cold shoe blanks?

[Colin Graham]

Not sure such a thing even exists, but I've been looking for a cold shoe bracket with no mounting hardware or holes drilled for mounting hardware. Just a blank metal shoe bracket. Just went through 20+ pages of flash accessories at B&H with no luck.


Something like this without the holes-


Any leads appreciated.

[Struan Gray]

Some of the cheapie flash brackets on eBay have cold shoes which seem to be just glued on place (or perhaps spot welded).

There are also the flash holders which look like little Arca Swiss clamps, which are higher profile, but are all metal without holes. They are common in among the use-your-flash-as-a-studio-light gadgets.

[vinny]

I've been looking for the same thing since I'm building an 8x10 and would like to attach a couple. I'll likely just machine them myself from aluminum but would rather not spend the $$ on the end mill required.

[Colin Graham]

Thanks Struan, I'll look for those.

Vinny- yeah, me too. A T-slotting bit would be hard to justify for making such a cheap part...

[Trevor Whitaker]

What about something like this:
http://flashzebra.com/products/0147/index.shtml

[Colin Graham]

Thanks Trevor. I looked at those, but they're a little too tall, not sure the camera would close. I'm trying to attach a shoe to the top of the front standard to mount accessories on.

I actually just figured out a way to use an existing cold shoe- I just mounted it offset on the standard with the front hole and screwed a tiny anti-spin bar to the back of it with the rear hole. Wow, I think I've been in the shop too long, that sounds borderline pornographic.

Anyway, thanks for the replies.

[vinny]

Chamonix will sell you some that they use on their 4x5's. They're a little short compared to a regular hot shoe but work for some things like the french flag I made. Shipping could be a little high from china (based on experience with chamonix.)

[danno@cnwl.igs]

Colin, I'm sure that I saw some similar to what you describe, just basic shoe receptacles, very old, at a photo flea market. A whole bag ( maybe 15 or twenty), but I don't recall whether they had screw holes or not.

I know you specified " with no mounting hardware or holes drilled ", but I'm wondering why holes would be a concern. Simple curiosity, no negativity implied, but would holes impair the shoe for your purposes?

Dan

[vinny]

holes dictate where screws must be placed rather than allowing the user to drill them where they need to be. the front standard of view cameras is often very thin so placement would be critical.

[Colin Graham]

Like Vinny said, because I needed to locate the mounting holes myself; typical holes patterns made it difficult to mount around existing hardware on my camera. It was difficult to tell what sort of holes are drilled on a lot of the ones I saw for sale, because the shoe spring tends to hide the mounting screws. But I did manage to work it out by offsetting it around the other front standard hardware. It would have been much easier with a blank cold shoe, but at least it's done.