How to Make a 3 in 1 Tripod

Hello everyone, glad to see you guys again. This time I have come up with a 3 in 1 tripod project, which resembles those one in the commercial market. I have also added some other functions to make it more interesting and unique.

I did have some idea of making the tripod at the beginning and refereed some instructables projects to get some practical ideas on it. I'm mentioning those links below. Along with these, I also refereed some commercial tripod designs to get more idea about the design work.

1) https://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Tripod/

2) https://www.instructables.com/id/PVC-Selfie-Stick-...

3) https://www.instructables.com/id/Dual-tripod-with...

I’m also participating in the Remix contest and if you find this project interesting, then please support my work by voting for me.

I believe this multipurpose tripod is a good upgrade and a remixed version of a normal DIY tripod. Coming up with a feasible design and a build plan for this 3 in 1 tripod project was very interesting and challenging for me and I'm glad that it turned out well. Since my design doesn't involve any 3D printing, any one with few hand tools could build this project without further setup. Also everything is designed mostly with PVC fittings and thus the build cost is very low. I also really wish to make a 3D printed version of this project, but unfortunately I don't have one. So if any one is attempting it, please let me know and I'll be very glad to hear that.

Before we start I would like to take a moment to give you an overview about the projects. What I have made is a portable multipurpose tripod for smartphones. The overall design is similar to those seen in the market but there is much more to the story. This one could serves as a tripod, a selfie stick and a car phone holder, thus the name 3 in 1 tripod. Further, the tripod legs are fixed in a particular arrangement so that by twisting the upper body, the legs would arise and transform into the tripod. The idea behind implementing such a design was to provide a much sturdy leg base. As we could see in the conventional ones, the legs have a single hinge support which could be unfolded by hands to form the tripod setup. This may however have a tendency to collapse during use. Since in my design the legs could be only unfolded by the twist mechanism, the legs don’t collapse under any other circumstances. Implementing such a design into the tripod was a bit daunting but at last I came up with a good solution.

The car phone mount feature could fix the phone on the car air vent and this would be helpful for the usual needs like map navigation and all. Further the car mount could be coupled with the selfie stick setup so that the phone could be fixed at different highests & positions. This opens a more possibilities for vlogging, and videography inside the car.

I have also made a Bluetooth camera shutter wristband so that it could be either strapped on to the tripod body or to the hand wrist. This makes it easier to operate the camera from a distance without any trouble. So I hope this would give you a brief idea about the project.

I have also put extra effort for making the tripod to look good in both proportionate & aesthetic way. For those who are trying to attempt this project, I would suggest you to stick with my dimensions or a proportionate value.

Along the way I’ll be mentioning things like 0.5 inch pipe 0.75 inch sockets and all. So just to make it clear for everyone, the measurement in inches would be the diameter of that section. It’s the standard way of naming a PVC section. Also I’ll be mentioning the length of the sections in cm. So just don’t confuse between these two. Being that said, let’s get into the details.

As you can see from the picture, the legs are made from cutting a PVC pipe into 3 equal pieces. The pipe have a diameter of 1.5 inch and a length of 10cm. In order to cut the pipe into 3 equal pieces, I first measured the circumference of the pipe with a paper strip. Using a ruler the length was founded out (12.8cm), which in turn is the actual circumferential length of the pipe. So in order to mark 3 equal sections on the pipe, a strip having one third of this length (12.8/3=4.2cm) is cut out. This cut out could be now placed on the pipe to mark the 3 equal sections. Then using a hack saw the sections are cut out into 3 equal pieces. It goes without saying that the edges are sanded after cutting.

Another important aspect to consider while choosing the PVC pipe is to use the one with minimum wall thickness. The pipe that I used have a thickness about 2.1mm. On a later stage we are adding some layers of cloth over the legs for aesthetic looks. So it will automatically add up the thickness and thus it’s better to use the pipe having minimum thickness.

