Recently I bought a tripod to take better picture and videos of my projects. I bought this on Amazon. It is not expensive at all if you compare it to all the hifi ones online. As I wasn’t sure if I’ll use it extensively or not, I didn’t want to invest a lot of money on it. However, it’s very handy and convenient.
Why this DIY project?

Of late I have been thinking of taking overhead shots of my crochet and hand lettering projects and realized that I don’t have an extension arm for my tripod. So I researched about the extension arm thinking I could buy just that for my existing tripod and was shocked to find out that the ones available online are more expensive that my tripod. I knew I didn’t want to buy expensive gear for recording my videos. This planted the seed for a new DIY project in my head.
I found an amazing idea on this blog and headed straight to Canadian Tire and got all the supplies.
This post is not a tutorial to make this tripod arm extension but just shows how I made it. If you have felt the need for this and didn’t know what to do(apart from buying the expensive ones online) then visit this blog.

Supplies I used:
5 foot long 1.25″ PVC pipe(3 feet should be enough, but my hardware store sold only 5 feet)
1 Hacksaw blade(to cut PVC pipe to 3 feet)
1 PVC pipe end cap
2 1/4″, 1.4-Inch length bolt
1 1/4″, 2-Inch length bolt
1 1/4″ Coupling Nut
Super glue
Drill bits: 15/64 and 3/8
Power drill(I used my Ikea drill)
Tripod
A bag with something heavy in it to balance the camera/phone weight.

This is what I had at the end of this DIY project.

How I did it:

First step is to cut the PVC pipe to the desired length. I cut off 2feet off my PVC pipe using a hacksaw blade, so I was left with a 3 feet pipe.

Set the pipe aside.
We now need to drill a hole in the PVC end cap using 15/64 drill bit.
I chose 15/64 as that was the immediate size(smaller) before 1/4 in my drill bit set,  Since your bolts are 1/4″ thick,  you would want the bolt to fit snug into the end cap, so I recommend using one size smaller drill bit.

Once I had drilled a hole in the cap, I screwed the 1.4-Inch bolt from the inside of the cap as shown below.

I’m trying to replicate the tripod Mount adapter here, so I don’t screw it in fully. Just as much as I have shown below.

I planned to use my phone for filming and recording videos, so I made sure my phone mount fit into the screw snugly.

Glue the cap to one of the ends of the PVC pipe. I used super glue for this.
I then drilled 2 holes on the other end of the PVC pipe using my15/64 drill bit in a way that the holes were aligned. The pictures below should make it clearer.

I started drilling on one side(outer surface) and came out on the other side(outer surface) by drilling another hole as shown in the below picture.

I screwed the 2-Inch length bolt into the hole all the way to the end. 
This is to counter the weight of the phone or camera on the other end.
You can hang a sandbag / any bad with something heavy in it on this side.
Next I measured the pipe to mark the middle and drilled a hole(on both sides of the pipe’s surface) in a similar fashion as the previous step using my 15/64 drill bit. 
Again making sure that the 2 holes are aligned.

Using a 3/8 drill bit I widened one of the holes by re-drilling into it. This is for the coupling nut, the other hole will be for the 1/4″ bolt.

The wider hole should be on the SAME side of the head of sand bag bolt.

Screw the bolt and the coupling nut so they meet inside the pipe.

Screw the tripod mount adapter into the coupling nut all the way in.
The tripod mount adapter should fit snug into the coupling nut.

Lastly, I fixed the tripod mount adapter back onto the tripod.
With this our tripod extension arm is complete and ready to use.
At the end , it should look like this.

I spent $35 for all the supplies (I had to buy a drill bit+ screwdriver set as I didn’t have one – $15) and 1 hour of effort making this. Considering what I would have spent if I’d bought one, this amount is not a lot at all. And the sense of accomplishment I got at the end of this DIY project made me every bit proud as I could get.

I have already used this setup for a few of my overhead shots and Instagram hand lettering videos and it has worked out very well. If you are interested in watching those videos , head over to my Instagram page and don’t forget to like it 🙂

Please remember that expensive recording gear is not important at all. What’s more important is your work and that you share it with others, So go ahead and share your work with whatever gear you’ve got in hand.
Till I post again!
Ranjitha