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Cheap fabric eggcrate replacement for sofboxes

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    Cheap fabric eggcrate replacement for sofboxes

    Looking for cheap replacements of those expensive fabric eggcrates from LightTools, Chimera, etc used to control light in front of a softbox. Are there any "creative" suggestions that would work out of the box? Or there's possibly ground for a DIY project here?

    Tks

    Lutnik

    #2
    Your speaking my mind, added it to the 10-most-wanted-DIY tread...
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    I LIKE FOOD. FOOD IS GOOD.
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      #3
      It's not fabric but you can buy a ca. 2'x4' plastic grid for fluorescent lighting applications at your local lighting or hardware store. IIRC the grid size is about 1x1".

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        #4
        After looking at how the fabric was sewn (and sorta woven) together on a Lowel Riffa's egg-crate, I decided to just buy some black fabric and am going to make my own. Just need to find someone with a sewing machine, the actual design is quite simple-

        Just strips of fabric, the verticals have slits in them, the horizontals go through the slits, and have the edges notched. Once the thing is on with a bit of tension, it looks like an egg crate, but without having to sew each and every joint. "BRILLIANT!" as they say.

        -Tom
        ------------------------------
        Tom Frisch
        www.tom11.com

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          #5
          Originally posted by tomk358
          After looking at how the fabric was sewn (and sorta woven) together on a Lowel Riffa's egg-crate, I decided to just buy some black fabric and am going to make my own. Just need to find someone with a sewing machine, the actual design is quite simple-

          Just strips of fabric, the verticals have slits in them, the horizontals go through the slits, and have the edges notched. Once the thing is on with a bit of tension, it looks like an egg crate, but without having to sew each and every joint. "BRILLIANT!" as they say.

          -Tom
          So, is every cross section stiched/sewn together?
          Or only the endpoints with the "frame"?
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          I LIKE FOOD. FOOD IS GOOD.
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            #6
            Originally posted by tomk358
            After looking at how the fabric was sewn (and sorta woven) together on a Lowel Riffa's egg-crate, I decided to just buy some black fabric and am going to make my own. Just need to find someone with a sewing machine, the actual design is quite simple-

            Just strips of fabric, the verticals have slits in them, the horizontals go through the slits, and have the edges notched. Once the thing is on with a bit of tension, it looks like an egg crate, but without having to sew each and every joint. "BRILLIANT!" as they say.

            -Tom
            Aren't you supposed to use some kind of flame-retardant fabric (and stiching thread)? And what about beam angles, do they really matter for optimum results?

            Lutnik

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              #7
              Only the frame ends were sewn, the rest were just threaded through.
              Since I plan to use mine on DIY 4-bulb kinos, I'm not worried about flames. If you are using on hot lights, you'd definitely want flame retardant fabric- though at that point out on the softbox, it really shouldn't be THAT hot.. but better to be safe.

              I'm wondering if I'm going to have to hem all the edges of my strips of fabric? That might suck.

              The cloth riffa egg-crate that I saw was pretty much a 90 degree square grid, so which is what I'm shooting for.

              -Tom
              ------------------------------
              Tom Frisch
              www.tom11.com

              Comment


                #8
                Hi all:

                You guys must have a lot of free time. I own four of the Chimera Lite Tools egg crates. Yes, I guess you could try to sew something like this together but between sourcing all of the supllies, taking measurements and the actual fabrication, you will end up spending a LOT of hours doing this. If you are just cheap and can't afford the real deal, I guess that's fine, I love DIY (I have made lots of my own video lights), but your time must be really not worth much to create these from scratch.

                I always measure DIY projects against how much my time is worth, generally, it's $50.00 to $75.00 an hour. So unless I could create one of these from scratch in less than about 3-4 hours, it's a much better deal to just bite the bullet and buy the Lite Tools ones. Your situation may be different but as a business person, you should always use this equation. Often, DIY is a rip off from a business standpoint.

                This reminds me of the Harbor Freight dimmers (router speed controls). A guy posted that he preferred to make his own but since many of us bought the Harbor Freight dimmers for $12.00 ea., it was a total ripoff to create them from scratch ourselves.

                Best of luck,

                Dan
                It's a business first and a creative outlet second.
                G.A.S. destroys lives. Stop buying gear that doesn't make you money.

