Any idea how to build something like this?

[randy41]

how about command strips?

 

[dodge man]

How far away do you have to be? Can you lay it flat on the floor and shoot it from above? Might need a scaffold or some other stable platform.

 

[newbury]

Have you tried magnets?
Actually looks like a good excuse to build a pole barn with 18' ceiling.

 

[jaxs]

How about pegboard large enough for largest quilts that has outer/unused holes covered so that vacuum is concentrated behind smaller quilt? Anti-skid surfaced pegboard tilt's horizontal while quilt is positioned,vacuum turned on then pegboard tilted vertical for photos. Unused holes are covered with plastic like material that make's a good seal. To overcome lack of vacuum due to premability of quilt,lay clear plastic material over perimeter of quilt to increase grip around perimeter. Use clear material approved by photography industry to cover perimeter but center of quilt remain's unobstructed so that zoomed in imigages of detail and stitching are clear.

 

[4570Man]

Some back of the envelope numbers on a simple pegboard vacuum system:

The suction of Shop-vac's is rated in inches of water lift, quick Googling tells me that a 16-gallon has 52 inches of lift, which is equivalent to 1.9 PSI. So if you had an opening of 10 square inches that would be 19 pounds of force. That would be horizontal force, the amount of vertical force would be determined by the amount of friction, but intuitively it seems that the vertical force would be at least equal to the horizontal force, so you could hold 19 pounds of material. A higher friction surface would be helpful -- like the rough side of pegboard.

Box-store pegboard has 9/32" holes on 1" centers. The area of a 9/32" hole is just about exactly 1/16 square inches, so 10 square inches of opening is 160 square inches of pegboard -- or a 16X10 area. So far, so good.

Looking at it the other way, if you had a 6x6 foot quilt that weighed 20 pounds, how much suction would you need? A 6x6 foot square is 5184 square inches, pegboard of that size has 324 square inches of opening. To generate 20 pounds of force only requires 0.06 PSI of vacuum, or 1.7 inches of water lift. That doesn't sound that bad either.

I think you're going to find that the key is controlling air leakage, the less flow the higher the suction. You might run into a problem that the quilt is too permeable to form a good seal. You also need to cover the parts of the table that aren't covered by the quilt. My thought is to use pieces of Tyvek, which will seal and should provide a background that is unobjectionable for photos.

I think the handling would be easiest if the table had a way of pivoting, so you can lay everything out flat, then turn on the vacuum and flip the table vertical for the shoot.

A 4x8 sheet of pegboard is about $15, it seems like you could experiment and get an idea of whether it's going to work rather cheaply.

From a business perspective the nice thing about solving hard problems is that they're hard, you can charge a premium for solving them.

The force created by a vacuum is massive. Easily enough to hold a quilt. The problem is a quilt isn't a very good seal. It's going to take a lot of air movement to hold it. I'm not sure that an expanded metal lid on a box with a furnace blower or something bigger isn't more inline than pegboard.

 

[bunyip]

Floor, drone.

 

[sandman2234]

When I worked for a machine shop, we built a vacuum table to hold Plexiglas panels while we machined them flat. (they were windows on cars that got scratched and needed resurfacing and polishing). I think that table is 40 x 48 or something like that. When the shop closed, I ended up with it and the pump that powered it, although in your case a large vacuum cleaner would probably pull enough air to make a quilt stick.
If I was going to make one for quilts, it would be of wood. (this one is aluminum)
David from jax

 

[dstig1]

You are looking at it wrong. Lay it flat on the floor and shoot it. If you have to, find a warehouse you can rent to do it. Lay down some paper or other materials as background. If you need serious height to shoot, consider also renting a boom lift. Easy enough in a commercial building with high ceilings.

 

[Depmandog]

I am thinking of using Velcro hook sheets and an angled display board. First you could perform a proof of concept test using smaller pieces of Velcro on a board laid against the wall supporting a similar piece of fabric. A quick google search and I found Velcro sheets 60” wide, so that part of the equation is doable. Yes, you would have to shoot from a higher vantage point at a corresponding down angle, so you would need to do the math to see if you have the needed ceiling height at the desired distance from the quilt.

Guessing you could make this work with the Velcro hooks providing enough friction into the back of the quilt at 12-15 degrees off vertical. The concept test shouldn’t put you out of much money. A couple rolls of department store 2 inch wide Velcro and a half sheet of plywood. The key would be finding a small size stand in for the quilt.

Good luck!

 

[jmc]

Maybe an adhesive company, like 3M, would have sales engineers to recommend a temporary, no-residue adhesive tape. (think Post-It-Note type, but stronger)