worked great with one issue, how do I get the pvc to not creak and squeak? Luckily my shots were MOS but I'm not wondering how i could ever film a movie shot with a mic. And the pvc was well connected and on flat even ground (very short conference room carpet). So is there a trick to get them to quiet down?
 
no trick, ive never really had reports of, or had PVC squeak on me personally. what sort of PVC were you using, and did you put any finish on it, or the wheels?
the only other things i can think of would be the construction of the dolly platform squeaking with weight shift if it had anything loose, or if the actuall flooring at the location was prone to creaking with weight applied. what i would do is test out the kit in a known environment such as your living room or somewhere where you know the flooring isnt creaky. also test out the platform construction for squeaks by setting the dolly on some track and just walking around on it and be sure its not squeaking. it should be silent sans your footsteps on it. be sure your using the standard (white in color) 1" schedule 40 PVC.
 
I just put my dolly together and it is awesome. I used 3/4" plywood for the platform and it was scraping the pvc in the middle when I stepped onto the dolly. I wondered why there were only two spacers, but it worked out as I placed them on the two center bolts and the scraping was gone. I now need to get a handle to more easily move the dolly.
 
yeah, as in our instructions, we reccommend using at least a 1" thickness for plywood decks (this could be two 1/2" sheets glued/screwed together and bolted through for truck mounting.) because depending on what type of ply is used, size of platform, type of KIT, and pending how many wheels a given KIT has, it may or may not be rigid enough to support various personnel weight in the center of the platform away from the wheels.
with say a 16 wheel 4' KIT there is alot more room for bowing of the deck between wheels, whereas with a 32 wheel 4' rail kit with a premium hardwood 3/4" ply often works fine. ..although in either circumstance of wheel count we still only reccommend/support using minimum 1" of ply decking.

im wondering what your using for spacers. there are 2 extra wheel bearings included with each kit for replacing any bearing that gets damaged somehow. other than that i cannot think of anything that we include only 2 of in the hardware box. if your using only 3/4" ply the supplied bolts will be a little long (1/4") under the dolly rails and combined with any potential bowing of the platform it would result in the bolts scraping the track. the best solution at hand would be to use shorter 2" mounting bolts, or better yet thicken the platform to reccommeded spec. if you want to PM me with your address i can send you some 2" mount bolts though to save you the trouble of purchasing them. ...hope to see some great camera movement in your dramafest entry :). you can PM me with any ?s on the KIT, and happy shooting alex!
 
In the past, I've read about two different solutions for dealing with squeaking. One would be to rub down the PVC pipes and connections with talcum powder, and the other is to use Lemon Pledge in the same way. I haven't tried either one, but they make sense.

Dave
 
excellent suggestions. although I would personally only use pledge on metallic rails becuase it may actually cause PVC to start squeaking, but the talcom powder works on just about anything. of course when using the proper PVC ive never used anything. It is so prone to static charge/cling that it generally has a nice minute layer of dust on it no matter what environment you are in. ..its both a blessing and a curse pending the location.
 
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