Project: Soft Box Mount

Helping to build my home studio, my mom gave me a Neewer 250 Watt strobe for my birthday and I want to attach a Loadstone Studio Ultimate Soften Light Soft Box to it.

The only problem is that the strobe has a non-standard mount...or maybe I just don't know the standard.  I guess that's what happens when you buy online without real knowledge.  Also, my soft boxes are designed to fit around a custom quad light socket mount.  The strobe has an outer diameter of 3 3/4" and the soft box base has a diameter of 6 1/4" with four post holes.

The Novatron N7301 Universal Speedring would be perfect for the job, so I bought it.  Unfortunately, The ePhoto Universal Speed Ring arrived instead, labelled as the N7301.  Amazon's customer service is pretty amazing though (again ranked #1) so I'll return it.

This leaves a whole in my studio.  I wasn't able to find another brand and I can't trust that I'll receive what I order next time, so to Home Depot I go!

They carry a 2"-4" bushing for PVC pipe:

A 4"-6" bushing would be perfect, I could just screw holes for the soft box rods and add some tensioning screws, but Home Depot doesn't carry that size.  Amazon does, but it costs $22 plus shipping, which is more than the N7301.

So back to Home Depot!

Here's what I bought for just under $20:

• A 7" light reflector (which fits on the back of some random light)
• Four 3/8" coupler nuts
• Some copper attachments used to secure piping
• Weather stripping

Here is it partially assembled.  I lined the interior with weather stripping and drilled eight holes using a hand drill.  You can see a tiny piece of weather shipping sitting on the right side of the ring where the next coupling nut will go.  I use this to keep the nut from slipping and to provide a little lift since the metal ring is slightly curved and I want the nuts to be square.  Plus, I had a lot of extra stripping left over.

Beware!  Drilling metal is not like drilling wood.  It's not sufficient to hold onto the part with your bare hand (and it's dangerous to use gloves with a drill, since catching a glove will cost you more than a little bit of skin).  If the drill bit catches the metal ring at 2000RPM, in a battle between your hand and the metal disk, it's not hard to guess who would win.  I'm glad I used my foot and proper shoes to hold down the piece as the metal did catch once after drilling my first hole - I lifted my foot before the drill bit stopped completely.  Bad move.

Also, use protective eye ware.  Metal chips are not your friend.

Here is the unit fully assembled and sitting atop one of my strobes.  It's not as pretty as it could be since I ran out of small screws.  To a keen reader, you'll notice that I'm also using my tripod-to-light stand tip adapter.

And finally, here is the unit assembled on my birthday light with the soft box inserted.

And for a little fun, here is the soft box I built quickly for my first test shoot that the new unit is replacing.  It worked okay, but kept falling down under its own weight.  I expect this new one to work much better.