I like the lever style leg locks on the Manfrotto 680B monopod except its plastic head piece with a sort of 2 piece telescoping arrangement of an adaptive 3/8\" to 1/4\" threaded lens/camera anchoring screw. The end plan was to install an RRS clamp with its anti-twist set screws biting into the head.
Well, there\'s no way I\'m putting HAL on that \"what were they thinking\" plastic monopod head!
BTW, HAL is my only lens that has a name. It was bestowed upon it by my wife and is short for \"Huge A** Lens\". Its a 600mm f/4L IS USM.
Anyway, since I\'m not easily deterred by such minor issues I naturally removed the offensive plastic part by sliding back the monopod\'s upper rubber grip revealing a long spring dowel pin that locked the head to the upper monopod tube. I pulled the pin out to remove the old head and while I was at it I also removed a plastic wrist strap ring. The leftover parts were then unceremoniously jettisoned it into my desk drawer (around 10 years ago) to be photographed today for this post. Talk about thinking ahead!
I then whipped up a drawing to hand off to my favorite friendly local machine shop to fabricate out of aluminum and finished off in black anodize.
Next I installed the new head by pressing it into the headless monopod tube where the former plastic one had been. Using my drill press I match-drilled 3 new holes thru the monopod tube into the new aluminum head and pressed in 3 hardened spring dowel pins. The rubber grip was then slid back into position.
I installed the RRS clamp with a 3/8\" screw and washer along with 2 dog-nose set screws that engaged 2 holes I designed into the new head to facilitate the anti-twist feature. Loctite thread locker was used on all threaded fasteners.
Here\'s the finished, well tested over time, modified monopod:
Here\'s the monopod with the old plastic parts next to it.
Here\'s the monopod with a leftover new part next to it along with its mounting hardware. (The machine shop always makes extras just in case of a machining boo-boo.)
Here\'s a close-up of the anti-twist dowel pins with a RRS clamp next to a new head.
Note: The clamp shown was borrowed from a tripod for this picture so there\'s extra parts shown; a shiny metal thread reducer bushing and a black dowel pin that were not used on the mod pod. The shiny light colored dowels shown are the ones used, one installed and one laying to the side:
Nov 18, 2014 at 04:15 PM
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