| Our new booms...
Actually I was using the counterweight. Hollywood Steve's explanation of the logic of counterweights and boom clutches in the lighting industry does make some sense given the weights and lengths involved in lighting.
What faked me out is the amount of effort they went to to come up with such a wimpy boom clutch.
This clutch consists of a 7/8" slice of an almost 4" diameter steel bar(!), a composition friction pad, a .200" thick steel plate, and an almost 4" wide "T" handle for loosening/tightening the nearly 1/2"bolt, plus a custom turned cone-shaped heavy washer with another washer. This is serious amounts of steel being used in a mechanically inefficient way. It's not like they didn't try, they just used a silly design.
The design that we are working on uses less steel and locks much more positively and quickly. We want no slop and no flop, and a boom that won't sag.
Many thanks to Hollywood Steve for sharing his personal knowlege of tools from another industry that can have applications in our little audio playground.
Wurly in the rain
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