Home made monopod?

I have a wooden walking stick that I would like to turn into a monopod. Anyone have any ideas or have found any good DIY sites on what materials might be used to do that?
I haven't found much other than soda bottle "tripod" thing-a-majigs.

I dont know any for a homemade monopod, but for the second best thing when you dont have space for one.

Buy a screw that fits into the tripod screw thing on the camera. Attach a piece of cord/string/whatever the length of the floor to your eyes, and a disk on the end. Stand on the disk and pull the camera up - reduces vertical shake

drillbit. bolt. epoxy.

drill hole. add epoxy. insert bolt. allow to harden.

optional:

mini ballhead.

That was my initial thought. Just not sure how to hold a meter+ length of wood and make a straight hole. Not like I can put it under the drill press. (half a meter off the base which is a solid slab of metal)

Time to make some jigs, eh? I'd rather not cut the end off and then try to re-attach securely.

Thanks for the second opinion. For some reason it sounds more sane when someone else has a similar idea.

The base on my (and possibly your) drill press can be adjusted for height, and though this wouldn't, in itself, solve your problem, the column that supports the drill head, and the table, is a round column, so the table can be swung out of the way... Then it's just a case of finding something tall enough to support the "stick-pod" at the right height...

OR...

Clamp a drill (not a drill press) on its side to a workbench, and (very carefully) feed the "stick-pod" into it. You may need to shim either the drill or the stick to centre the hole... (actually, you could clamp the stick to a board and slide it along a board clamped to the table, like a sled along an edge guide...)

Edit : If you cut the end off the stick, save it - drill a matching hole and epoxy a matching nut in (careful to line up the pieces before the epoxy sets) - it'd look better when used as just a walking stick, and protect the tripod bolt when not actually being used.

Yeah, my cheapo press won't do those funky tricks.
Ended up clamping the stick flat to the table and hand drilling the hole while the drill was resting sideways on blocks. Worked great. Since the stick is far from straight to begin with, the hole didn't have to be plum.

Epoxyed up and it works. I won't be allowed to have a tripod, so this will be nice to have.

And, of course, twenty minutes later I found what I really wanted. It is a bolt with wood screw threads on one end, and machine threads on the other. But my hardware store doesn't carry that stuff anyway, so no loss I guess.

Your idea to epoxy in a nut is great. I have the hole in the cap, but it doesn't hold well to the screw. Bolting it on would certainly solve that issue!

Thanks for the ideas.

Well, got back from vacation with my home made monopod. Worked great!
No way I could have had a tripod there.

A few dorky images from one evening, but you get the idea.
One was at 2 seconds, the other at 1.5 seconds, both at f2.8.
I was quite pleased wit the results. Some camera movement visible, but quite a feat for my hands at two seconds even with a monopod.

I was also fairly amazed at the number of people who wanted to know more about my walking stick/monopod. I suspect I'll be seeing some for sale next year.

http://moringello-east.no-ip.com:8080/start/public/monopod.jpg

http://moringello-east.no-ip.com:8080/start/public/monopod1.jpg

http://moringello-east.no-ip.com:8080/start/public/monopod2.jpg