Brotherwood: Tripod Head

As I was trying to shoot the little 20 second video demonstrating how my mobile jointer base works, I ran into a situation where I really needed a tripod for my camera. I had previously seen this one on woodgears.ca, and I'd like to end up with something like that eventually. But for now, I decided just to build the head of that tripod design, and mount it on a smaller temporary base.

To start, I made the bent rod from Matthias's design. In his description, he said he made it out of 3/16 inch rod, but it looked more like 3/8 inch in his pictures to me. In any case, I did make mine out of some 3/16 rod. I cut it out of a shelf bracket that was made to be hung from pegboard. It already had the 90 degree bend in it, so all I had to do was cut it out and use it.

I made a small cube block that rotates on that rod and also serves to mount the camera mounting block. This is just a cube of red oak with a hole bored through it for the rod to go through, and then a slot cut in to allow the block to flex when a bolt is tightened which locks it to the rod.

This same bolt also mounts a couple of metal brackets which attach the camera mounting block. I made these brackets out of a bent metal bracket I had on hand. I heated it and beat it flat, then cut it to rough shape and ground it to final shape with the belt sander.

The camera mounting block is a piece of scrap poplar I had on hand. It has holes bored in to allow mounting bolts to attach the metal brackets I made, and another hole to allow a camera mounting screw to pass through.

The mounting screw is cut from a 1/4 inch bold I had on hand, and the end of it is pounded flat. Then it is glued into a slot cut in a piece of dowel to give better grip.