Well its close to finished from a machining perspective, but it still needs a brace then the beautifican or artwork starts!
Its fully functional at the moment, but it suffers from vibration way worse than my tripod. This I suppose is the column not being rigid enough. I have one right angle brace on it but I need two, and of course the drill bit for that right-angle bracket is stuffed. So almost ready to trial but I simply need a new 3/8" drill bit and am halted till I get this. Oh and I have to screw the rather large floor plate to the deck (perhaps with a packing piece to minimise vibration.
So its solid but needs vibration dampening added to the design. Only a couple of hours from finished I guess!
PS
I angle grinded the plate steel square housing the mount into an attractive 29 cm diameter circle for asthetics. It was huge fun doing this! Angle grinders are soooooo much fun
The tricky bit was building a 12 cm square, 7cm tall wooden block that connects the mount to the plate steel (to give the counterbalance room to move the mount head must be sufficiently above plate steel base). Well I countersunk the 60mm well for it (22 mm), and anchored it at four points with bolts, then the really hard bit, building a protuding post of height 27mm within the mount base but seperated from the well... I had the inspiration to sing a 10cm long, 1/4" wood bolt into the dovetail block at the precise position, then cut the head off (more angle grinder fun) and then grind it down until the mount turns freely with the adjusting screws!
God it's heavy now, and very easy to level, so once its rigid it should be fine!
Piccys soon once its all up to scratch!