Curiously Strong Tripod Mount for IPod Touch 4+

This is a quick tripod mount you can build that will attach an ipod touch to any standard tripod. As an added bonus, there's enough material left over after making the mount to make a little 4 legged stand for it as well!

It should take around an hour to make! I made the one these pictures are of in half an hour, but I've done it before!

This can probably be adapted to work with an iPhone, I don't know, I don't have one!
the design turns out to be relatively similar to the Glif. 

Step 1: What You Need

Materials:
-one altoids tin (you actually only need the lid!)
-one pair of broken headphones (you need the plug)
-some thin cardstock
-a 1/4" 20 nut (and a matching bolt if you want to make the optional stand)

Tools:
-straightedge
-sharpie
-tinsnips
-hot glue
-big pliers or a vice (to squish things with)
-metal punch or a drill (if you're going to make the optional stand, you'll need to put a hole in the tin.)
-a file

Step 2: Get the Lid Off!

Get the lid off the altoids tin! that's the only part of the tin we'll use!
keep the rest around though, that stuff's useful. 

This should be pretty easy, you can use the pliers to bend the hinges open if it doesn't just pull right off.

Step 3: Draw a Line

You don't even have to measure this. Just use the bottom of the word Altoids, and the serif-y feet to line up the straightedge and draw your line. 

Step 4: Cut It in Two!

cut along that line! Make sure you get the edges cut too. 
you may have to bend the sides of the lid out a bit to get the tinsnips in there, don't worry, we'll be bending them a whole lot more soon!

Step 5: Cut Off the Side of the Left Corner

This step will seem a bit complicated, but it's still pretty easy. We need to cut off the vertical side of the lower left corner of that smaller half you just cut. 
The first picture has the area we need to remove filled black.
You don't need to be precise, but we need to remove all of the side of the lid from where the curve starts to where it ends. 
it should look like the last picture when you've got it. 

Step 6: Squish the Sides Down

Now that we've got that left corner side taken off, we need to squish down the rest of the sides to make the little space where the nut will go. 
The easiest way to do this is to bend down the sides as far as you can get them by hand, and then use the pliers or vice to squish them flat. 

Make sure you leave enough of the lower right corner unsquished for the nut to fit in! you want it to be relatively tight there, but you want to have room. No need to be precise, hot glue  is good at filling in spaces. 
It should look like the last picture when you've got it. 

Step 7: Bend It All in Half

To make the back of the little table where your iPod's going to sit, we need to bend this thing at a right angle. The easiest way to do this is to just use your hands, but you can hold one side and bend with pliers if you need to. A good guide for where to bend it is the place where the side you just bent over becomes all the way flat. That should be around halfway across the thing. Again, it doesn't need to be too precise, because the back is going to be mostly made out of cardstock glued to the tin anyway. 

It should look like the pictures when you've got it.

Step 8: Get Some Extra Material From the Rest of the Lid

Now would be a great time to plug in the hot glue gun if you haven't already!
For the final few steps of the mount itself, we're going to need a little extra material, which we can get from parts of the other half of the lid we won't be using for the stand. 

First off, you'll need to cut ALL of the sides off this half. Don't worry about rough edges, or not getting too close- you can squish sticky-outies down with the pliers, or file them off. 

Step 9: Cut the Corners Off of That Peice

Now we can get the actual extra material we're going to have. 
For the stand, you aren't going to need the left and right sides of this piece. Cut off from the start of the curve of the corners outward. 
The picture should make it clear which bits to cut off. 
Those left and right bits are going to be the extra material we'll use in the coming steps. cut one of those in half, and set the other one aside. 

Step 10: Hot Glue Time!!!

By now the glue gun should be heated up. 
First off, we're going to glue on that nut. 
To make sure the nut sticks out of the little spot we've made for it on the right corner of the first piece far enough, use a bit of that extra material we just cut. So, first, glue that on in the center of where the nut's going to go. 
Check the pictures out, they'll explain it better than words.
Then, once that's on there firm, put a little glue around the sides and push the nut in. 

