Following these step-by-step instructions I made my own homemade dolly, I made a few changes to it, to fit my camera and tripod better. Here are a few shots of what my finished dolly looks like:

Here is the front of the dolly:

This is what the back looks like:

Heres a close up of the wheels.

Here is a close up of the pipe-to-wood screw:

Heres a rough build of what the pipe will look like (this is still all in beta form):

We used old Rollerblade wheels for the wheels of the dolly, angle iron for connecting the wheels to the 2×4′s and then used a piece of plywood for the top part of the dolly.

The hole on top is so that the dolly doesn’t weigh to much and so that it is easier to carry around. The top of the dolly  is about 36×36, so that it could fit my tripod at its fully extended length. Also, we didn’t want to make the hole on top any larger, so that way I could use my tripod at all the lengths (from tall to small).

The piping is 2 inch PVC pipe. About $5-10 for 10 ft. at your local hardware store. I bought the thicker kind of PVC because I thought it would hold the dolly up better. In the pictures above I used some old PVC I had laying around, its about 6 ft in length. When I go to get more, I will buy 2 ten foot pieces, and cut them into more reasonable 5ft sections with a table saw. As you can see in the example above the piping is connected via wood underneath by a screw going through the top. The reason this works is because the wheels are at a 45 degree angle and will not the touch the very top of the pipe allowing for a smooth ride.

The bottom of my dolly is is approximately 30×26 in. It works great with the 2 inch PVC. Hopefully I can get some test video up here to show you guys.

Carrying the dolly is okay with the hole, I don’t think I could do it without the hole though. The piping almost weighs nothing and is very easy to carry around in 5ft lengths. Another great thing about the 5ft long pipe, is that it allows for a smaller vehicle to carry your dolly, if you don’t have an SUV or a van. This makes transportation much easier.

Another thing I am going to do when I buy more pipe is I am going to curve the PVC pipe by heating it with an electric blanket, and curve it so that the dolly goes around turns, unfortunately the way it is currently built you need a very wide turn and cannot make quick turns with it.

I will hopefully be posting test videos sometime next week or the week after.