Premium Members Daniel Posted June 5, 2004 Premium Members Report Share Posted June 5, 2004 Hello Fellow Operators, I have the pleasure to announce that DSD is back in business with an improved harness design that includes an all new indexing bracket which makes ALL Euro style arms ambidextrous and a new, low price of $7500US. In the last year, I have been preparing the return of my harness business, the one I started with the intention of offering operators worldwide a better alternative to the front mounted system. There has been much discussion about the split up between myself and my former partner. Actually, it was not a split up but rather I got evicted from the company by the controlling side, with no compensation or even decency in the process. Although I don't wish to expand, I must, however, inform operators within this Forum of the following: When I was removed from my interests in Daniel Sauve Designs inc., I requested a series of informations through my legal counsel. This included technical data that belonged to me as an equal shareholder in the company. This information was denied. Therefore, in the last year, I started up from scratch and had all the parts of the DSD harness re-drawn and rebuilt. In the process, I discoved that almost all the aluminum parts of the carbon arm were built under their work load requirements. The manufacturer of DSD harnesses for the first 5 years, my former partner, made no serious testing of the parts. If you ask him today, I guarantee that he cannot provide you with formal engineering tests for any of his parts. I can. With the help of my engineers, we took the data from the tests that we put the parts through and re-designed the parts until they passed the computer testing. All aluminum parts were beefed up, all pockets properly positionned, all 90 degre cut lines removed with rounds to insure increased structural integrity. If you own a harness manufactured by my former partner, chances are that you are accumulating micro fractures within the aluminum parts (namely the socket block). Does your block flex under load? Please remember this basic rule: a part is only good until it breaks. I strongly recommend to all DSD owners of harnesses not manufactured by me to request an upgrade of all aluminum parts from its manufacturer. The other option is a new DSD carbon arm. I wish, on this forum today, to publicly dissassociate myself from this manufacturer. If you are a former client of mine though DSD inc. (I was denied all the customer database), please contact me via email to obtain further information. I will make the results of the test available to owners. The new DSD harness is a Euro style harness with some major improvements. With the old harness, I noticed that the shoulder straps were too soft and did not help at keeping the top of the shell properly aligned. If you look at it under load, you will notice a fold in the strap. I have corrected this with semi-rigid straps. Furthermore and most importantly, the problem of the one sided carbon arm is resolved. I will unveil at Cinegear the new DSD indexing bracket (patent pending) that makes all existing Euro style carbon arms ambidextrous. The new carbon arms have no outward inclination in them. The harness comes with a really tough and lined transport bag. In addition, you will now be able to order any color for your harness as I now offer a powder coating option. You can even order a custom paint job if you wish. On top of it all, the new harness has a single piece foam pad and new inflatable bladder from the medical industry (as opposed to a cheap single chamber bladder). It is my intention to continue offering Steadicam operators the best back mounted harness available, at the lowest possible price. It is unfortunate that what happened with my former partnership happened, I was not wearing my harness when I was stabbed in the back...Please consider that I will no longer discuss the issue of my former partnership on this forum. It will be discussed in the proper venues. If you require any information, please contact me via email at daniel@danielsauvedesigns.com. The web site as not yet been updated but I am working on it. To close this post, I wish to publickly thank Steadicam operators Yukio Kaneko of Japan, Denis-Noel Mostert of Quebec and Juan Ramos of Spain for supporting me and my product and being incredibly patient during the manufacturing process. See you at Cinegear Daniel Sauve daniel sauve designs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guillermo nespolo Posted June 5, 2004 Report Share Posted June 5, 2004 ......ups :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members RobVanGelder Posted June 7, 2004 Premium Members Report Share Posted June 7, 2004 Daniel, your post has probably been read by everybody but nobody felt it neccesary (or appropriate) to give a reaction. (Except gnespolo, but that´s more like a "burp"). I think we do not do you justice with that! Thanks to your efforts an increasing number of operators is convinced that your basic design is the way to go and almost everybody is very happy with it. I am also the proud and happy owner of such a harnass! WE OWE YOU FOR THAT! What you have explained in our post is sad, but I wish you kept that for your self and your lawyer. These are business struggles that cannot concern us much. As it looks from your post, you are very des-illussioned by your former partner in business, and although you might have good reasons for that, the fact is that your ex-partner has always given the best customer service we all could think of. Not only the service has been flawless, also the craftmanship and choice of materials has been highly praised, by every customer. Than you throw in the possible design flaws in the excisting BM-harnasses. I have not enough info in this but I find this a bit extreme. If you look at the socketblock issues that some people have with he DSD/Klassen vest, you will notice that they are more on the arm-side and yes, there is some flex in some parts but also the breaking of some parts on arm is probably more related to the brittle titanium parts than the flexible alu-parts. There is also the other post about the socketblock on a brand new Garfield mount that split. So shit happens, springs, cables, sockets can break, but to my knowledge the first block or carbon-arm on a DSD/Klassen still has to fall . The other thing is that as you show yourself by designing a new carbon arm, this whole concept is not finalised, during your years at this business you made and witnessed several designs in vest and carbon arm. As we speak the 2" and 3" drop-down and the low-profile arm have been introduced and I´m sure there will be more innovations And with every product