$40 DIY Glidecam with test video

The design and construction of glidecam or steadicam doesn't seem to be extremely complex. But for some reason they are rediculously expensive. Even a light weight glidecam 1000 could cost as much as $300. So I figured that I might be able to build one myself with some basic material I can find in Homedepot or Lowes.

My goal is to build a light-weight glidecam-like instead of a steadicam Merlin-like, simply because I like the look of glidecam:) The upper part needs to be adjustable left-and-right and back-and-forth. The gimbal join should have ball bearings for all three dimensions to filter out body moves and shakiness. It should have a quick release adaptor so that I don't need to re-balance it for every use.

Talking about quick release, the price of standalone quick release adaptor is just as ridiculous. A tiny small one could cost as much as $30, which is more expensive than some cheap tripod with quick release included. Somehow all these kinds of stuff are priced as professional gears. But I'm not professional. I'm just a guy who happens to have a camcorder and wants to shoot some nice home video.

I've looked pretty much all DIY steadicam/glidecam designs I could find on Internet. Most of them are either too clunky or chunky (like the famous $14 steadicam. Seriously, who can hold that thing for more than 1 min?), or requires machinery that I don't have in my garage. There are also some really nice designs from which I borrowed a lot idea.

So here are the materials I used
5 roller skater ball bearings, I got them from a pair of used roller skating shoes from goodwill at ~$5. It isn't expensive even if you buy them new.
1/4"-20 x 1' threaded rod ~ $2
1/8" x 1.5" x 3' and 1/8" x 3/4" x 3' aluminum bars ~ $15. But I only used a small portion of them.
1/2" PVC pipe and elbow joint ~ $1
5/16" and 1/4" bolts and nuts ~ $6
some #6 machine bolts and nuts ~ $5
1.25" x 1.25" x 3' pressure treated wood ~ $4
1.5" wiring wall clamp ~ $2. Two per package and I only used one.

I did buy a drill press, a circular saw, and some drill/tap bit for this job, which cost me ~$180. But I needed them anyway so I wouldn't count them towards the cost. The total direct cost is really around $40. I could further cut the cost if I could find smaller pieces of aluminum bars.

However it did take some trial and error to get all the things done correctly. I probably spent equal amount of money on things that I experimented but eventually gave up:)