Hanging Camera Slider With Arm Extension

This is my camera setup for my workshop. Its so versatile and covers nearly every shot that I need.

The camera is mounted onto an old adjustable lamp arm which slides along a track that is mounted to a beam in the ceiling. This setup is quite specific to my workshop layout but hopefully this gives you ideas to make something similar to suit your needs.

This was all made with scrap wood and few bolts and I video documented my progress

I will post pictures soon!

Step 1: Step 1: Making the Track and Slider

I used long pieces of scrap wood to make the track, simple butt joints screwed together to make 2 L channels which I then screwed onto the beam in the ceiling.

For the lamp arm, I cut off the head of a bolt and epoxied it into the base of the lamp. This will be used to attach the piece that would slide along the track.

Hopefully the video is easy to follow and show you how I made the track and slider piece.

Step 2: Step 2: the Camera Mount

Now all thats left to do is to somehow attach the camera to the arm. I made a platform for the camera to sit on and so that it can be adjusted up or down. I cut a piece of metal rod to fit into the lamp arm and had to file a little groove into it to match the profile of the existing piece. Then I epoxied it into a piece of wood which is attached to the camera platform via bolt. I made knobs out of square bits of wood and just epoxied the bolt into it.

And thats pretty much it! I now have a super easy setup that covers most of my workshop and doesn't cover any ground space so it hardly gets in the way. And when I'm not using it I just close the arm and leave it tucked to one side.