I recently got a new video camera--time to leave tape behind. I mounted it to my old viscous-head video tripod and found that the dramatic reduction in the size and weight of camcorders had rendered the tripod useless. The weight of the handle was not counterbalanced by the weight of the camera, and it would slowly, inevitably point skyward as I was recording.
The original handle was steel, with a weighty rubber grip. I made a new one out of an ancient, cruddy piece of 3/8 inch round aluminum stock. It's the same length as the original, but weighs 3 ounces instead of 10 and moves the center of gravity forward 2.5 inches. The closed-cell foam grip is from McMaster-Carr.
I bent the new handle in a vise. The last time I did something like this, I broke the vise. Gotta say, I had to crank pretty hard on the handle to get the angle I wanted.
I made a clamp for the rod by drilling a hole one size under in a piece of scrap, then sawed a slot so I could compress it. I threaded it with a die.
I added an anti-rotation pin, a piece of drill rod. It fits into internal slots in the head.
I found an aluminum acorn nut with 3/18-16 threads in my miscellaneous aluminum stuff box and added a washer and O-ring for a firm, vibrationless fit. I sanded 50 years' worth of corrosion off the rod, left a nice satin finish, and protected it from hand-blackening with a coat of super glue.
The camera stays level with the new handle. Success!
