{"id":2537,"date":"2025-04-18T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/?p=2537"},"modified":"2025-04-17T17:11:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T00:11:20","slug":"repairing-a-gibraltar-quick-set-pan-tilt-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/18\/repairing-a-gibraltar-quick-set-pan-tilt-head\/","title":{"rendered":"Repairing a Gibraltar Quick-Set Pan Tilt Head"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I don\u2019t recall exactly which group of equipment this Gibraltar Quick-Set pan tilt head arrived with, but I couldn\u2019t bear to just throw it away, despite the fact that it arrived with seemingly no way to mount it to a tripod, and no pan handle. I decided it would be ideal if I could make it mount to a standard Mitchell top tripod, and it definitely needed a new pan handle. In my parts stash was the base of a Worrall geared head that had been dropped and fractured on one edge, but the locating ring and castle nut assembly were still intact. Once I machined away enough of the broken portion so it was round again, I had to machine an aluminum ring to make the final diameter of the base the correct size for a Mitchell tripod mount. At the bottom of the Gibraltar head was a cast aluminum protrusion that wouldn\u2019t fit through the opening in the Worrall base, so the two pieces had to be machined so they would fit together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gibraltar-pan-tilt-head-2-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"A grid of 4 images of the process of restoring the Gibraltar pan tilt head: top left - machining the Worrall baseplate; top right - installing the Worrall baseplate on the bottom of the Gibraltar pan tilt head; bottom left - installing the Worrall baseplate on the bottom of the Gibraltar pan tilt head with the castle nut in the foreground; bottom right - finding a piece of aluminum to make a replacement rosette to hold the pan handle\" class=\"wp-image-2535\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gibraltar-pan-tilt-head-2-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gibraltar-pan-tilt-head-2-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gibraltar-pan-tilt-head-2-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gibraltar-pan-tilt-head-2-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gibraltar-pan-tilt-head-2.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Once the Gibraltar head was successfully joined with Worrall base, I machine a slot for a key and moved on to the issue of the pan handle. Cast into the side of the Gibraltar head is a pattern for a rosette that clearly once held the pan handle. Unfortunately, I didn\u2019t have the mating part of the rosette. Using a chamfering bit that had the same angle as the cast rosette, I machined a piece of aluminum bar to match the existing pattern. That done, I found a nice sturdy piece of steel tubing, bored a hole in the new rosette, polished the steel tube, and attached the new handle. Victory! Not the most elegant pan tilt head, but once again a useful piece of equipment, and more importantly not sitting in a landfill. There is still a little more work to do before this pan tilt head is ready for sale, but it is nearly done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gibraltar-pan-tilt-head-3-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"A grid of 4 images of the process of restoring the Gibraltar pan tilt head: top left - beginning the machining process for the replacement rosette; top right - machining the new rosette; bottom left - new rosette machined; bottom right - replacement rosette and pan handle installed\" class=\"wp-image-2536\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gibraltar-pan-tilt-head-3-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gibraltar-pan-tilt-head-3-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gibraltar-pan-tilt-head-3-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gibraltar-pan-tilt-head-3-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/gibraltar-pan-tilt-head-3.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t recall exactly which group of equipment this Gibraltar Quick-Set pan tilt head arrived with, but I couldn\u2019t bear to just throw it away, despite the fact that it arrived with seemingly no way to mount it to a tripod, and no pan handle. I decided it would be ideal if I could make [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[93,72],"class_list":["post-2537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camera-support","tag-pan-tilt-head","tag-tripod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2538,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions\/2538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemagear.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}