Next step is to make the hinge support which connects these legs to the main body. The hinge should support the entire weight of the tripod along with the wear due to the leg movement. So going for a metal hinge would be the proper solution. Since aluminium is much easier to cut & machine than steal I preferred it more. For an electronic hobbyist like me the next thing that came into my mind is to make the hinges from an aluminium heat sink. The sections were cut accordingly as seen in the picture. Further 2 vertical & 2 horizontal holes (2.9mm hole diameter) were drilled on the heat sink. The vertical holes were used to fix the heat sink onto the legs and horizontal ones were used for the hinge support and the twist unlock mechanism for the legs. It would be explained in detail in upcoming sessions. The hinges were fixed to the 3 legs using small bolt & nuts. The holes on the legs were drilled in such a way that, a length of 1.5cm of the hinge should extends from the legs. To make things fail proof, I super glued the bolts so that it won’t come off. This completes the leg setup. While seeing the hinges it’s sure that some portion has been cut off to form a particular shape. For understanding this some other things has to be said first so, we’ll discuss about this in the later section.

The main body of the tripod is made up of a male and female threaded socket. First we’ll discuss a about the 1.25 inch female threaded socket. The legs are attached to this section using bolts but in order to accommodate the hinges, 3 slits should be cut on this section. To make this clear, the socket have a threaded end & a non-threaded end. The slits are made on the non-threaded end so that the threaded end should be facing up. Most of these sockets do come with a hexagonal design on the circumference. This makes our job super easy. Find the midpoint of the alternate hexagonal sides and cut a slit wide enough to fit the hinges and we are done. The alternate sides of the hexagon automatically sets the angle between the slits as 120 degree and no further complications. You can use a hack saw and a soldering iron to cut the slits. Then drill holes for the bolts, onto which the legs would be attached at the final stage. This completes the female socket.

Similar to the previous female socket, the male socket is also a 1.25 inch one. Since the male socket consist of few extra parts arranged inside it, it’s more time consuming to build than the female socket. Also it’s the most important part of the entire tripod because it provides the twist unfold mechanism of the tripod legs and the locking of the selfie stick extension poles.

The male socket would be coupled with the female socket (simply by tightening the threads) at the final assembly. It’s the threaded rotation of the sockets which makes the legs swing out and swing in. This mechanism of the legs opening while rotating the male threaded socket is similar to the design used in an umbrella. When we open an umbrella, a metal part sliding on the main extension pole goes up, all the spokes connected to this metal part stretches out and thus unfolds the umbrella cloth. Similarly the reverse happens while we close an umbrella. This same mechanism is adopted to unfold the tripod legs. I hope you have noticed a black PVC plunger concealed by the legs becomes visible while the legs get opened. Well this is the thing which goes up and down to unfold & fold the legs respectively. Like those spokes on an umbrella, we have 3 hook setup connecting the legs to the plunger. More details on the hooks later.

The second function of the male threaded socket is to provide the necessary grip for the PVC extension poles. Without the grip setup, the extension pole will be loosely moving through the socket and would be total useless. In order for both of functions to work additional parts has been inserted in the socket and it’s listed below.

1) The plunger head

2) The PVC grip ring

3) The concealing section

4) The washer lock plate

5) 4 bolts and nuts

Now let’s discuss each part in detail.

1) The plunger head

Like I said before, when the male threaded socket rotates on the female sockets, two type of motion occurs. One the rotating motion & second, the linear motion of the socket while rotating on the thread. However we only need the liner motion for the leg mechanism and should totally arrest the rotation motion. This is where the plunger head (made up of PVC fittings) comes into play. It is free to rotate inside the male socket and thus the rotation motion from the male socket is not transferred to the plunger and instead only the linear motion of the socket turning through the thread is transferred to the plunger. In short when the male socket is tightened, the plunger moves down and if it’s loosened then the plunger goes upwards.

This plunger system has two separate parts. One is within the male socket called the plunger head and the other outside the male socket called the plunger body. Let’s focus on the plunger head now.

The plunger head is made by joining a 3/4 inch PVC pipe on a 3/4 inch end cap. Both the fittings are joined by PVC solvent. Then the closed side of the end cap is cut off in such a way that only 1 cm of the end cap remains. This completes the plunger head section.

