This is one for strobists using legacy flashes such as the Nikon SB28′s, SB24′s SB26′s etc… I have a few Nikon SB28′s they are old but very reliable and cheap! Thanks to the glorious Cape Town wind sending my flashes crashing to the ground a few months ago I found myself in the possession of one dead flash and another damaged one.
The hotshoe on the second flash was more or less intact… actually less than more and up till recently it was limping along fine. Eventually I all the pieces broke off and I found myself having to repair it. The problem is that repairing it would be fairly expensive given the value of the flash itself as well as the fact that it never gets used on a camera, I only use them with my Pocket Wizards.
I’m not going to go into too much detail on how I did it since any reasonably technical person will pick up exactly what I did just by the pictures alone.
+ Here is what you will need:
+ Jewelers Phillips screwdriver set
+ Bowl to hold the teeny tiny screws, you don’t want to be crawling around on the floor looking for these!
+ Side cutters
+ A washer wide enough to fit into flash holder, I had nothing but found a coin was just about the exact size so I drilled it out till it was right.
+ Drill and various bits 3mm, 5mm and 10mm (Bench drill even better!)
+ Vice or a pair of Vicegrips to hold the washer when working with it.
+ Self tapping screw able to fit snugly through the middle of the hotshoe. (a 3mm hole) it should also have a bevel so you can counter sink it into the washer.
+ Bench grinder
Here’s the short version –
+ Remove the 4 screws holding the hotshoe to the flash body.
+ Cut the ribbon cable connecting the bottom pc to the flash motherboard – you are not going to need it again.
+ Remove the 4 screws holding the mini pc board keeping the terminals in place. Cut away the “gold” section with the side cutters, don’t worry about damaging it you don’t need it. Just don’t damage the plastic hotshoe
+ Remove the holding pin that extrudes when you close the flash ring on the camera (it’s a little pin that extrudes to avoid the flash slipping off the camera in case the screw is not tight)
+ Now that the electronics and safety pin are gone put the hotshoe assembly back together. (NB! you are not going to attach hotshoe to the flash yet )
Grind away the original platform that you are replacing – NB! Don’t go too much or you will not have enough to work with!!
+ Using the a 3mm drill drill through the middle hole of the hotshoe – that’s where the self tapping screw is going to go. There is already a hole there but it’s two sizes in one column so a self tapper could split the hotshoe assembly… you don’t want that which is why you run a drill through there to even the size.
+ Drill out the washer using a mixture of the 5 mm and 10mm bits (the 10 mm will give you a bevel to get the head of the self tapper flush.)
+ Once the washer is fashioned as required screw it to the hotshoe assembly with your self tapping screw.
+ Re attach the hotshoe assembly to the flash.
DO NOT PUT THIS FLASH ON A CAMERA!!!!! Not only will it scratch the hotshoe on the camera badly but it may permanently damage the camera!
DO NOT DO THIS ON A FLASH THAT “TALKS” TO YOUR CAMERA In other words any of the newer flashes, I shoot Canon so I don’t use my Nikons on Camera as well as the fact that the old SB flashes don’t work on the newer nikons in ETTL mode so this fix makes no difference in my life 
Greg.
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