If you are thinking, “they aren’t that expensive why bother make one” save your breath and your bandwidth. This was just a fun project where the goal was to see if I could make one with what I had on hand. ;-)

I hate to add an asterisk to anything however I need to have one here.
* I did this all by hand and eye so some of the work is real rough.

Materials used, six inches of 2” PVC pipe two 8-32 x1/2” screws, four o-rings and a little flat black paint and PCV cleaner, adhesive.

Side View
http://cinebydesign.net/misc/side.jpg
Front View
http://cinebydesign.net/misc/front.jpg
Perspective View
http://cinebydesign.net/misc/perspective.jpg

I cut two pieces of the 2” PVC pipe 3/4” wide and one 3 1/2” long.
From the large piece I cut three strips about 7/8” wide and from one of those I cut a piece about an inch long.
I cleaned the PVC and glued the two 2” x3/4” rings to the long pieces to what would have been the ID of the pipe. Then I glued the second long piece to the ID of the rings sandwiching the smaller support piece centered in-between the rings.
After it dried for an hour or so I drill and tapped for a 8-32 screw up through the three layers of PCV just to reinforce the rings and drilled and tapped for 1/4”-20 in the center of the mount. I then laid out the positions for the bands, I drilled the four corners then chucked a Roto Zip bit into the drill press this is where it got rough the bit easily moved through the PVC, however it was not until the last one that I got the hang of it. Having it in a sliding vice would have resulted in better looking results. Oh well it is only a prototype. :-) A coat of flat black paint, install the o-rings and it is complete.

Bill

That looks great! I love projects like this--you're right, it's more about the joy of doing it rather than the money saved. I like it.

Where did you get the O-rings?

Thank you, and it woks too!

I got the o-rings at the local True Value Hardware store they had them in the plumbing section, 1/8” x 1 1/4” $0.50 each. All tolled I think it was under $5 to make, where can you have that much fun for $5? :-)

Bill

i did something similar to that, but i used one of those "T" looking PVC pipes and an end cap for the bottom hole. just took the dremmel tool and made some notched at both ends, used rubber bands. then for the bottom i slid in the end cap (or plug), and screwed a mic clip to it. then i got a paint roller, took the metal part off so i just have the plastic handle. took a metal piece of pipe (about 1/2" dia.) drilled two different holes in it. the pipe is 3" long. one hole is used to run a bolt to the handle, then the other you mount to the mic clip. now go get yourself a 7ft-14ft paint roller extension tube for 20$ and you got your self a nice little getup. i run some corregated cable through the inside of my extension tube to plug in the mice. you could also run it on the outside as well.