This wobble thing has been driving me nuts, X-chocks helped, having more timber under the jacks also helped, (I still need more), folks with tripods have mixed feelings if they help or not, some have cross braces, etc.
I noticed that when I push sideways on the front corner of my rig there is quite a bit of movement and looking at the front legs, the legs move inside the tubes they come out of, I guess the commercial crossbraces deal with this.
I kept the two interior "slide" braces that came with the rig, have never used them, I figure if the slide is ever going to come out whilst driving the wooden trim is not going to hold it anyway. If you don't agree then substitute the braces for two pieces of suitable lumber. So I modified them very simply to make a long enough cross brace, it takes 10 minutes, and when in place it stops the sideways movement almost completely. See pics below.
Here is what I did. Unscrew the pivot flanges out of the thicker tube from both braces. See pic 3. Drill out the rivet or file the head off the rivet on one of the flanges so that the threaded bar can be detached. Use this threaded bar to join the two thicker tubes together, half of the bar in each tube and tighten them against each other. Slide the thinner tubes using the spring loaded locking pins to get the approximate diagonal length between top and bottom of the two legs, use the threaded ends to get a reasonably snug fit and as high and low as possible. The bottom pivot flange sits against the leg just above the shoe and the upper pivot flange rests against the outer tube of the leg. When in position bang the top part of the brace downwards with your hand/fist to make a tight fit. All done, now see what a difference it makes!
Just a note, The new brace has to be banged down into position the brace cannot be twisted against the flanges like it was first intended because this mod leaves two equal and not opposing threads on each end. There may be a solution to this, any ideas?
One state/province at a time!
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