My first DIY beauty dish with adjustable center disc.

I've been reading up on DIY beauty dishes and decided to build one too, with a few changes. I'd still like to get the dish from Lumodi on ebay but for the money I spent on mine I'm happy for now.

I mostly followed David Tejada's design but some others were of help as well. click here to see his dish. Another one I liked is Todd Owyoung's. Click here to see Todd's.

So off I went to find a bowl. Turned out to be harder than I thought to find what I was looking for. I finally found a nice set at Target for $6.99. 4 bowls with lids. I plan to make another dish out of the second largest bowl. The largest bowl is 12", which is a bit smaller than I would have liked. Got 2 cans of Krylon Fusion paint made for plastic at the Meglo Mart. One gloss white, one matte black. They also had some silver duct tape for the rflective side of the center disc. I plan to add a convex mirror to the back of the center reflector to increase and further spread the light inside the dish. I'll just need to decide on how to cut a hole in the center of it. I couldn't find the type of box that David used as a mounting bracket. Lowes had what became my mounting bracket. It's an extreme weather duplex electrical box that had a flange and was a good fit for my minolta 4000. It should be fairly easy to make it work with other flashes. Home Depot had some cork/hardboard plant coasters that seemed perfect for the center reflector. I wanted mine to be larger than a CD. I ended up using the smaller coaster and and two of the bowl lids.

Here's the list and prices for the materials:

Set of bowls from Target:    $6.99

Paint: 2 cans @ $4.44          $8.88

Silver duct tape:                  $3.88

Bag of nuts and bolts:          $1.00

Plant coasters: 2ea               $5.37

Electrical box:                     $3.77

Bolt with nuts and washers:  $3.00 (estimated as I already had some to use)

                                         ______

Total Cost                          $32.89

Bare in mind that I have most of what I need to make a second dish which will make the per unit cost under $20.00.

Here's the back side of the dish after painting, holes were cut and inner and outer brackets were installed. I cut the back off of the duplex box and had to cut out the screw tubes on the inside of the box so the flash would slide into it. It's a snug fit so no velcro needed to keep it attached. It's light enough that I don't feel like I need a separate bracket to attach it to a stand.

Here's the inside of the dish which shows the inner bracket (a CD spindle base) after being painted.

Here it is after applying some silver tape.

A word about the bowls. They turned out to be made of fairly brittle plastic. I cracked the one I was working on in several places while cutting the center hole. So next time I'll get a different bowl. 

And now the twist!

 I had a CD spindle but was a little short. I figured I could use a bolt and some nuts and washers to fasten the center reflector and allow it to adjust in and out. I ended up with 3 different sized center reflectors (one of the plant coasters and two of the bowl lids).

Here's the 3 different center reflectors. My thinking is that having 3 sizes of reflectors and being able to adjust them will give me more control of the light output.

Here's the CD spindle cover mounted in place. It is a twist lock which makes it easy to remove and adjust the reflector disc.

Here's shots of the reflector extended and retracted. This should allow me to control the fall off and spread.

One last thing. For storage, the lid that came with the bowl snaps over it to protect the dish.