2) The PVC grip ring

As I said before, the male socket also serves the function of holding the telescopic extension poles of the selfie stick. This PVC grip ring inside the male socket deals with it. For making it, cut the junction of a 1 inch to 0.75 inch PVC reducer. This leaves us with two parts and take the 0.75 inch part. Now cut a 1 cm slit on it. Next step is the heat it with a heat gun and reduce its current diameter. Since the PVC pipe used for the telescopic extension poles are of 0.5 inch, this grip ring should be a bit smaller than the 0.5 inch so that it could firmly get a friction the surface. So the PVC ring is heated and reduced to a bit smaller diameter. But don’t overdo it since too smaller diameter ring would be tough to fit so find a sweet spot. You could reheat and tweak to the optimum diameter to your satisfaction. This finishes this section

3) The concealing section

Remember the other half of the PVC reducer from which the previous grip ring is made? Well it’s the concealing section. It encloses the male socket to form a closed structure. Now insert the previous top plunger section into the male threaded socket followed by the concealing section. We need the concealing section to align with the top portion of the male socket to make it aesthetically look good. But unfortunately the plunger section kills the space and the concealing section pops out from the male socket. So necessary cutting should be done at the bottom side of the concealing section so that it perfectly aligns with the top portion of the male socket. Now drill 4 holes on the male socket so that it extends to the top covering section placed inside. This results in 4 hole on the male socket corresponding to the 4 holes on the top covering section. We’ll insert bolts through this holes at a later stage.

Now it’s time to assemble the male socket section. Insert the top plunger section followed by the PVC grip ring and the top covering section. The grip ring is free to rotate inside this setup and the slit on it makes it easy to fix the bolts form inside. Align the ring in front of a hole and insert the bolt from inside. Then rotate the ring to align with the next hole and the process is repeated for the 3 holes. However the final bolt insertion is a bit different. Since the ring is freely rotating inside the setup, the PVC extension pipes inserted through the grip ring would be also free to rotate which is not at all acceptable. In order to arrest this rotation I used a small washer. The washer is bend on both sides with a hand plier. This is then inserted to the slit on the ring with the bolt so that it’s tightly fix the PVC ring from rotating. Once all the bolts are inserted, it’s tightened by the nuts with the help of hand pliers. The excess bolt length are cut off using a hack saw and the nuts are further secured with superglue. This finishes the male threaded socket. On the top we have a flat surface of the concealing section which encloses the grip ring and the top plunger section. On the bottom threaded side of the male socket we could see the extension from the top plunger section and this section is free to rotate within the male socket. The second part of the plunger is connected at this extension and it’s discussed in the next session.

These two parts helps in the opening and closing of the tripod legs. To be specific, the transfer the up & down motion of the plunger to the legs. First let’s discuss about the metal hook. We need three of these hooks, one for each leg. The metal rod that I have used has a thickness of 1.8mm and it’s actually the spokes of an old umbrella. Since these already comes with a waterproof treatment, we have an added benefit of preventing corrosion in future. With the help of two pliers, the metal rod is bended to form the required dimension. All the hooks are identical and you could have a better idea about the dimensions by referring the picture.

The aluminium metal parts are made from cutting three equal pieces from aluminium heat sink. A hack saw is used for this purpose. Further, two holes are drilled at the ends of each pieces. The further process with these sections are explained in upcoming steps.

As discussed in the previous step, the plunger head is enclosed within the male socket and the plunger body would be the only visible part of the plunger setup. The extension the plunger head section is a 0.75 inch PVC pipe and in order to connect to it, the plunger body should be a 0.75 inch PVC coupler. However the length of a single coupler wasn’t enough for the setup so I took a small 0.75 inch pipe and solvent fixed two coupler with it. This resulted in a longer section of approximate length of 8cm. This forms the basic structure and it’s time to modify this structure.

