Rebuilding a Deardorff 11x14 Studio Stand

**Tin Can** · 6-Feb-2021, 09:07

Threaded

I replaced my chains adding turnbuckles

The chains are not load bearing, the cables are, with dubious threaded screws into heavy lead weights

If that connection, cable to lead weight fails you will regret it

Most likely you will need to disassemble the stand into large heavy parts, to get it into a basement. Then check all for safety

I wrote up how to disassemble and reassemble in several threads, I don't have them to hand

If you find the pipes are too tall. they can be cut down, then shorten the cables and chains to match

Mine were 13 ft tall, now 90" tall and I can touch the 11 ft ceiling, which is needed to shoot looking down

**Tin Can** · 6-Feb-2021, 09:31

Variations are common

This works perfectly

IMG_0127(Edited) by TIN CAN COLLEGE, on Flickr

Originally Posted by Dustyman

I would think that there would have to be a nut to secure it from underneath. Otherwise you’d be twisting the chain threading into the base.

**Dustyman** · 6-Feb-2021, 09:34

Ah, good advice.
Perhaps I can add a jaw/threaded turnbuckle to the bottom of the existing chain.
That should do it.

Originally Posted by Tin Can

Threaded

I replaced my chains adding turnbuckles

The chains are not load bearing, the cables are, with dubious threaded screws into heavy lead weights

If that connection, cable to lead weight fails you will regret it

Most likely you will need to disassemble the stand into large heavy parts, to get it into a basement. Then check all for safety

I wrote up how to disassemble and reassemble in several threads, I don't have them to hand

If you find the pipes are too tall. they can be cut down, then shorten the cables and chains to match

Mine were 13 ft tall, now 90" tall and I can touch the 11 ft ceiling, which is needed to shoot looking down

**Dustyman** · 6-Feb-2021, 09:35

Nice solution!

Originally Posted by Tin Can

Variations are common

This works perfectly

IMG_0127(Edited) by TIN CAN COLLEGE, on Flickr

**joshuawhite** · 6-Feb-2021, 17:25

Yours looks different from the one pictured in the reply, and from mine (which is the same as the one pictured, so perhaps you will be lucky and can slip a bolt under that raised part?

When you take it apart, make sure you mark which post comes off which side. Mine fit perfectly, and I got them backward. Doesn't make a ton of difference, but the chains get tight at the bottom because the anchor point is further to the side than it should be. Not an issue unless you take the camera all the way to the ground.

Still selling my camera and stand, BTW!

**Duolab123** · 6-Feb-2021, 19:47

To Tin Can's point about the lead weights, if you stand it up make sure the lead weights don't slide, you can break the cast aluminum attachment points, then as has been said you will be glum.

**Harold_4074** · 6-Feb-2021, 19:51

Dustyman: Tin Can's fix looks perfectly sound to me. His stand and mine are the same configuration, with a threaded hole for the clevis bolt to screw into. I believe that yours is a different base casting. The part that the chain attaches to looks to be held on by the column bolts, and if so you can remove one and loosen the other (the other two bolts will hold he flange in place) and install an eyebolt. A clean fix would be to install a turnbuckle, replacing the right-hand threaded eyebolt or hook with a machine screw coming up from underneath.

From the picture, the clevis bolt on the other side of yours is a good bit longer than the loose one, suggesting that you have a broken bolt. How that would happen, I can't imagine.

If that connection, cable to lead weight fails you will regret it
Tin Can is quite correct. My stand was "refurbished" by a certain individual in Tennessee, who had noticed that the screw eyes in the tops of the lead weights were wobbly, and so applied some epoxy around the junctures of lag screw threads and lead. They survived a trip to California tilted over in a rented pickup truck. A few seconds after we stood the thing upright, there was a "whoosh" followed by a tremendous "bang" when the weight hit the bed of the truck. Up to that point, the truck had looked "showroom new". Did I mention that he had rented it?

Before moving the stand indoors, I took out both lag screws, drilled the lead to take threaded inserts, and put in 3/8-16 eyebolts.

Oh, and by the way---don't give the columns Rustoleum primer followed by silver-gray paint. It looks great, but it's going to be a job getting it off so that the carriage won't stick when it has been sitting for a while!

**Dustyman** · 7-Feb-2021, 14:22

Thanks for all the replies thus far. Here are more pictures of the stand. Should be delivered next week some time. Any comments or observations appreciated.
More pictures to follow.