Once you've got the nut positioned how you want it, put a lot more glue on there. You're going to want this sturdy, so you can screw your tripod on there tight. Try to get glue on all sides. 

Don't worry about glue sticking out places you don't want it to, you can use the file to clean that up once it's dry. 

Step 11: Add the Cardstock Padding

The next thing we've got to do is put the cardstock padding onto the back of the mount. 
How tall a piece you use is up to you, but you want it to cover from the left edge to the right edge of the mount. The first picture shows how I measured it without actually measuring, just line it up. 
I found that folding it double and hot glueing it together made it much sturdier. 
You don't want this to bend or tear in your pocket. 
If you do that, it's best to glue it onto the mount with the seam side down, to keep it from catching on things. 

Step 12: Cut the Headphones!

Cut the plug off the headphones. Simple as that. 

Step 13: Figure Out Where to Glue That On

I find that the easiest way to accurately mark where the headphone jack is going to need to be glued on is to plug it into your ipod, and set the thing on the mount the way it's going to go when it's all put together.
Make sure all the glue's dried first!

Step 14: Glue the Plug On!

The mount is almost done!
Now you just have to glue the plug onto the cardstock right where you marked. 
Depending on what headphones you used, you may have to use the other bit of extra material we cut off earlier to elevate the plug a bit from the surface of the cardstock. This is the case with standard apple headphones and most earbuds. The best way to check is to do just like the last step-plug it in and line it up. 

So glue that bit on first if you have to, then layer the headphone plug on top of that. Make sure you get it straight in all directions! The hot glue will let it flex a little, but you don't want to be pulling on that too much. 

Also, just like the nut, if not more so, you'll need to use a lot of glue to make super sure this is sturdy. 


Once this dries, the mount is complete!
Congratulations! It should attach to any standard tripod and be relatively sturdy. Have fun.

Continue reading if you want to use the rest of the lid to make the little 4 legged stand. 

Step 15: Still Here? Let's Make the Stand.

This is a kind of complicated step, but the rest isn't bad.
Take that other big piece of the lid that we set aside. 
Find the center of it, and draw a square right there big enough for the head of your bolt to fit on. You'll still want this to be pretty small, so find a bolt with a small head if you need to. 
From the left and right of that, draw out to the edges.

We're going to cut out and remove the part that I've filled in black. 

Step 16: Cut Out That Bit

use the tinsnips to cut out those black parts. 
If you cant quite get the inner edges, just fold them under and squish them down with the pliers. I haven't ever gotten a perfect cut on this part. 

Step 17: Fold Those Legs in Half

those long parts that look like the legs of a sideways H are going to be the legs of the stand. You'll need to fold them in half hotdog style though to make them strong enough. 
You're going to have to just use your fingers and the pliers to do this. You want them squished pretty tight. 

Step 18: Drill/punch a Hole

now you need to get a hole in this thing for the bolt. 
If you have a metal punch, that works great. You can use the other piece of extra material that we cut off this big half earlier to test sizes. 
You don't need it to be an exact fit, because we'll actually be holding it on with glue. 

Step 19: Bend the Legs

To make the legs, first you need to keep them legs themselves flat and bend each entire half of the thing up. Once you've done that, bend the legs down. this will make them splay out and have a wider base. Also, it'll be easier to adjust them like this. 

Step 20: Put the Bolt in the Hole

and glue it! 
glue from both sides if you can. 
You want both sides to be really stuck to it.

Wait for that to dry and you can screw it onto your tripod mount. 

Step 21: You're Done!!!

Check it out! look at this awesomeness. 
You just made a tiny tripod mount AND a tiny not even tripod but QUADRO-POD out of only the LID of an altoids tin!

What now?


go take some rad pictures.





This thing is great for Average Camera, which takes a bunch of pictures and averages them to reduce noise, I get great results with that. It's also great for any slitscanning or timelapse apps. 

One caveat is that, while the volume and therefore shutter keys are up, the thing is upside down, and hipstamatic, puddingcamera, and a couple others don't flip it. 
But the standard camera does.