Thread Milling on a Small Lathe | Making a Magnetic Camera Mount

Today we're making camera mount out of a Noga Big Boy magnetic indicator holder, or Magic Arm. We'll make a camera mount adapter out of 1144 steel and try our hand at threadmilling on the lathe for the first time using the toolpost grinder as a live tooling spindle. We'll also spend a little quality time at the mill with drills, counterbores, and taps.

Tools appearing in this video:
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00:00 Intro
01:39 Introducing the Big Boy
03:10 Designing the adapter
05:26 Lathe OP 1
06:36 Lathe OP 2
10:18 Threadmilling on the lathe
14:46 Drilling and counterboring in the mill
17:52 Drilling and tapping for lock screws
20:05 Assembly
21:46 Testing

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

[airplaneian]

This is really fantastic. I'm a commercial producer by way of the camera department, and your intuition about adding the anti-twist mechanism is smart. Everything attached to the camera should have some sort of anti-twist feature, even the high end accessory arms have anti-twist pins. Second thing: if you do happen to run into vibration issues, sometimes more rigidity isn't the answer... When we put cameras on vehicles/aircraft, we'll often use vibration isolaton mounts (typically between the arm and the gimbal the camera is on) which are just a set of parallel plates with curved steel cables linking the plates to each other. The number and gauge of the cables is (roughly) calculated based on the payload. This does an excellent job filtering out higher frequency vibrations (the gimbals can handle the big moves) and removes shake or "jello" (rolling shutter artifacts from vibration). I'm pretty sure these were adapted from other industries so you might already be aware, but thought it might help.

Love the channel and the dedication to capturing your work at high fidelity. The hard work is not unnoticed or unappreciated!

[bigmuz_pilot]

My man I would watch a video of you mowing the lawn or loading a dishwasher. Your process is incredible.

[toteu]

I like the subtle blondie hacks reference "chamfer cause we have opposable thumbs"

[frankcarter]

I wonder how many of my favorite YouTubers would love one of these!

[tonyhunt]

That Deckel grinder copy is nice. We thread milled mold cores, cuz the end becomes the start of the molded thread. Also the nice finish. The saddle grinder did well. Congrats !

[ShadonHKW]

Best line of the show "This is something you will NOT be seeing on the channel" 🎥

[kurtu]

I have been watching manual machining channels for several years now and thread milling is a new one to me. Looks right popular for CNC machines, but CNC isn't interesting to watch for more than several years.

[SuperJaXXas]

Love it! I use a Big Boy mount to hold a heavily modified 1 gallon plastic bucket up close to the chuck to control the chips.

[LordPhobos]

I *would* like to see it in future videos - would love to see a follow up on how this might be set up on a lathe or mill, so we can see how you can work the lathe, see what you're doing, and the camera can see the action without getting in the way 🙂❤

[kirkswater]

One of the absolute best instructional videos I’ve seen! Looking forward to all your videos. Thanks James for taking such great care!

[MattysWorkshop]

Gday James, one day I’ll own a noga arm, sadly I’ll have to wait till I win the lotto, the camera mount turned out great, I don’t think there’s any fear of the falling off, brilliant job, cheers

[ellieprice]

New subscriber here. I’ve known about thread milling for many years but never saw it done before. Thanks for showing all the operations on the camera mount. That big Noga looks like a brute.

[kendesign]

Some gun blue would keep it from rusting and make it look like part of the factory Noga tool. The "thread mill" on your lathe clearly shows how incredible your ELS really is. Nice job James 👍

[billwessels]

Once again, a very pleasant, thoughtful video inclusive of innovative ideas, eg. threading with the tool post grinder. Thank you, Sir!

[CraigHollabaugh]

Its not fair, making your own rig gear while the rest of suffer with retail. Great project, glad you made a solid solution to an age old problem.

[AdrianTechWizard]

Love it, can't buy something that solid!

[tomgburklin]

I love watching good machine tools being used. Very good video, i learned a couple things i will add to my tool kit.

[kathleenfoster]

Bruce here, this is why I love machining you had a need developed a plan took a piece of steel and made that cool looking part.

[arigan-]

hello james!I've been watching your channel for a long time and I like your approach to work.And I'm thrilled about the humor.make more videos with a humorous slant.Good luck with the projects.Hello from Russia

[minskmade]

i actually ordered a smaller noga arm from amazon and they sent me the big boy...i notified them..they told me to keep it and not send back...i always thought of makig it a camera arm....great video...thanks james...