Guitar Stand

This is the guitar stand that I made using red oak.   I steamed the curved parts at 180F for about 2 hours after pre-soaking the pieces in a home made PVC steam box.     Once I removed the pieces from the steam box I had about 10 minutes to get the piece into the mold and clamp it tight.   Quite a learning experience.    After some pre-assembly using mortise and tenon joints, I sealed the grain of the wood, then stained the stand using an aniline dye that I mixed myself.   I then rubbed in three coats of a varnish.

DIY Beauty Dish 2

After a few weeks of work here is my version of the beauty disk described in a previous post.    I used a metal salad bowl found at Value Village for $3.00 and a the lid from a candy tin from Goodwill for $1.00.    The bracket  I found on e-bay for $29.99.    I pretty much followed the instructions with the exception that I used a metal reflective tape on the backside of the reflector that is directly in front of the flash.   Below is the first photograph I took using the new beauty dish held off to the right of the subjects.

DIY Beauty Dish

So I really wanted to make my own beauty dish being that I don't really want to pay for something that I think I can make.    This is by far the best quality and design of all the DIY plans that I found.   The only issue with this is the price of the bracket.   If you don't just have one laying around, expect to pay about $75.00 for the Lastolite at B&H Photo.   You can find a similar analog on Ebay for about $30.00.   So overall you will end up spending about any where from $50.00 to  $100.00 for this setup.   But what you end up with directly competes with the professional consumer versions out there at just over $350.00.    For more detailed instructions for this DIY project, you can visit Todd OwYoung's web site at; www.ishootshows.com.