I hope you remember the aluminium hinges on the legs. So when the tripod legs are closed these hinges needs space to fit properly but unfortunately the 0.75 inch plunger passing through the centre of the tripod kills the space for the hinges and thus the legs can’t be fully closed. So to tackle this problem, slits have been cut on the plunger body. There is no specific dimensions for the slit and it all depends on the dimension of the hinges that you have used for the legs. One thing to note is that the plunger body goes up while opening the legs which causes the swinging motion of the legs. So some extra room for the slits should be provided so that it don’t get jammed by the hinges. Also don’t cut the slit all the way up to the top portion and instead, leave some fully circular portion at the top of the plunger body, it’s necessary for fixing the body on to the plunger head.

Now it time to move on to the next stage. Here we need to provide the arrangements for attaching the hooks (mentioned before) on to the plunger body. In the video I’m attaching the hooks just by cutting slits on the plunger body without any other measurements but actually there is more to the story.

First thing to do is to cut some guide ways on the plunger body for the hooks. In order to get find the exact position of the hooks I followed a particular method. First insert the plunger body on the plunger head extending out from the male socket. The insert this setup into the female threaded socket. Tighten the thread fully so that the male socket is fully inserted. Now the three legs are fixed using the bolts inserted through the hole in the female socket. Have a look at the picture to get the idea of what I’m talking about. Now the 3 metal hooks are inserted through the holes in the leg hinges. Once it’s done then apply some acrylic paint on the other end of the hook and fold the legs so that the hooks touches the plunger body. This paint residue on the plunger gives us the exact position of the guide ways for the plunger. Repeat the process for all the three. Once it’s done remove all parts and cut the guide ways on the plunger body. Since all the metal hook are hand bended each one differ a bit in their dimensions. So it’s better to number the hooks so that we use the same exact hook on the same guide ways & legs in the final stage of assembly. Keep in mind that we are cutting a guide way and not a slit on the plunger. Which means do not cut full way through the plunger thickness and instead stop at a position where depth of cut could accommodate the thickness of the metal hook. Next step is to fix the aluminium heat sink pieces on top of this hook arrangement so that the hook could swing in the guide ways. Simply place the aluminium pieces over the guide ways and mark the position for the holes on the plunger body. Further, drill these marked holes and things are almost done. Now fix the plunger body to the 0.75 inch pipe extension of the plunger head in the male socket. Use a PVC solvent to permanently fix these parts. We’ll attach the hook & the metal piece at the final stage of build.

It’s made from three PVC pipes each having a diameter of 0.5 inch and a length of 15cm. These pipes are commonly used for PVC conduit electrical wirings and more importantly the black colour PVC provides a good aesthetic look to the extension poles. We need to cut a longitudinal slit on two of the pipes using hack saw. One Pipe with a 1cm slit and the other one with a 2cm. The idea is to reduce the diameter of the pipe so that one could fit inside the other. First take the 1cm slit pipe and start heating it from one end using a heat gun. Since we are not heating the pipe a lot, a cloth gloves is enough to protect hands. Don’t heat the entire pipe all at once instead, heat some portion from one end and start rolling it with hand to a smaller dimension. Then heat the next portion and repeat the same up to a length of 10cm. This leaves us a 5cm unheated portion towards the other end. Similarly repeat this entire process to the 2cm slit PVC pipe. Since it has a larger slit, this pipe would be having a much lesser diameter than the previous pipe So that it could fit inside it.

So the extension poles will be having 3 PVC pipes arranged one inside the other. The inner pipe exerts force (in the form of friction) on the pipe around it and thus the pipe could be extended and retracted to any length within its limits. But how does the Pipe exerts force to the outer pipe to remain at a fixed position? Well, that’s where the 5cm region comes into play. It helps in providing the necessary friction between the outer pipe of the extension pole setup. It is this friction which holds the extension pipes in place while we adjust the pole height. The other 10cm should be heated in such a way that it barely touches the outer pipe. The 5cm friction region allows a smooth extension and retraction of the PVC poles. However if the entire pipe (15cm) becomes the friction surface then, the force needed move the pipes would be much larger and using the selfie stick would become very inconvenient. That’s the reason why we heated the pipes in such a way that only a 5cm portion comes in contact with the outer pipe. One thing to note is, overheating the pipe would result in warping of the section. So heat to a level where things haven’t gone too far. At the beginning we have set aside a pipe without a slit and this would become the outermost extension pole. The other two pipes should fit inside this pipe to form the full extension pole setup.

