DavidWest

the tiffen /and steadicam site have been down for almost a week now..... somewhere i found a new site that mentioned that they were physically moving locations (not web locations like steadycam.us ) but to a different building.... so hopefully they will be back up soon.... (i also heard a few years back that tiffen was going out of business, then the started selling steadicam,,,, hmmmm has it finally happened???)

advertisements are like restaurants.... the expensive ones dont list the prices... if you post the price those who want it will instantly buy it in a mad rush to email you...

beware of the evil internet... you might want to use an escrow service if the person that you are selling to is outside the US or not someone that you know from the steadicam community... if you take payments via paypal.... well, in the US is ok as long as you can prove that you shipped it...but overseas- you can run into a real problem if they claim that they never got it and then paypal does a chargeback... best to deal with people that you or a friend knows... second best is to deal with people that have real telephone numbers and addresses... etc... basically be a little paranoid since there are so many scams going on right now... as a seller US postal money orders are a nice way to get payment...

does anyone know the number on the focus tube in the IIIa ?? also, does anyone know where to get a new crt?? thanks db w

wow.......... looks like a hornets nest got kicked over here..... since this thread sat idle for awhile until i started asking design questions let me clarify a few things that may not have been clear from my earlier posts... if i, or anyone for that matter, wanted to steal the existing design , it would be EASY!! you wouldnt have to ask weight estimates as to what might still be allowable or any other questions for that matter.... you would pull up the patent page and make it as is detailed there... no real mystery (some patents obscure some of the finer points as long as they can still be awarded. this one does not. pretty much cut some grooves in a plate that keep the CG in one place.) other than that it is just a tilting support for a camera, just like has been made for the last hundred years. do i have an ORIGINAL IDEA... (a completely different method of achieving the same goal!!) well, i would like to think so. ultimately the attornies seem to be the ones who decide that... and i have no great fondness of attornies... so, i draw up my idea, pay 400 bucks, and give it a chance at the us patent office... if i get awarded a patent- i immediately sell it to chroziel who is more than happy to have it, and then i take the money and buy the master series -which already has a tilting topstage- and make a few videos which is all i started out to do in the first place... or- i keep working at mcdonalds, saving for my master rig, which i should hopefully have by the time im 50 if i never get married and invest wisely... ********** one thought though: it used to be that companies would create teams of engineers to test existing products and come up with new ideas for improvements and modifications to that product and future products... communication and the internet have changed the rules... now the average guy has access to the end users of products in groups such as this and can ASK questions as to what improvements are desired. in addition most steadicam operators are an extremely bright bunch. understanding the camera alone is tough, now understand a 0-gravity device too...hmmm... that is probably why there is a lot of inventing going on outside of the manufacturer.... did i ever say that i would COPY the existing designs??? NO!!! why not?? because frankly i think i can do better... time will tell...

i have a design in mind that will tilt and still maintain the CG.... ie, you can change the tilt and not have to rebalance the sled.... problem is there are a few ways to do it, but even with Ti you are adding weight to the sled, and to the camera end of the post... but it seems that it might be worth it to be able to add tilting to the sleds other than the master and not have to retrim the camera... just wondering if there was much interest before i start carving up my Ti stock....

how much additional weight would you guys be willing to put up with to have a tilting mechanism that worked???

looking for a IIIA arm or similar to attach to my efp sled... condition is not imprtant at all.... thanks david