ProAim matte box on Aaton LTR-54

This is my first post here. I hope I have the right forum.

I finally bought a matte box for my Aaton LTR-54. I ended up getting one from ProAim in India. First the good news:

I like the construction. We used a Chrosziel one in the (now closed) studio I was involved with, and the ProAim compares favourably. I'm also happy that I received it just six days after ordering.

Now the bad news: The ProAim matte box came with a rod support system geared toward video cameras. But I have rods I bought from Visual Products that are more like OEM units. When I tried to mount the matte box on my camera, I found that it sat 1 cm too high -- and there's no height adjustment except on the ProAim rod system.

The mounting block (with the holes for the 15 mm rods) has two arms that attach to the matte box. The right one is integral to the block, and the left one is a flat piece of aluminum held onto the block by two screws. The integral arm is dovetailed to accept the sliding bracket that attaches to the hood. The left-hand attachment is a threaded stand-off that butts against the left-hand arm. Upon inspection, I saw that the integral (right-side) arm is 1 cm thick. This gave me an idea.

I moved the bracket from the top of the arm to the bottom of it. Now the matte box was centered on the lens. Only, the left side of the matte box was unsupported. Here's what I did:

From the hardware store I obtained a length of 1/8" x 1/2" aluminum bar stock; a #3 metric screw, lock washer, and nut; a #3 metric screw that was longer than the one that went through the left-hand arm and into the threaded stant-off tube; and a nylon spacer.
  • I cut off a piece of the aluminum bar stock about an inch long, and drilled two holes in it 1 cm apart that are large enough to accept the screws. I would have liked to make an elegant oval, but I don't have the tools. Instead, I rounded off the corners and sanded all of the edges so that it's smooth.
  • The long #3 screw was too long, so I put the nut on it and cut a bit off. Removing the nut restored the threads.
  • I attached my little 'offset plate' to the back side of the left-hand arm, using the shorter #3 screw, the lock washer, and the nut.
  • I cut off about 2 mm of the nylon spacer. (I didn't measure it; just put it against the arm and marked the spot.)
  • Finally, I put my shortened (but still longer than the original) #3 screw though the plate, through the slice of nylon spacer, and into the original threaded stand-off spacer.
It could stand a shot of black spray paint; but the matte box is now securely attached to the rod mounting block, and at the correct height above the Visual Products rods.

Now if only I had a project to work on...
 
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