DIY Jib Arm
When you hear the word "jib," you may think of a forward sail on a sail boat, but jib arms are used for making movies and shooting video. A jib arm is essentially a camera crane. It is sometimes called a camera boom or camera jib. The purpose of a jib arm is to get a high- or low-angled shot, or to pan the camera — moving it side to side or vertically in a steady, sweeping motion. You can make your own jib arm by combining design elements of a tripod and a draftsman's lamp.
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Things You'll Need
- Heavy duty tripod
- Square tube steel
- 1/4-inch diameter bolts, washers and locking nuts
- Adjustable wrench
- Metal chop saw
- Drill
- 1/4-inch steel-cutting bit
- MIG Welder
Instructions
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1
Determine how long you want your jib arm to be. The example will be a 10-foot arm with a 3-foot counter balance.
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Cut two pieces of 1-inch square steel tubing 13 feet long. Cut two pieces 1 foot long. Cut one piece 2 feet long.
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3
Arrange the 13-foot pieces and the 1-foot pieces in a rectangle on a long work space. Drill 1/4-inch holes in all four corners of the rectangle and through-bolt the four pieces. Place a washer on the threaded end, then a nylon-lined locking nut. Don't tighten the nuts tightly, binding the corners together; just make them slightly snug. This rectangle is now a parallelogram that will function as your jib arm.
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4
Fasten the center piece of your jib arm — the 2-foot section. Drill 1/4-inch holes in the long pieces, 3 feet from the the counter balance end and 10 feet from the camera end. Drill a hole at one end of the 2-foot piece and another in the center, then through-bolt it to the holes in the jib arm the same way you assembled the corners. The center piece should be parallel with the two end pieces, but it will have 1 foot extending past the bottom cord of the jib arm for mounting.
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5
Weld a mounting plate to the bottom of your center piece. Design it to mount to the top of your tripod. You can drill three holes in a round plate and bolt them to the tripod.
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Weld a 1-foot section of square tube perpendicularly to to the counter balance end of the jib — the 3-foot end. Drill 1/4-inch holes at each end of your 1-foot section. You'll use this T-section to slide counter weights onto, then slip a bolt into the holes to function like a cotter pin, keeping the weights from sliding off.
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7
Weld a perpendicular bracket to the 10-foot end of the jib arm to mount your camera. Fabricate the bracket with steel, then through-bolt a 1/4-inch aluminum mounting plate that you can customize for you camera. It will be easier to make customizations or add special mounting hardware to a removable aluminum plate than to a fixed steel plate at the end of the boom.
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8
Assemble the jib arm. First set up your tripod. Through-bolt the mounting plate on the center piece of your jib arm to the tripod. Lower the camera end and secure your camera to the mounting plate. Add counterweights to the counter balance end until the the counterweights balance the camera and long end of the jib arm.
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Tips & Warnings
Consider the scale of the tripod in relation to the scale of the jib arm.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Creatas/Creatas/Getty Images
