10'/20 Hypercrane Build

[Gary Sconce]

***After having fun putting on a two axis head controlled by bicycle parts, I decided it was too much set up. I put on a control bar to the head and use the HYPERCRANE as a huge lockdown rig. We used it all through our feature film shoot for our Horror/Thriller STRICKEN. See post #78 for the current incarnation of the crane. It still works GREAT! -Gary

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Follow these instructions and photos and you can build a HyperCrane for your production company. I don't guarantee you can make it for as little as I did, but if you are a good scrounge and have a few hundred bucks you can do it!

I have started a FLICKR account so I will be getting used to posting from it. With the first set I hope to take you from the start to finishing the gimbal, attaching the long rig, putting the jib on the tripod and attaching the weight bar.

Here are some of the things I started with:

100' 1/4" cable, fence gate pulleys (5), screen door pulley wheels (8) numerous cable clamps, ends and attachments, a large zerk fitted caster wheel, three tripod casters with brakes, 90 degree bent plates from strong tie, an old speaker tripod, and a hand weight bar set.

Get two 10' sections of electrical conduit, one 1 1/4" and one 1 1/2" in width and get four 1/2" and three 5/8" eight foot lengths.

Collect assorted metal plate, tube stock and whatever else you can scrounge. I have loads of this stuff. You can gather scrap metal from friends. All metal is good and none should be discarded unless it is too small a piece to use on anything.

These are some of the tools you will need. Notice the pipe cutter in the center... That is a key tool. You will also need a pipe bender that you attach to a water pipe for a lever and stand on to bend the small pipe. Have a load of cut off wheels and don't forget to lubricate the air tools each day.

 

[Gary Sconce]

I found an extra small piece of 1 1/2" steel electrical conduit pipe and cut it with the pipe cutter to a length of 5" so I would have a base for the gimbal on the aluminum speaker pipe. It slides over the speaker tripod tube.

Here is the gimbal base tube on the speaker stand tube.

Now you want to build the gimbal out of your large caster. Get the caster that has the zerk fitting so you can add lubrication later. Notice the outer and inner pieces of the cross tubes. Rattle the wheels of a few of these casters as some of them are tighter fitted than others and you want a tight fitted bearing in the caster. Buy the least wobbly one.

Here is the inner piece... See the hole where lube comes out later. The outer tube is on the ground to the right.

Now get your fat 1 1/2" pipe and drill a perfectly perpendicular hole through it. Use a series of bits and a round file to get the hole perfect to fit the outer tube of the large caster 50" from the back end of the tube.

More to come...

 

[Gary Sconce]

Drill by using a series of larger and larger bits. Make sure you are drilling perpendicular as perfectly as possible.

Here is the bit series I used.

I don't have anything bigger than a 1/2" drill so I had to file out the rest to fit the outer caster tube in the hole.

Here is the fit of the tube.

Then, weld the tube in. This has to be strong so weld all of it.

Done!

Now we have the vertical varibility for the crane, and it is lubable!

More to come...

 

[Gary Sconce]

Whenever possible, grind your welds. Here is the vertical pivot tube from the caster all welded in.

Now for the horizontal pivot of the crane...
Cut off the square parts of the caster base.

Leave a little lip, around 3/8" is good.

File it round.

Now drill your gimbal base holes that will attach your gimbal to the tripod tube. Remember, this was from a scrap of 1 1/2" tubing... NOT from the 10' length for the crane.

I drilled two holes at 1" from the ends. I drilled them for bolts I had that were 3/8".
Then put the steel gimbal base tube with the holes over the aluminum tripod tube and mark the holes to drill them identically.

More to come...

 

[Gary Sconce]

Drill these points and they will fit perfectly.

Take it through your drill series again until you get to the 3/8".

Drill carefully...

Now it is time to extend up the gimbal so the crane vertical pivot will not easily hit when it is raised to its full height. You will first mark the caster legs like this and use a cut off saw to remove the pieces.

Remove the 'x'd section and discard.

Here is the caster after cutting.

Now you will fit the cut off caster legs on the vertical pivot tube by inserting the inner tube with the bolt head through one caster leg, then the crane tube and then the other caster leg. This is for fitting purposes.

I had some 1/8" thick plate stock and decided to use that for raising the gimbal vertical pivot up. It was 2" wide and 11" long, so each side became 5.5". If you can have yours 6" per side it would be better. Cut it in half with a cut off saw.

 

[Gary Sconce]

Align the 1/8" plate extensions with your cut off caster legs and weld them.

Here is a welded piece done. Grind your welds if possible.

