JIMMY JIB

REFURBS

Constant rigging, derigging, rain, snow, mud and not to mention hitting the lighting grid (yep we've all done it) all have an impact. We set out to smarten up the jib world, one jib at a time with a full service refurb. This means new powder coat, bearings, modifications, machining work, you name it, we really can do it all. Below are the services and mods we offer.....

Jimmy jibs get a tough time out in the field.

POWDERCOAT SERVICES

We've developed a fine textured matt black powdercoat that will make your jib look like new again. It's durable and has very low light reflectance. The old flaky paint is chemically stripped (not media blasted) and the jib tubes visually inspected. Dinks, dents and damage are assessed and repaired where possible. A nice thick coat of powder is then applied in a really cool electrostatic process and the whole thing is then baked at 180deg c. The jib tubes are reassmebled with nice new high tensile bolts. Fulcrum and nose sections always get new standard size bearings.

FULCRUM & NOSE PIVOT

Heavy wear to the main fulcrum and nose pivot pins is a big problem, seen on every jib we've refurbished (see pic). This is because the pins are aluminium and the bearings are stainless steel. As the bearings chew through the aluminium the result is excess movement in the fulcrum and nose making it all wobbly. Open up your jib fulcrum (if you dare) and you will definitely find this problem (unless its one of our refurbs that is). We have replaced over 46 of these pins with a custom design made from 316 Stainless Steel. Super tough, super durable, fit and forget. Often installed with a full refurb. Also available is the BadBoy bearing upgrade...

HOTHEAD TILT PIVOT

One of our lovely customers discovered wobble in the hothead tilt axis. So we took the head to bits and discovered the same wear problem that the fulcrum pins suffer. Steel bearings chewing up the surface of the pin. So we looked at our nose pin desing and adapted it to work in the hot head. Made from 316 Stainless and fitted with new bearings the wobble has gone. Hooray.

HOT HEAD LEVER

Fed up of getting the tools out to make small adjustments to the hot head horizon we've sourced these metal levers that a are a direct replacement for whatever you're using. Imperial thread with a repositionable handle, all made of strong metal.

These levers also fit the wheel brakes for both the 3 and 4 wheel OE bases.

BAD BOY BEARING UPGRADE

The main fulcrum is fitted with weedy little 1/2" bearings. That means a built jib could be loading those little things with 300kg +. This quickly causes wear to the aluminium pivot pins (see above). Even worse when rusted and seized. Solution, upgrade to our stainless pivot pin. The ultimate is to combine that with our badass 1" bearing upgrade. This spreads the load over a much bigger area. Ideally done before powdercoat as a bit of surgery is required first.

PAN PLATE UPGRADE

A major wear problem is in the pan plate assembly. A steel thrust bearing runs between two soft aluminium plates. Under constant load the soft surfaces get badly chewed up, a furrow is dug and eventually it seizes. See pic. This potentially means, err, well, no more pan...

To fix it we very carefully machine your original pan assembly to accept Japanese Blade Steel thrust plates for a shiny new bearing to run on and fit a new bearing. Wear is eliminated and you'll be a smooth operator once more.

jib strut eyebolt reinforcing disc plate

STRUT BOLT REINFORCING DISC

Jimmy Jibs over 9 feet reach use a strut cable to support the arm. It attaches to an eyebolt which is fitted to the tail and front sections of a jib. These holes wear badly in the soft aluminium of a jib tube. To fix it we manufacture 5mm thick 316 Stainless steel, (strong and rust free) reinforcing discs to stop the wear and spread the load. They are powdercoated to match your jib. Ideally fitted during powedercoat work to the tail, nose and section 5 of your jib as drilling is required.

JIB CASE WHEEL KIT

Let's face it the original case wheels are rubbish. We got so fed up with them that we designed our own. One of our most popular upgrades, they are made from rust proof 304 stainless steel and run ball raced wheels which are replaceable. The cases now speed along with ease.

Two versions are available, 70mm (2" 3/4) diameter wheel and 75mm (2" 15/16) diameter wheel. Both are great and fit within the case recess, bigger wheels roll better on rough road. Now upgraded to black wheels.

jib case wheel kit upgrade stainless steel axle

JOYSTIX

Replacement joystix, beautifully turned on a CNC lathe from Acetal, an engineering polymer. Super tough, smooth exterior, textured and dished interior and a perfect fit to your existing short joystick topper. These are easy things to lose so why not buy a few spares to keep in your kit box. Choose from thumb pad, long stix, short stix, or the latest rebated long stix. New profiled version to fit and grip your digit to avoid slipping off shot. These simply press over your existing knurled joystick top. Available from stock now. We're also making the joystix to topper adaptor (the tiny irritating bit that fits directly on the OE joystick shaft). Will update when available.

TRIPOD SAFETY COLLARS

We think that the the OE tripod collars are made from cheese. They easily split from overtightening so can't effectively clamp the tripod legs. I've seen some horrors on set, can't imagine how they got past the risk assessment! So we looked at the collar, worked out why the OE fail and redesigned them (see comparison pic). Now they are proper 'badass' as our jib mates across the pond would say. Machined from solid billet aluminium on a cnc machine, super sized, anodized in eye catching red and fitted with a stainless UNC bolt. These are the monster clamps you've been waiting for. Not cheap but oh so pretty. Limited quantity in stock now.

WEIGHT BAR MOD

We get asked for this a lot. The weight bar mod has many versions all essentially doing the same job, preventing wear to the last jib tube and providing a smooth rotating weight bar. We've seen some rather feeble attempts at solving this problem so we go all out to make it better. This is a custom job and every solution is different so let us know what works for you. If you want a phosphor bronze bushing fitted ours will be of course 'badass'.

WEIGHT SPACERS 1

Ditch the bits of copper pipe, garden hose or random junk you're using to space the weight plates out, use these instead. Turned on a CNC lathe from Acetal bar stock (nope they're not bits of tubing) these 90 degree cut weight plate spacers are perfect to stop the clang or damaging your new powdercoat.

Combine with our angle cut spacers or use them to hold the joystick and zoom demands off the weight plates.

Fit a standard 1" weight bar. (40mm (1" 9/16) long. OD 40mm)

WEIGHT SPACERS 2

These are the special jib tube profile spacers. Machined from Acetal, so theyre super tough and of course don't rust. These spacers are cut to provide a perfect fit to the jib tube profile and hold the weight plates off. They stop the plates clanging the jib tube. Combine with straight cut spacers to get a perfect setup.

Fit a standard 1" weightbar (40mm (1" 9/16 ) long x 40mm OD)

PAN BRAKE

The original pan brake is hopeless. A single point of contact on a huge disc, never going to work. So we designed a new bolt on replacement kit. Now you can have a proper brake shoe which is about 20x the braking area that actually freaking works. It's hand made from acetal polymer and held with stainless sliders so if your Assist unscrews the brake handle too far it won't fall to bits. Pics show the prototype, production model now in stock, and anodised red. Easy to self-fiit in exactly the same place as the original and you get to keep your original brake knob.

Broken case buckles? Yep, us too. The plastic OE buckles explode into tiny bits just looking at them. Fit our metal buckle kits which include new webbing and the problem is solved.

Wear and tear take their toll on steel cable so we've built custom leg safeties with stainless wire and pre-fitted with eye bolts. The eyebolts are M8 metric so if you loose a fastener they're easy to replace.