DIY Dolly pretty much done… I hope

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

A few shots of the rig and my setup:

Okay… so what’s unique about this DIY dolly?

Well the dolly is built on 16 roller blade wheels – four wheels per carriage. Each of the four wheel carriages on the bottom sits on a “lazy susan” which allows each carriage to swivel independently (which enables it to handle curved track). The sled itself is built from redwood planks, the handle is an iron pipe that runs through the sled and is connected to some more pipe under the front.

I wanted to make sure that this dolly was big enough and substantial enough to hold an operator. I find that any time you have to pan and dolly at the same time – the results are usually terrible. Putting an operator on the sled itself should alleviate that problem (one person pans, the other pushes the dolly). With the weight of a person on the rig – it’s still pretty smooth – just a bit harder to push – and that’s where I need to refine the handle a bit.

And this sled will run on PVC pipe too.

I really like the rollerblade wheels as opposed to the rollerskate wheels… but I’m wondering if the rollerskate wheels would run better along a curved track. Rollerblade wheels can run up against the track and derail if the curve is too great. Speaking of curved track, what you see above really is as tight a turn as it can make – about a 5 ft radius. That ain’t too bad – I’m not sure a professional dolly sled and track could do much better.

The track is some solid rubber track that I picked up from Ebay. This stuff is pretty good – it handles curves and straight configurations although it needs to be massaged considerably to get it to lay the way you want it too. To massage it, I have some metal spacers (you see them on the ground) that I cut out from this roof siding material (it was the cheapeast angled aluminum I could find – just $1.46 for 10 feet). For straight runs, I run a longer uncut piece along one rail to give it some guidance. The metal is very thin but that’s okay – it’s the rubber track does the support. For uneven surfaces, I bought a shim kit at the Home Depot… haven’t given that a try yet. The drawback to the rubber track is it’s incredibly heavy… bad for moving – but good for staying in place.

Cost wise – this is not the cheapest rig by far. Rollerblade wheels are a lot more expensive than skateboard wheels, there’s 4 carriages instead of the basic 2 like you see on most skateboard dollies, the lazy susans… all told, the DIY dolly system ran me a little under $650 with the track (which was over half the cost). Not bad when you consider that a sled of this capability is almost twice that.

What’s left to do? Well I have some mini bungee cords that I want to use to make a tripod anchor… and then just some more tweaking. The wheels don’t all take the turns the same way. I’m not sure there’s a lot I can do about that though…

Popularity: 56% [?]