Re-mount the new lengthened caster legs that are now the gimbal extensions by placing them again on the crane tube.

Suspend your crane tube so you can put the hanging gimbal legs over a table to position the caster base and the newly extended legs. This is vitally important as you MUST make sure that they are exactly level before you tack weld and finish weld the new gimbal together. I had to jig the base with tiny stuff to get it perfectly level with the pivot tube on the crane. You have to take care and time to make sure that the legs are exactly straight up also.

Another view...

Once it is perfect to your measurement and to your eye (I always trust my eyes) Then tack weld, re-check and finish weld.

Now flip your newly welded gimbal over and position the 1 1/2" tube (gimbal base tube) perfectly on the round caster base. Take time to get this perfect also. Then tack weld, re-check centering, and finish weld. You will want to weld this slowly as you don't want to cook the bearing grease to carbon on the gimbal base.

That red thing is a 90 degree magnet.
Tack welded...

More coming...:thumbup:

 

[Gary Sconce]

After welding the gimbal base tube on, slip it over the tripod tube and !voila!... It is starting to look like a jib!

A wider shot...

Since I had the other speaker tripod, I used some L bracket and a bent tube to build a catch for the head end of the HyperCrane. Here is the simple build.

Weld three together and put a rubber cover over the bent tubing.

Slide it into the top of the tripod tube and DONE. Hold with one screw if desired.

Now to put the two sections together... Measure 12" on the 1 1/4" ten foot tube and then slide it into the larger 1 1/2" ten foot tube. You will gain back the foot you lost here when you build the head.

Measure, mark, and drill the two bolts (3/8") that will hold the two ten foot lengths together.

Even though you see 3" and 9", drill them at 3" and 8".
You may have been wondering how I get back the 1/4" difference in the two pipes. In order to get the smaller 1 1/4" pipe to fit firmly in the larger pipe you will pop welds on the smaller pipe and then file them to fit snugly into the larger 1 1/2" pipe. If you pop the welds symetrically, your pipes will remain very straight together.

Here are all the welds... More to come...

 

[Gary Sconce]

All welds symetrically in place.

As you slide in the smaller pipe file the nubs to fit tightly.

Bolt the two ten foot lengths together.

Now it is really long!

Looking good...

Now, to build the counterweight bar. Measure 1" in from the back of the crane.

I traced around the weight set bar to get the exact size.
This hole is too big for my drill so I opted to grind it with the cut off saw, then file to final size. Be careful to get the holes perfectly parallel with the ground.

Here are the final holes.

(Last photo in this set...) Insert the bar, measure to center it perfectly and weld it in. As this must be very strong, weld completely around the bar.

In the next set we will put on the suspension and truss bracing. :dankk2:

 

[Dvader]

Woot! Sweet Gary this is awesome!! Thanks so much!!

 

[Gary Sconce]

Woot! Sweet Gary this is awesome!! Thanks so much!!

Thanks!

 

[Gary Sconce]

"... Here are some of the things I started with:
100' 1/4" cable, fence gate pulleys (5), screen door pulley wheels (8) numerous cable clamps, ends and attachments, a large zerk fitted caster wheel, three tripod casters with brakes, 90 degree bent plates from strong tie, an old speaker tripod, and a hand weight bar set."

Change the cable to 3/32". It is cheaper and will do as well as 1/4" cable.

 

[Matt Sconce]

This is great! I like to see how it came together! I can't wait to use it!

 

[Gary Sconce]

This is great! I like to see how it came together! I can't wait to use it!

Yeah, Troy is excited too. It will be a great beta test of the HyperCrane rig.

 

[Jeff Anderson]

Wow Gary. Wow. You're one heck of a DIY'er. Very cool crane here. You've inspired me to brush up on my welding skills. So many little things I have in my list of projects, but so many of them need some welding... Looks like I'll be making some sparkies this weekend. My wife will be excited

 

[Gary Sconce]

"...Wow Gary. Wow. You're one heck of a DIY'er. Very cool crane here. You've inspired me to brush up on my welding skills. So many little things I have in my list of projects, but so many of them need some welding... Looks like I'll be making some sparkies this weekend. My wife will be excited..."

That is wonderful! Think of welding as a key to save money. For me it is also fun and relaxing to my hyperactive mind to build stuff. My wife actually likes it when I weld because she knows I am building something instead of buying it. Hehe.

I will be posting more of the build today hopefully.

 

[Jeff Anderson]

That is wonderful! Think of welding as a key to save money. For me it is also fun and relaxing to my hyperactive mind to build stuff. My wife actually likes it when I weld because she knows I am building something instead of buying it. Hehe.

