If you’ve read Part I, you’ll recall that I bought an Orbis ring-flash bagel thingie and didn’t think much of it because it jiggled, wobbled, rattled, fell off, and generally made me look and feel like Kliko the Foto Klown.

But then I realized I was making a mistake: treating the Orbis as a finished product, rather than a complete-it-yourself kit.

What tipped me off was learning that the designer of the Orbis, James Madelin, is from New Zealand – and New Zealand is the spiritual home of the archetypical tinkerer, generically known as the Man in a Shed.

[Faced with a few hours of blissfully unstructured leisure time, the stereotypical American male says to himself: "I think I'll recline in my La-Z-Boy and click aimlessly through all the sports channels on TV until I lapse into a coma." Whereas the stereotypical New Zealand male says to himself: "I think I'll go out to the shed and build a pulse-jet engine."]

So, channeling my inner Kiwi, I decided to treat the Orbis as if it were a Make Magazine project: You can build the whole thing from scratch if you want, or you can buy a kit containing the trickier parts and finish the rest. I already had the Orbis light-modifier bagel and the solid, well-made Orbis Arm bracket; all I needed to do was finish the job by inventing a mounting system that improves on the miserably wobbly, floppy clip that comes with the Orbis.

The Orbis flash group on Flickr contains plenty of good ideas for improving the Orbis, but none were quite what I wanted. My basic ground rules were: (1) solid and wiggle-free; (2) quick to attach and remove; (3) tidy enough that I wouldn’t be ashamed using it; and (4) no cutting or sawing of the Orbis and arm, so that if this didn’t work I could still sell it to some other sucker enthusiast.

I spent a couple of rather enjoyable hours in my shed — actually, in my utility room — mocking up and trying various possibilities, ranging from sticking the Orbis to the arm with hook-and-loop fastener (still too wiggly) to attaching a metal mounting plate to the back of the Orbis (solid, but no way to attach it without drilling.)

But eventually I scored with a simple solution: two rubber spacer blocks and a Velcro® binding strap that cinch the Orbis firmly against the arm, securing it in place.

I built up the spacer blocks by gluing together pieces cut from a sheet of plumbing rubber. [Tip: you can buy a kit with various thicknesses of these rubber sheets in the plumbing section of a hardware store, and they're something No Home Should Be Without; they're great for making spacers, creating odd-sized gaskets and washers, and even removing stubborn jar lids!]

I made the spacers in two different thicknesses, chosen to brace the bagel’s flat backside against the two parts of the bracket. I attached the blocks to the back of the Orbis with double-sided tape, which holds them firmly but will peel off cleanly if needed.

The Velcro® strap is the kind that pulls through an eye and folds over itself, then locks with a hook-and-loop tab. To mount the Orbis bagel to the arm, all I have to do is press them together, wrap the strap around the slightly pinched-in “waist” of the Orbis, and lock the strap.

The resulting assembly has no wiggle at all, and is sturdy enough that I can lay down the hefty camera-plus-Orbis-plus-arm-plus-flash assembly on its side without any flexing.

So this bit of tinkering has completely reversed my opinion of the Orbis. Instead of a jiggly, rattly klown accessory, it’s now something I actually can use.

Use for what? That’s a topic for Part III…