How To Drill A Curved Hole

Next time you’re renovating and need to run some cables around corners in you walls, save yourself some frustration by building [izzy swan]’s corner drilling rig. It’s something akin to a custom tunnel boring machine but on a small scale.

drill-a-curved-holeStarting with a piece of steel, [izzy] traced and cut out a 90 degree curve with an attached arm that will allow it to rotate from a central block. He then grabs a random drill bit and attaches it to a flex shaft which is secured to the leading point of the steel curve. To complete the handy setup the entire rig is bolted to a block that will clamp over the corner stock.

As it stands, it takes some elbow grease to get the drill through, but it’s not a purpose built setup. On a second demonstration, the flex shaft breaks, but the idea is there. Now, [izzy] advises that this is most easily accomplished when re-framing walls with no drywall obstructing your drill, but the concept for this rig could nonetheless prove handy for welding, grinding, and so forth along any angled curve.

If instead you want to push your carpentry skills to their limits, build a wooden Vespa.

Continue reading “How To Drill A Curved Hole”

3 Camera Booms For Your Wednesday Afternoon

[Andrew] tipped us off about his Cable Cam built out of some lumber and clothes line. It is small enough to fit into a backpack,  includes a safety line and the camera can pan and tilt. A future version is planned with a small remote motor to move the trolley more effectively.

[Andrew] accidentally linked us to his other Camera Crane, taking the same ‘cheap yet effective’ approach as his Cable Cam. Once again, just some lumber and creative engineering are used to pull this one off.

For those without the ability to weld, check out [Bill Van Loo’s] all wood version of a Camera Crane. Same parallelogram design, without remote video output or central pivot.

BP Oil Blunders

We received a very interesting “hack” today from our good friend [Jonny Dryer] that really got us thinking, but first a little background.

For those that live only inside of a box on top of a mountain (we know who you are), there was an explosion of a British Petroleum oil rig about 40 miles southeast of Venice, LA. Being proclaimed by Carol Browner as “probably the biggest environmental disaster” – stated a month after the accident.

And the oil is still spewing. Now, we’re not ones for criticizing how this event is being handled; no, we left it to the experts.

Back to our point, [Jonny Dryer’s] sent us his plan for slowing the oil spill, by using liquid nitrogen, pretty genius if you ask us. And we were wondering what possible solutions other readers had come up with? Share your thoughts on this situation in the comments.

DSLR Shoulder Holster With Follow Focus

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/11435910]

[Erik] and [Jonathan Bergqvist] built this shoulder mount for a Canon 7D camera. It’s made from wood and it hooks over the top of the photographer’s shoulder with a handle for each hand. The left handle also controls the focus, using a similar method to the hardware store follow focus we looked at in January. Like it or not, you’ll love watching a master woodworker build this starting with un-milled logs. It’s all about having and knowing how to use the right tools.

[Thanks Juan]

Precision Erector Set Connects Multiple Cameras

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIWGKowjuIo]

Check out the exoskeleton that [Curt von Badinski] built for filming driving scenes. This extremely configurable wrap-around frame resembles a children’s toy from the past but allows an almost unlimited set of configurations. Five cameras simultaneous capture the driving scene. The current setup is used to shoot the television show 24.

[Thanks Robert]

Multi-camera Rig Makes Trees Say Cheese

redwood_camera_rig

[Nick Nichols] set out to take a photograph of a full redwood tree. Here’s the catch, these redwoods are over 300 feet tall and they’re not just standing in the middle of a vast desert. If the photo is taken from a distance, you will only capture the top part of these majestic beauties. How can you take the shot from close up? Build a custom rig to take multiple shots and stitch them together for a composite photo.

[Nichols] built the rig to hold three cameras focused to the left, middle, and right of the tree. The frame includes a gyroscope to keep the cameras steady. By lowering the cameras from the top to the bottom of the redwood they were able to capture 84 pictures to assemble the final shot. The result is featured in the October edition of National Geographic magazine. We’ve included the final picture and embedded a video of the rig in action after the break. Continue reading “Multi-camera Rig Makes Trees Say Cheese”