I will be posting more of the build today hopefully.

That exactly what I'm hoping to do. There are a few things around the house that need would cost a fortune to have a machinist build but would be that hard at all for me if I could just weld decently. I love fabricating things and saying yes I made that, but so far all of my work is limited to wood or nuts and bolts. Nothing fancy ever, just a few useful bits of furniture and fixtures. Any time I can save a few bucks and have something I'm proud of I'm all for it. Just hung a 24" china ball in the kitchen over the table. Rigged it off some parts of an old light I never cared for. Looks like it was supposed to be there. Until you turn it on... Went for an 85watt flo from filmtools. Nice light but its 340 equivalent tungsten watts might be a bit much... Still deciding on that one... Anyways, back to the hypercrane thread!

 

[Gary Sconce]

Dang... I just posted 9 more pictures and then when I previewed the post the black message screen turned grey and all of my pics and instructions were lost! Boo... I'll do it again. This has happened to me more than once lately when I try to reply to things...

 

[Gary Sconce]

Weld a 1" ring 7" from the back of the crane on the top. Weld really well as this supports half the weight of the dorsal stay. Grind your welds.

Here is is.

Cut a 5" length of 5/8" tube and weld it on for a base for the dorsal stay. Hand grind the bottom of it to fit the 1 1/2" tube.

Here it is welded on. Grind the welds.

Here is a view of the top.

Position another 5" long 5/8" tube 7" from the front of the back 1 1/2
crane tube.

Weld it on 7" from the front of the rear jib tube.

Here are both dorsal stay bases welded on. You can see them in relation to the whole crane so far.

More to come!

 

[Gary Sconce]

Dorsal (top) suspension stays (2) are 1/2" tube cut to 30" lengths.

Cut with the all-important pipe cutter. I love that thing! The only thing you have to watch out is that it crimps the pipe slightly and if you are going to slide another tube inside one cut with it you have to use a rat tail round file to file out the crimp. I have also cleaned out the crimp in the pipe with a Dremel tool with a round grinding tip inserted into it.

Bend 1/2" tube (2) with the pipe bender and cut a 6" length after bending it around 20 degrees.

Grind the top of the 30" dorsal stay to fit the bent tube. Pay attention to the pic of the placement on the stay before welding it on. The bent tubes will become suspension cable guides.

Position the straighter side of the 6" bent 1/2" tube so it is perpendicular to the 30" dorsal stay then tack weld and finish weld. Remember, this is thin wall steel tubing. If you weld, use a low setting and move around the work so you don't blow holes in it. If you blow a hole, pop small mushrooms of weld until you fill in the blow-out.

Do the same with the second dorsal stay.

Like you did with the two jib tubes, pop small weld bumps on the dorsal stay bases so they will fit snugly inside the 5" bases you have already welded onto the top of the rear jib tube.

File the inside of the 5" dorsal stay base so the 1/2" dorsal stay will fit tightly into it. File the popped welds until they are fitting in tightly. This is an important step as you don't want wobble in your dorsal stay that can wiggle the camera.

Lower the 30" dorsal stay slowly down, filing the bumps until it fits tightly but is removable.

 

[Gary Sconce]

Weld another 1" ring to the front of the forward jib tube (1 1/4" tube) at 7" from the end where the head will ultimately go. Again, weld this ring really strong as it will be holding the camera weight and transferring it back to the gimbal amd tripod.

After welding on the ring, here is the cable set up I used. I put on a locking ring for the end, then attach a cable tensioner, then attach the cable using an end loop with two clamps. The second cable clamp is important as this top stay supports the load and keeps the crane tubes from sagging.

Here is the cable set attached to the back of the crane.

You will then run the cable through the 6" bent tubes on top of the 30" dorsal stays. One bent tube (over the gimbal) has its bent side facing the back of the crane and the front bent tube faces the front of the crane. Here is the front one with the cable running through it.

Here is a pic of the cable completely strung from front to back but not tightened yet. Tighten it to just firm with the clamps and then to tight with the cable tensioners.

Here is the HyperCrane with its first completed stay tightened up. Notice the slight upward bend of the crane tubes. This will straighten when the two lateral stays are tightened down later.

I tried out a spring loaded clip on the front of the stay. Don't use it! I came out after a night to work on the lateral stays and the front spring clip had bent and the stay was loose. Use the locking ring on the front that I show on the back of the cable set instead of this.

There! You are done with the dorsal stay. On my next posts in a few days, I will move on to the lateral stays.