Expect the innermost pipe the other two were again modified. 4 or 5 slits have been cut with a scissors at the 5cm unheated end. This slits are then heated and folded with a hand lighter to form a closed side. We can’t use a heat gun for this because it can’t be focused to small areas and other parts would be also heated, deforming out extension pole. Now a small hole is drilled in the middle of this closed side. The final extension poles should not come off from each pipes and in order to prevent it, we are using plastic rope arrangement through the pipes to hold it in place. It is for this arrangement that we heated and folded on end of the pipe. More about this rope arrangement in next session.

As the name suggests, it’s made up of L clamps. We need two L clamps, a bolt and nut for making this holder. The L clamps are of 1 inch and the bolt have a diameter of 4.8mm with a length of 6 inches. One flat side of the L clamp is drilled with drill bit of diameter 4.9mm and the other side with a drill bit of 7.9mm. The dimensions depends upon the bolts that you are using. Our aim is Place the two L clamps one on top of another to form a U shaped structure and insert the 6 inch long bolt through the hole. Tighten it in place using a nut. A thicker bolt would be inserted through the other side at a later stage of build.

Now take a plastic rope of about 1m length. The one which I used have a thickness of 1.9mm. Now make a knot on one end and insert it through the innermost PVC extension pipe. Then insert the previous L clamp holder through the same pipe. The knot should be placed between the L clamp and top end of pipe. On the other end a small portion of the bolt would be exposed. If not then cut the PVC accordingly so that a small portion of the bolt (0.5mm) is exposed. Now insert a nut on this bolt so that the L clamp is fixed on the PVC pipe. Along with fixing the L clamp, the knot also get locked in place and thereby fixing the whole plastic rope. This L clamp setup will be connected to the other 2 extension poles in the final assembly. So let’s jump on to the next.

The J shaped stand connects the phone mount to the L clamp holder. It provides the swinging motion on the L clamp through which the phone mount could be folded inwards for portability. It also helps to adjust the phone angle between the extension poles according to our situation. The making of then J stand is pretty much straight forward. Cut a circular section of width 1.5cm from a 2 inch PVC coupler. I’m using the coupler only for taking the advantage of its thickness (3.4mm) so that the part could be stronger. If you have a 2 inch PVC pipe with a good thickness (3mm or above) you could use that instead. Next, cut a slit on the circular portion using a hack saw. Then heat the part using a heat gun to form a j shaped structure. You can use some small plywood block to act pressure on the section during the forming process. Now we have done with the basic structure. As you have seen, the J stand should perform a swing motion on the L clamp stand. In order to do that I used the steel socket from the barrel bolt which is commonly used for door fittings. Drill a hole at the centre of the steel socket. This hole is necessary to fix the J stand to the L clamp stand. Now drill another hole on the bottom edge of the J shaped stand and fix the steel socket using a small bolt through that hole. Another hole (7.9mm diameter) should be provided towards the top part of the J stand. This is where the phone mount setup would be attached. This finishes the J stand structure.