that is in development there might be some lesser points, it´s not a finished-for-ever product and basically we, the operators, are the guinnee-pigs that are very willing to try out any improvement, communicate with the maker for new designs and ideas and in the process it is possible that not all parts are up to the highest possible standard. But nothing really serious happened so far (that I have heard of). That´s why I think your statements about this under-strenght issue are not related to any event and thus not accurate or at least you cannot prove this convincingly. Nevertheless, it is good to have another manufacturer in the market, with a comparable product and quality. I am sure there are operators available to try out your design and put it through the test. But only if it stays competitively priced and you can give similar customer care. Oh, and forgive my limited knowledge of English, but what´s "ambidextrous"? Difficult words don´t make sense in this forum, at least for me. Anyway, good to have you back in this arena, show us what you´ve got! Rob van Gelder, Bangkok, Thailand Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Erwin Landau Posted June 7, 2004 Premium Members Report Share Posted June 7, 2004 Hi Daniel, Thank you for the update. Are you comming to CineGear and if yes are you bringing an example of your new Vest? I will look you up if you are... Also if you are not... Thank you for the choice in the first place and again for a second choice for a useable backmounted Harness... About the split... I don't know how much people are actually intersted to know what went down and what not... (I do and many will to, but) it doesn't matter because it's always only going to be one persones perspective... he said, she said... kinda scenario. Nobody, exept for you and Walter will know the whole truth unless you two sit down and tell the story together... But, as it looks like, that will not happen... (Unfortunately) And so... At the end the manufacturer that offers the best product and best costumer service as well as always advances his product to meet Customer demand will prevail... >Oh, and forgive my limited knowledge of English, but what´s "ambidextrous"?Difficult words don´t make sense in this forum, at least for me.< Ambidextrous are for instance people that can write with, cut with or just use both hands, left and right equally good... In our case to use the Arm in regular and Goofy foot. BTW: Daniel, the new Low Profile Arm from Walter does it as well if I'm not mistaken... See you all this weekend, Erwin "Still fishing for english words" Landau, SOC www.landaucamera.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch Gross Posted June 7, 2004 Report Share Posted June 7, 2004 Boy does CineGear sound interesting this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members RobVanGelder Posted June 7, 2004 Premium Members Report Share Posted June 7, 2004 Thank Erwin for clearing that up, I think that makes me a ambidextrous person as I can write and cut and do regular and goofy, though with a bit of difference of course, there is always a favorite side. :D Rob van Gelder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Daniel Posted June 7, 2004 Author Premium Members Report Share Posted June 7, 2004 Hello Rob, Hello All, There as been a lot of talk about what went on and for the last year I have been struggling to get my business back. Therefore my intention was, is, to let people know where I stand and what I am doing. I also mentionned in my post that I will not talk about the past company further; I am fully aware of what this Forum is designed for. My preocupation about the integrity of parts that were manufactured for my company by someone else is a concern I think deserves its place in this Forum. This product has my name attached to it and was not build properly. If my previous post is out of place, then the administrators of the Forum can erase it if they choose. Many of the operators that read this post are clients of DSD. If I had the database, I would have emailed everyone personnally and soon, that list will be rebuilt, from scratch, so I will do that in further communications... In addition, I think it would be wise to not call the harnesses DSD-Klassen as the harnesses built before were DSD harnesses and the ones I make now are DSD harnesses. Ambidextrous means that both hands can do the same thing. Gordie Howe, a famous Canadian hockey player, was reknowned for being ambidextrous and able to switch his stick from side to side during play. In the case of my harnesses it means that with the new indexing bracket, all Euro style carbon arms can be used on either side of the body. It also allows me to make carbon arms that are straight (no outward pitch to compensate for the mounting pin's limited angle of adjustment). As for the aluminum parts I mentionned, it's imperative when designing and building something that will work under such loads that the parts be tested to know if they can withdstand the pressure. The parts in your harness, Rob, were never tested properly. There are engineering softwares that do this testing and provide accurate measurements about the part's structural integrity. These measurement help determine how the parts is to be built, it provides exact guidelines. The accumulation of micro-fractures is serious business. If your socket block flexes then it is fracturing into small microscopic cracks. These line up along the fault line of a part (basically, along the line where the load is too much for the part to take because it either lacks material or is cut improperly or both). It is serious matter because if a socket block breaks, the sled and arm will fall. While testing a prototype harness once I had a titanium block break because a screw was missing that helped to hold it onto the plate and I did not notice it. The piece that broke flew about 30 feet. No one was in its path, luckily. The sound was like a gunshot. I am not saying that the parts you own will fail. I am saying that these parts failed the testing on the engineering program and therefore the possibility of a failure resulting from accumulated micro-fractures is high. I can't speak for anyone else but as an operator, I want my rig to be solid and problem free, even of potential problems. Some of the problems related by Erwin in his post about hardmounts will be addressed at Cinegear. I have been in talks with George about the mating of the DSD socket block and indexing bracket to the PRO arm. The ones you will see at Cinegear were cut for Tiffen/CP systems. All the best Daniel ps I will have 2 harnesses at Cinegear, a small (150-165lbs) and a medium-large size(185-205lbs) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.