This is my first attempt at a boom. I'm not entirely happy with it, so I'll consider it a prototype. I have about $40 in it including hinges and lights.
Each arm is a lamination of a piece of soft pine and 2 sheets of 1/4" plywood. The pine was very light so the holes saved barely any weight.
All clamped up
I mortised the inner arm into a piece of 1.75" hard maple and shaped it to clear the hinges
The hinge system should theoretically give a 180° swing
I mounted 24" LED lights to the bottom of it and ran the vac hose over the top
The two pieces are hinged in the middle with an extended length of 5'. For work at the workbench I can run the hose through just the inner arm. Eventually there will be a vise at the end of the workbench and the vac hose can be run through the fully-extended arm to do any work down there.
Lessons learned:
Each arm is a lamination of a piece of soft pine and 2 sheets of 1/4" plywood. The pine was very light so the holes saved barely any weight.
All clamped up
I mortised the inner arm into a piece of 1.75" hard maple and shaped it to clear the hinges
The hinge system should theoretically give a 180° swing
I mounted 24" LED lights to the bottom of it and ran the vac hose over the top
The two pieces are hinged in the middle with an extended length of 5'. For work at the workbench I can run the hose through just the inner arm. Eventually there will be a vise at the end of the workbench and the vac hose can be run through the fully-extended arm to do any work down there.
Lessons learned:
- I have to get up on a step ladder to feed the hose through the tubes which defeats some of the convenience the boom is supposed to provide. Next time I'll run it under the arm.
- The laminated arm assembly was unnecessarily complex to make, particularly the tail piece. Boom 2.0 will simply be 1/2' birch plywood with strips of maple on the top and bottom to create an I-beam. It should be lighter and just as strong.
- Putting the lights on the boom seemed like a good idea at the time, but I think I'll just mount them on the ceiling.