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THE PROJECT VEST
Author's Note: I built this vest back in 2000 for my undergraduate mechanical engineering senior project. It was part of a Steadicam type stabilization system that included a sled and an articulated support arm. All three were built at home and at the university's machine shop. I've since graduated and now spend my days designing stuff for airplanes.
Click any picture for a larger version.
The vest is basically a copy of the Master Vest, except for the top two locking mechanisms. I have no experience with Steadicam vests, so I wouldn't even know where to start with a new design.
The pads are made from 1/2" closed cell foam covered with a cotton/polyester cloth. Cordura would have been better, but that stuff is hard to track down. Each pad consists of foam covered by two pieces of fabric. One fabric piece is sewn with velcro, inverted and placed on top of the other fabric piece. The foam is then placed on top and used as a template to sew the two pieces together, but leaving a 4" opening. The fabric is then turned inside out, the foam stuffed inside, and the 4" opening closed up. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to illustrate.
The vest is completely no tools, thanks to the dovetail center plate. The two top knobs push against the underlying metal, which forces the mating dovetail sections to push against each other. A pretty good amount of locking pressure can be applied with this type of wedge action, but an inherent flaw in my design is that the underlying metal becomes marred by the knob's threaded stud. The bridgeplate uses this same wedge action but I used two locking knobs instead of the single one on the Master Vest. Those T-shaped knobs on the bridgeplate and the socket block are known by the brand name Shear-Loc. They're plastic thumbscrews made by pressing the Shear-Loc knob onto the head of any ordinary socket head cap screw. The female socket block is a reverse-engineered version of the real one. It works the same way, but the dimensions and tolerances are not the same.
The plastic lower shell is some type of polyester plastic. It's only 1/16" thick and white was the only color they had. The center plate is attached to the plastic with 10-32 screws and nuts. The padding is attached to the plastic with velcro.
The webbing straps were obtained from military surplus. The guy who sold them to me loved to brag that "You can pull a tank with this stuff!" Impressive, but the velcro will obviously fail well before any type of webbing does.
Also, below are some pictures of the sled, gimbal and support arm.
©2000 Tim Le