Kayak camera stand

This is a homemade camera stand made from leftover stuff from other projects.  I plan to use it for shooting video with a compact camera while paddling the kayak.

It's made to be inexpensive and easy to assemble, with measuring, cutting, and drilling all kept to a minimum (I didn't feel like trying to clear off my workbench).  The camera can held horizontally (in landscape position) or vertically (portrait position) and can be adjusted to point left and right, and tilted up and down.  The stand will also float if it has to.

The bare PVC camera stand.

The material is 3/4" PVC pipe and PVC fittings (all available at Home Depot, OSH, etc.), a nylon screw, neoprene scraps, and rubbery plastic foam packing stuff.  The pipe and fittings would be glued with PVC cement if I had any--I'm going to use Plumber's Goop instead.

The stand is held in place by the forward deck rigging, or by a bungee cord (the red one in the photos), or both.  The camera is attached to an adapter, a ¾"-½" PVC reducer bushing, which is shoved into the top or side of the uppermost PVC tee fitting, as shown in the photos.

The stand under the deck rigging with the camera held vertically.

The open hole in the upright (uppermost) tee has a plug in it to keep water out.  Neither the adapter or the plug is fixed in place--they should be pushed into the tee with enough force that they'll stay put, and loosely enough that they can be removed by hand.  I suppose they could be kept in place with hitch pins in rough conditions.

The stand with the camera held horizontally.

The camera is attached to the adapterwith a 1/4" nylon screw.  I could have used a plug or an end cap instead of the bushing to make the adapter, or I could screw the camera onto a tee (and move the tee to change the camera's position).  I used the bushing because I couldn't find a plug or a cap.

The camera attached to the PVC adapter.

The thing on the end of the adapter is a spacer for the screw, a sort of a thick rubber washer that was meant to be put on the bottom of a small appliance.  It's not necessary--I used it because it was handy.  The black stuff is scrap neoprene, and isn't necessary or even, as it turns out, a good idea.  Eventually I'll find some kind of thin rubbery gasket for the top of the adapter, and a nylon or stainless steel washer for the bottom, and I'll cut the screw to the correct length.

Plugs and the camera-to-stand adapter.

The 3/4" PVC pipe is either the thick-walled or thin-walled stuff, depending on what was handy.  It's probably a good idea to use the thicker pipe since the thin pipe can break.

The pipe is plugged at one or both ends with some expanded rubbery plastic packing foam, which is sealed with RTV silicone.  These plugs are the "bulkheads" that keep the stand from filling with water (and possibly sinking) if it gets broken.

The pipe (on the right) plugged with foam.

I'm going to post the other details later.