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                  #9
                  I think you're ignoring the fact that some people do DIY too because they enjoy creating things. It's not all about money and time. You can't really tell someone they are wrong if they're doing it for the fun of it and because they like the creation process. All of filmmaking is a DIY art from top to bottom so the same could be said for that too if you carry it to the extreme.
                  Richard Andrewski - Cool Lights USA - Site Sponsor
                  Epic X #2392 - Skype "coolvideolights"

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                    #10
                    Puredrifting,
                    I would totally agree with you when a) I would be working 7 days a week and b) the real rip off wasn´t selling an eggcrate for half the price of the hole lamp fixture (Rifa88)...
                    Actually that p*sses me off.
                    And that gives me the drive to spent some free time on finding a not so insultingly expensive solution...
                    But I get your point, fortunately their are low cost alternatives to many of the industry´s standart gears (dollys, cranes, steadys, 35mm adapters) so I hope there´ll also be an affordable eggcrate out there soon...
                    If this baby is at around 75$, I´ll definitely NOT sit down and do it myself;o)
                    ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
                    I LIKE FOOD. FOOD IS GOOD.
                    ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Photoflex has the best prices on fabric eggcrates... and most of them fit other lights also.

                      If heat wasn't an issue... as in flos... then you could use fabric ribbon, that is available by the package from any store, including walmart... it's about 2" wide... and if you use a hot-knife to cut it you'll seal the cuts as you go... what you need is a 1" cut in the middle, verticle... and then a half-inch cut at the top and bottom of the intersecting ribbon.

                      But yeah... I agree that this may not be a rewarding job if you can get a photoflex in the size you need. As an example... a 24x32 is only $99... which is a lot for what it is... but not nearly the rip-off as so many other products... and a good, pro tool will usually last for many years. Making your own will probably cost $20-30 or so and take a few hours. I'd love to see you succeed at it though...

                      Post your experiences and let us know how it goes!
                      Last edited by MattinSTL; 05-02-2007, 04:57 AM.
                      LIGHTING and SOUND AVAILABLE FOR DIGITAL DOWNLOAD OR ON DVD

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                        #12
                        Hi Richard:

                        I can totally understand if people want to do this stuff as a hobby/side project, I built my fake Kinos this way, not because it was going to save me ton of money, I just wanted to see if I could do it. I am not bagging on people who do this, I just wanted to offer a different viewpoint from a working pro.

                        But if you are a working pro, unless you have down time, many cannot afford to take the time to build tools when they can be bought for a few hundred dollars or less. In looking at my egg crates, it would seem to me that to fabricate one would be fairly labor intensive unless you have major sewing skills, which most guys don't (most women either these days, I know very few women who can sew).

                        OTOH, I would be interested to see what someone could do for a homemade egg crate. It would be interesting to see how much the materials cost and how many hours of labor in total was expended to create the item. There is this law of diminishing returns though where even if you save money, how much hassle did you go through to get there? I ran into this on some of my homemade lights where I had to go to certain suppliers who were a nightmare to deal with and took up an entire afternoon just to buy a couple of mounts for lights.

                        I think the best of all worlds is when you can find something not made for video that works well for video. That's why I love Home Depot. A DP I hired in Florida last week showed me some "fantasy lites" that he found at a party supply store. They were a small string of LCD bulbs with a small battery pack. They were safe for submersion in liquids and looked really cool. He found them for $10.00 per string and they would be killer for nook lights or suspended in the air behind an interview. I bought some Contico tool boxes at Home Depot a few years ago and I have flown all over the world with them. They hold my entire grip and lighting package minus stands and I use them on location as stands for my HD monitor and my G4 PB as I dump P2 cards. Killer tools and they were cheap. That's what gets me excited. But fabrication is tougher and usually less satisfying.

                        Best,

                        Dan
                        Last edited by puredrifting; 05-02-2007, 06:30 AM.
                        It's a business first and a creative outlet second.
                        G.A.S. destroys lives. Stop buying gear that doesn't make you money.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          I think for the most part, pros don't have time for diy other than a few things here and there. For instance, you can see chinese lanterns on soundstages all over hollywood for instance and its surprising to see them up next to extremely expensive instruments--i still consider that DIY since it wasn't originally meant for that use.

                          One president of a computer company I used to work for was giving a speech one time and he said people have been increasingly penalized for building their own tools (referring mostly to information technology and programming in context but could apply to any business actually) and that's true. Hard to argue and if you could be working and earning more there is no argument at all. At that point if you're still doing DIY, you are doing it for pleasure or hobby and not out of necessity.
                          Richard Andrewski - Cool Lights USA - Site Sponsor
                          Epic X #2392 - Skype "coolvideolights"

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by puredrifting
                            I think the best of all worlds is when you can find something not made for video that works well for video.
                            That's precisely what I was looking for on starting this thread.
                            I definitely agree is not worth wasting a whole day on building a custom made eggcrate if you can buy it for $99.

                            Lutnik

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