Bowens s-mount doesn't fit to light stand

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SandyS

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Sandy
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Hi, I've just bought some Neewer light stands which came with Bowens s-mounts for speedlights. However, the attachment point of the stand to the Bowens mount doesnt seem to fit properly. The light stand is much thinner than the aperture of the Bowens mount, with the result that there is a huge amount of play, even when the security screw is tightened. Is this normal? Is there some sort of width adapter that I should be using? Thanks in advance.
 
Hope this is visible. The silver part of the stand won’t insert any further into the aperture so it ends up wobbling. Many thanks FADAA50E-7E47-43CD-893D-65F4C2EBFE00.jpeg
 
SandyS said:
Hope this is visible. The silver part of the stand won’t insert any further into the aperture so it ends up wobbling. Many thanks View attachment 262826
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Are you sure? Most of the cheap ones have a screw that's far too long, maybe you haven't unscrewed it fully.
 
Thanks Chris! Mine certainly has a small screw at the end of the mounting spigot. If that reverses, this might fix it. I shall try tonight.
 
Hi, I tried reversing the spigot but it seems to be resolutely fixed. Underneath the little black cap at the top of the spigot is a screw.
Is there a clever way of reversing the wholesale spigot?
958BF677-7FEF-4A32-AAE2-C36D4710BCE8.jpeg
 
Take the plastic cover off the lightstand spigot
Does the lightstand spigot remove and rotate or is it fixed?
feel inside the spigot hole to make sure the screw is clear.
 
Thank Phil. I’ve also tried it having removed the little black screw cover and the result is identical.
The light stand spigot is fixed very firmly. I haven’t tried forcing with pliers because I suspect hand strength should do it if it were not fixed.

I’ve also inspected very closely to make sure there are no removable obstructions. There aren’t.

It really does feel like the top of that spigot should come off, but it looks like one single piece of aluminium.
 
SandyS said:
Thank Phil. I’ve also tried it having removed the little black screw cover and the result is identical.
The light stand spigot is fixed very firmly. I haven’t tried forcing with pliers because I suspect hand strength should do it if it were not fixed.

I’ve also inspected very closely to make sure there are no removable obstructions. There aren’t.

It really does feel like the top of that spigot should come off, but it looks like one single piece of aluminium.
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We’ll light stands And mounts are standard, only some spigots have the tripod thread on top, so you might have to take a hacksaw to it. I’ve personally never seen the point in them.
 
SandyS said:
Hi Garry, I haven’t found anything that I can unscrew. Am I missing something obvious? Thx
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Maybe I didn't explain myself - I was wondering whether or not you had unscrewed the tightening screw sufficiently. Also, get rid of that plastic or rubber cover over the tripod screw.
 
This is one of the areas where Chinese products tend to be a bit sloppy, assuming the advice of removing the plastic cap and fully loosening the tightening screw on that Bowens speedring/head doesn't help you should simply measure the height of the spigot versus the receiver.

It may be the case it's simply too long and narrow to fit together well and personally I would look for a different stand as I've yet to come across one using those fixed chrome spigots that was good.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Maybe I didn't explain myself - I was wondering whether or not you had unscrewed the tightening screw sufficiently. Also, get rid of that plastic or rubber cover over the tripod screw.
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With Garry on this is does look like the screen is not out enough, take it out fully, if the spigot is still too long chop the thread off the top. we used to see this with interfit heads and had to drill them out :)
 
I’m
sk66 said:
it does appear that you need to remove the 1/4-20 threaded protrusion from the spigot... if that is not really feasible/desirable you could always thread another spigot onto it instead.
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I’ve ordered some of these to try out. If they don’t, I’ll get the hacksaw out! Many thanks for the impressively suggestions from all. I shall report back!
 
I ordered the supplemental spigots and that has done the trick. Ideally, I would take a hacksaw to the protruding bit of screw because, as many of you pointed out, it isn't obviously useful. I'll probably just get some better stands in due course.

Many thanks for the support from all. My studio work can press ahead now!
 
SandyS said:
Ideally, I would take a hacksaw to the protruding bit of screw because, as many of you pointed out, it isn't obviously useful.
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That little 1/4-20 protrusion can be useful for mounting speedlights w/o softboxes... which is typically about what the stands that have them are useful for.
 
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