Photography Hack: Refurbishing a tripod with heat-shrink tubing

A post for photographers that use tripods:

My favorite hack for making my battered tripods and stands look like new is electronics grade heat-shrink tubing. Easy to slide over the top sections of a tripod, just remove the leg lock, slide and  shrink the plastic tubing with a heat-gun and replace the leg lock (get one size over the diameter of your legs for a tight fit). I used black on two of my legs and clear on the other of my main tripod with a D.O.T. reflective strip under the clear tubing. You can even change the color of your tripod (black, red, blue, yellow, white) or put labels/refectors under a layer of clear heat-shink tubing like I did because I'm always standing near traffic. 

My giant Slik Professional 4 tripod with 405 Manfrotto head has two black and one reflector leg. I put a piece of foam under the yellow leg of my smaller Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod where I put the tripod on my shoulder.

The clear tubing allows you to put reflective strips, or labels under a protective shell.

Tubing comes in 4 foot lengths. I was able to use one tube for two tripod legs. Yes, those are repurposed nail pouches on my tripods for filters, meters, etc.

I used to gaff-tape my tripods when they got battered but after a year the tape would come off and look even worse. The heat-shrink tubing costs under $10 for a 4' tube, comes in various colors and widths and is really durable and resilient. It has a nice non-slippery tooth so it doesn't slide out of your hands and can be easily removed with a sharp knife and replaced. Good luck and good tripoding!

-Schaf