I'm creating my own track and dolly system...

W

WhereDreamsAreBorn

Carbonite Member
I am posting here as it is for my canon 5d that i will be purchasing soon. Not sure if i should post this somewhere else.

Anyway, i am going to purchase a hand trolly, that both stands up vertically but it can also be used as a horizontal platform. The only reason i am buying this is so i can transport my equipment easily (the camera, lenses, tripod, glidecam, other stuff, etc.)

you can see it here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=1D8EBG59JY009JT0SR48

But then i thought to myself, as this hand trolly can be used horizontally, maybe it could function as a dolly. But then looking at it, one set of wheels is much smaller than the other two wheels, and i imagine the results, even on perfectly flat ground, would still be a slightly shaky and unprofessional looking.

But then i thought saw that you can buy skateboard dolly channels/troughs that are design to house the big wheels of the doorway dolly. You can see them here: http://www.cinemagadgets.com/skateboard-dolly-wheels-channel-p-671.html

So basically i could buy these and sit the wheels of the hand trolly into the channels. The these channels with the skateboard wheels then sit on and slide along the tracks. Somehow i would have to modify the wheels to fit snuggly and still, into these channels.

Also, the other problem is that the hand trolly is basically a metal skeleton, theres no actual physical board to stand on, or place a camera on, so i would have to build something for that.

I just wondered if anyone here thinks this could be done. I only thought of it as i have no track/dolly system yet, and it would be great if my transport trolly could be modify to work as a dolly. Then it just makes carry all my equipment very very economical.
 
A lot of this comes down to what kind of shooting you do, but here's my thoughts:

Those skateboard channels are great if you want to run a Doorway or Fisher dolly on track, but why spend $1300 (and more on track, presumably) just to roll a $50 hand truck on it?

The narrow wheelbase of the handtruck will make it inherently unstable, even if you build a wider platform on top of it. And any platform secure and steady enough to shoot on will most likely need to be permanently attached to the truck, hurting the dual-purpose aspect of it.

If you just want a stopgap solution until you can afford a Doorway dolly to go on top, I'd take the handtruck out of the equation and just build a platform to sit in the skateboard channels. You'll be able to use the full width of the channels for the best stability, and make it more stable than the handtruck inherently is.

Aside from that, these may all be overkill for a 5D. There are smaller and DIY dollies, as well as the slider systems like the Glidetrack, that may be better suited for the relatively tiny 5D rigs. Doorway dollies are designed to hold several hundred pounds of camera rig, support equipment, operator/AC, chairs, extra platforms, etc.

(Also, just a side note, if a real Doorway dolly is your end goal, MSE makes "Hot Button" skateboard wheels specifically for it, which only run about $800. Takes a little longer to swap out the wheels than just lifting it onto the skateboard channels, but it's cheaper, smaller, and much lighter than those big channels, and you expressed concern about having more equipment to carry)
 
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