Barndoor question from Home Depot lighting tutorial
 

I just finished reading the article from Martian Welk on making a light kit from Home Depot. He mentions creating barndoors for his worklights and then attaching them to the worklights using hinges, rivets, and washers. Has anyone tried this or know exactly how these were attached to the worklights? I have seen other tutorials showing aluminum attached to brass wire but none using hinges. Well, thats not exactly true, there was one using piano hinges and clips but didn't look like it was easy to dissassemble.

For a quick-and-dirty barndoor effect you could always use Blackwrap. We do this in a pinch all the time for theatrical purposes. Of course it wouldn't be permanent though...

I made some that work pretty well and are cheap to make.
For the barndoor I used flat roofing iron from a roofing company, they gave me some off cuts. Cut these to size and shape with tin snips. I used door hinges which I hammered out of shape and slightly bent to give the hinge resistance so the barn door stayed in position. I then used a light metal strip 25mm (about 1 inch) x .75 mm. Bend this strip around the frame of light so it is a tightfit, overlap and pop rivet. Pop rivet the hinge to the barndoor flap and to the metal strip. Fit this to the light.
To prevent barndoors from falling off and also to make them removable so the light tube can be replaced. I ran another metal strip from each side around the back of the light overlapped the two pieces at the back and held them together with a couple of PK (self tapper) screws.
The light is a bit hard from these work lights, especially on a persons face, so you may like to peg some white spun to the barndoors to act as a difuser. The first one I made was a bit of a fiddle untill I got it to fit and work well. As they are cheap, have a few spare units so when out on a shoot and the tube blows it is easier and quicker to change the whole light.
Getting enough friction on the hinge was a weak point. Just hit it with a punch and bend the hinge up a bit untill there is enough friction to hold the barn doors in place.
I find the stands a bit low so made some extenders 1350mm long(about 4ft.9in) from 25x25mm (aprox 1inx1in) box steel which slide onto the top section of the stand. Weld a nut into the top of the box steel so you can attach your light unit. Paint the entire unit black and it looks quite professional.

There's a much better solution available now. Britek makes some really inexpensive lights that include focusing, barn doors, and universal stand mounts, starting as low as about $56. I'd strongly recommend getting some of those rather than trying to wrangle something together out of worklights. Check out http://www.rostronics.com for a Britek dealer.

Thanks for the link Barry. Have you seen or used any of their lights or kits?

Re: Barndoor question from Home Depot lighting tutorial
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Zach Schuyler : I just finished reading the article from Martian Welk on making a light kit from Home Depot. -->>>
Was that article here at DVi? If so I didn't find it. Got a link you can share?

Dennis Vogel

Semi OT but still a peev
Home depot lights should read work lights. WalMart and all other home reno and hardware stores carry the lights. Home depot sweeps into town and busts the competition, once they have closed the smaller retailers they scale back the stock levels and the service. Why give them credit that they don't deserve.

More often than not the small Mom and Pop hardware store have the really neat stuff that biggies don't carry.