The phone mount is one of the important part of the tripod since it’s the part which actually holds the smartphone in the correct position. It’s made with a 2inch PVC pipe with thicker wall (3mm or above). The length of the pipe should be around 10cm. The opposing phone grabbing hand like structure i.e. the phone mount is made from this PVC pipe. First mark a 2 cm point from one end of the PVC pipe. Make another 2cm mark on the other end of the PVC but on the opposite side. I.e. the marking on both ends should be 180 degrees apart. Now using a hack saw cut both these points until the cut reaches half way through the PVC. So now we basically got two opposing cuts on both the ends of the PVC pipe. Next, join these cuts along the length of the PVC pipe. This results in two equal sections as shown in the picture. These two forms the phone mount setup. This new section have a circular portion followed by a tail section. The sides of this tail region is further cut to form a width of 3cm. In order to properly hold the smartphone in place, a tapering cut should be made from the outer end towards the inner end. This tapering ensures a proper non slip contact between the mount and the smartphone. Now cut the centre part of the circular portion and using a heat gun this circular portion is straightened up. I have used small plywood pieces to apply pressure to the heated PVC sections. You’ll get a better idea while watching the build video (minute 9.58). So we have straightened the circular portion on both the PVC sections. This Straightened section is where the phone gets fixed on the tripod. SO these two phone mount sections have to be attached to the J shaped stand and also it must have an elastic tension setup for properly holding the phone. To accomplish this one section is drilled with a hole of diameter 8mm and other with a slit of width 8mm. So when a bolt is inserted through both of the sections, one could slide over the other to form the phone mount setup. Now the only thing missing is the elastic arrangement. For it I have cut 3 strips of elastic, each having a length of 7.5cm. The length and no of elastic strip to use depends on your personal preference of how much tension you need between the phone mounts. Then two holes have been burned on both ends of the elastic with a hot soldering iron tip. Two small bolts are inserted through this holes at the two ends. However the white elastic would be visible on the outside of the tripod so it’s better to conceal it. A simple solution is to use two pieces of glass fibre sheet or any other plastic sheet. One hole should be made on one end of both the pieces and cover it with the same vinyl sheet used before. Bolts are now inserted through it and then through the elastic. The sheet form both the ends overlap each other and thus conceals the elastic even when it’s expanded or retracted. One hole is drilled on both of the phone mount sections to fix the elastic bolts on it.

As you have seen in the video, the car mount clip enable the tripod to be connected to the air vent of the car. Before making the actual clip, I took some measurements of the air vent & done some trial attempts to find optimum dimensions for the clip. This would help in a good firm contact on the air vents. So I would suggest you to stick with these dimensions.

First heat a piece of PVC pipe (a length of 10cm would be enough) with a heat gun and apply pressure on it with a plywood. This gives us flat piece of PVC pipe. Now we could cut this flat piece to a width of 1.5cm. Now reheat and fold the section by placing a bolt in between. Like before, pressure should be applied with a plywood to make the PVC section flat. Once the bolt is removed we could see that it leaved behind a hole and it would act as the hinge point for further attachment. Now from the bolt hole end, mark 2.5cm and carefully cut the top PVC section. Now heat and bend the bottom section perpendicular upwards. A small gap of 0.5cm should be leaved between the perpendicular portion and the top free end. Now cut the excess of the perpendicular portion So that it leave behind a small notch at the end. You’ll get a better idea while looking at the picture. A slit is also made on the bolt hole section for further attachment. This finishes the car clip setup.

For hands free access I have included a Bluetooth camera shutter along with this tripod. However instead of just using the Bluetooth shutter as it is, I thought of making it more versatile. This lead to the idea of turning it into a wristband which makes it easier to wear and use and also it could be attached around the tripod too. The band is very basic and is made from a pair of Velcro straps. One strap have a length of 15cm and the other one with 19cm. This 15 cm & 19cm length suited the most to tie around the hand and thus I opted it. The two ends of the strips are glued back to back to form one long strip. Now we need to attach the Bluetooth shutter on this Velcro straps. Since the Bluetooth shutter had a small hook at one of its end, I took the advantage of it. I started by gluing a cloth piece vertical to the Velcro strap and this cloth have been cut narrow at the other end. This narrow end could be passed through the small hook on the Bluetooth shutter and therefore securing the shutter on to the Velcro straps. I have used a synthetic rubber adhesive (contact cement) for gluing the cloth and Velcro pieces.

This process is the one which totally transform all the individual parts to a total new look. It masks all the imperfections, bolts and the raw look of the PVC pipes and thus it’s a big part of the aesthetic look of the tripod. The legs, the male & female threaded sockets, the L clamp holder, the J shaped stand and the phone mounts went through this process to reach its final form. This upholstery work includes gluing two set of layers on the parts. The inner layer is done with jute cloth and the last and outer layer is done with a vinyl sheet. The aim of the inner layer is to mask all the imperfections on the PVC and most importantly mask the bolts and nuts on different parts. The outer layer of vinyl sheet gives good aesthetic and more premium look for the parts. Let’s see things in more detail. A piece of jute cloth is glued over the parts using synthetic rubber adhesive (contact cement). For the parts have a bolt fittings, the portion of cloth above the bolt is burned with the tip of a hot soldering iron which exposes the bolts. Now second layer of cloth is glued over it and the process of burning with the soldering iron is repeated. This is repeated until the jute layer thickness aligns with the bolt. After that a final layer of jute is glued over it which conceals the bolts. For my setup a total of 4 layers of cloth was need to perfectly cover all the bolts. However some parts only need 2 or 3.

