DIY Strobe Clamp

I'm kinda' a DIY sorta' guy, and so I really enjoy building my own sorts of lighting devices, clamping/mounting systems, along with doing some basic electronic modifications. All of this is quite in line with the whole Strobist way of thinking and working, and I've been meaning to post some of my DIY builds onto Flickr for some time. What you see above is a simple lil' device that's turned out to be amazingly handy for me -- insanely handy at times -- and It's also pretty dang' cheap to build (about $2.20). Five of these suckers in the kit bag costs less than a pound of (good) coffee.

 

Basically, what I have here is a clamp that's strong enough to hold some fairly heavy lighting gear, and a long enough spud sticking out of the clamp so that an umbrella stand/hot shoe mount can be screwed down onto it. I regularly mount my small Chimera Soft Box onto this clamp, a Photoflex hot shoe mount, a Vivitar 285 (with either E-bay trigger or Pocket Wizard), etc, etc...

 

All of the parts for this (or very similar parts) can be found at Home Depot, Lowe's, Ace Hardware, whatever... You might have to do a bit of poking around in order to find the most important part of this set-up (the "coupling nut"), though you'll likely discover all sorts of other fun and interesting stuff while wandering around. Here's the full parts and price list:

 

Home Depot "Greenie" Clamp -- $.99

One inch long, 5/16th Coupling Nut -- $.80

One-and-a-quarter inch, 5/16th-20 bolt -- $.24

**Note** I was just e-mailed and told that a 5/16th bolt has an "18 thread, not a 20."

Two Flat Washers -- $.12

One Split Washer (a/k/a: "locking washer") - $.05

 

Construction of this should be fairly obvious once you have all the parts together, though some drilling (with a 5/16th bit) will be necessary in order to get the bolt through the handle of the clamp.

 

All in all, this is quite similar to a clamping device that Mr. Strobist (David Hobby) used in his "Speed Lighting a Gym" tutorial, though I do think that the use of the coupling nut is a bit of an improvement. The hexagonal design of the nut keeps any sort of object that's mounted onto the clamp from shifting or spinning around.

 

Here's a link to Strobist's "Speedlighting a Gym" article:

 

strobist.blogspot.com/2007/02/on-assignment-speedlighting...

 

Myself, I've included some real world examples of the clamp in use along with this posting. Just click through the slideshow for the next two images.

 

*****************December 10th -- A Quick Heads Up*****************

 

For those of you who have an interest in some of the other DIY gear that I've been working on, I have a very brief posting on my blog (doesn't everyone have a blog these days?) in which I show a really crappy photo of a new strobe mount that I've just built -- a flexible strobe mount with a big clamp at one end of the arm. If the "click link" above doesn't work, here's how to find my blog:

 

www.theglobalphotographer.blogspot.com

 

I'll end up writing quite a bit more material about the flexible strobe mount in just a few more days -- still doing a shakedown cruise with it -- for the moment, what I have up on the blog is sorta' a sneak preview

 

Matt

 

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Done