Shapelock iPhone 4 tripod mount
Sometimes you come across something so cool that you have to post about it, whether it’s directly related to music or not! This is just one of those times.
Last Tuesday I made a quick overnight trip to see my good friend Steve Cooley perform a live set with his musical compatriots Haptic Synapses. Hanging out with him the next day he showed me an amazing fast-prototyping material called Shapelock. It starts out as little plastic beads, but once heated in water to at least 150 degrees you can mold the pieces into just about anything you want as long as you can do it before the plastic cools off to much. As he was showing me the Shapelock I knew immediately what I wanted to try, and it only took me two days of being home before I couldn’t wait any longer.
Back in December I neeed to shoot some video for Steve, and the only device at my disposal was my iPhone 4, with no way to mount it to a tripod. Ultimately I would like to get an Owle Bubo, but until I have a spare $160 laying around, I knew that I needed to be a bit more creative.
The first four photos below show what I came up with; a custom cut cardboard mount made from a USPS Priority Mail box I had. It did the job in a completely inelegant fashion, especially after using blue masking tape to help anchor it to my tripod foot.
The second group of photos show various construction points of the Shapelock version. The best shot here is of the heated Shapelock molded over the tripod foot. You can see that when it is heated properly the Shapelock is clear. As it cools it becomes more opaque and loses it’s ability to be molded. I used a small candle lighting torch to reheat small areas, and kept a bowl of hot water nearby for reheating larger pieces.
The third and fourth groups show the completed piece, first without the iPhone, and then with the iPhone with my mic adapter. One unanticipated bonus happened when I molded the base that sits on the foot. My tripod foot has a standard mount screw so I added material on top of the base to to give the screw more to sit in. Once the base had cooled I went to remove it, but I had to unscrew the foot! Yes, the Shapelock even molded around the screw threads, mostly. I’m sure that the molded threads will strip out rather easily, but until that happens the mount has a very secure fit to the foot.
I ended up using nine pieces that I molded together, and since this was my first time working with the material, it’s very rough looking, and obviously overbuilt in some areas. I probably spent around 3 hours working on this project. It’s still not a terribly elegant or attractive solution, but it is better than the cardboard version. The best part though is that if I decide to redo it, I can just melt the whole thing down and start over!
View from My Eyes