So you may be wondering why I’m doing this rather than simply gluing a layer of jute. The reason is, in order to mask the bolts just covering it with a cloth won’t work because even then the shape of the bolt bulges out from the cloth. What we actually need is a smooth and even finish with no trace of the bolts. The technique used above would full fills this condition and hence I chose it.

One thing to note is that Jute cloth actually burns in a different fashion than the others cloths. It kind of melts and burns while using the soldering iron tip and for this reason it super easy to cut. It was this property of jute which made me to use it in this layering process. Once the cloth layer is done, all the excess edges are trimmed using a utility knife. After that it’s time for the final layer of vinyl sheet.

I have used black carbon fibre textured vinyl for the final layer. Though vinyl sheet comes with an adhesive at its back, it is too weak for a proper bonding with the cloth. So I again used the same synthetic rubber adhesive at its back to glue over the cloth. The process is repeated for all the parts. See the pictures of the parts which have under gone this upholstery transformation. Also the plunger body and the car clip are spray painted black. Now lets move on to the final assembly.

So we are done with all the parts and all we need to do is to assemble everything in the right way.

We could begin with the male & female threaded socket. Insert the male socket by rotating and tightening the thread on the female socket. Now place the metal hook over the plunger guide ways. Placing the aluminium metal piece over the hook and securing it with the bolts. Proceed the same for all the three hooks.

Once the hooks are fixed, we could attach the legs in place. Insert the other end of the hook through the hole provided in the leg hinges. Now fix the leg hinges to the female socket by inserting a both through the hole provided on the female socket and the hinges. This process is repeated for all the three hooks. This finishes the Leg mechanism and now rotating the male socket the legs should fold and unfold to form the tripod.

The next step is to attach the extension pole for the selfie stick. Since the L clamp is already inserted and fixed with the innermost pipe it is now a part of the extension pole. Hope you remember the plastic rope extending from the L clamp pipe. This rope is now inserted through the next extension pipe. Fully draw the rope through the other end of the pipe and insert a small portion (2cm) of the innermost pipe through the second pipe. Remember that the other end of the second pipe is a closed end (slits have been heated and folded to form a close end in previous step). A knot is made at this end and it prevents the pipe from coming off. Now insert the last and outer most extension pipe through the tripod setup. Insert from the leg end side of the tripod. The grip ring inside the male threaded socket will hold this pipe in position.

Like the previous process the rope is inserted through it a small portion of the second pie is inserted. Then a knot is made at the closed end of the third pipe. The excess rope length is cut off. This finishes the extension pole setup.

Now let’s attach the J shaped stand on to the L clamp setup. The bolt for attaching the J stand has a 2 holes. One along the thickness and one along centre of axis. This bolt is inserted through the L clamp and then through the J stand. A small bolt is inserted through the barrel socket hole and then through the hole in the main bolt. This fixes the J stand on the main bolt. Place the nut on the other end.

Now we could attach the phone mount on the top hole on the J stand. Before fixing the phone mount, make sure that the elastic setup is installed and its bolts are secured with the nuts. Insert the main bolt through the hole on the J stand and fix it with a nut on the other side.

The car clip are the final part that is fixed. The U shaped metal rod fixed on the male socket could be now inserted through the slit on the car clip. Further a bolt is inserted through the hole which fixes the car clip to the tripod.

The two main bolts on the L clamp and the phone mount have another hole along the length. A screw and washer could be inserted into this holes to secure the nuts on to the bolts. Further all the exposed metallic parts could be painted black for better aesthetics.

The build is now complete. I hope you have liked my project. Do let me know about your suggestions and though in the comment section below. So I’ll see you guys in the next project.