Reflector Plate

I spent a little time in the shop this week and built myself a mirrored/reflector board. I decided that it needed to be the size of pre made filter kits like the ones from Lee or Rosco. The size I decided on was the Lee, as the pre cut filters are 12″ x 12″ and Rosco are 10″ x 12″. The default on the larger size.

I used a product called Sintra which is like a plastic foam core material. The thickness is 5mm and it light enough and stiff enough to work for what I wanted. I also used some scrap 1″x 2″ board for the side mounting.

I cut the Sintra to 12″ x 13″ on my table saw, making sure it was nice and square. I then cut my 1″ x 2″ board down to 13″ in length and trimmed the width to be exactly 1″.  I then went to the drill press and drilled a 1/4″ hole through the center of the wood strip so I could attach a Mini Mount from LightwareDirect to use on a LightwareDirect TF plate assembly. Now that I had a 1/4″ hole through the board, I wanted to fix in position a 1/4″ nut that was recessed and would be flush with the wood. I found a drill bit that was just a bit bigger than the nut and drilled out the hole just deep enough to hold the nut. Next, I just used a dab of glue around the outside of the nut to hold it in place in the wood. Then I painted the whole thing black. After the paint was dry, I used the all sticky and amazing gorilla glue to mount the strip of wood to the 13″ running length of Sintra. I used wood clamps to make sure they were in the correct position and clamped them together until they were dry. So this left me with a perfect square area of 12″ x 12″ to mount my mirror mylar with double sided removeable scotch tape. I like using the removable scotch tape because you can change to a variety of reflective surfaces that Lee and Rosco offer. You can even use aluminum foil if you want.

Using the Lee or Rosco gels on this board requires you to remember that whatever gel you put on it, you are actually doubling it. The light passes through the gel hits the mirror and then bounces back through the gel onto your subject, effectively doubling the “out put” of the gel.

This is perfect for using in the studio or on location to bounce a kicker hair light or edge light on to your subject. The  next one is a 20″x 24″ .

My heart felt thanks go out to Dean Collins who came up with this years ago and I have just now added it to my kit and it is extremely useful. He will always be missed.