Stan’s Background Stands

These are quick, easy and cheap to make. I made two versions: a large pair for a full-size background and a small pair for tabletop work. Their designs are somewhat different.

Full-size Telescoping Stands

These are adjustable in height to make them useful for tabletop to head & shoulders portraits to full-length group shots.

As far as I know, there is only one size combination of Schedule 40 PVC pipe that provides a nice sliding fit, and that is the 1” pipe inside the 1 ¼ “ pipe. These sizes are plenty strong to hold full-size backgrounds. Shown in the first picture is the stands adjusted for 8 foot ceiling height and used with a nine-foot Tyvek background. The background is not unrolled to its full length in this picture.

These pictures just show the telescoping pipes. The lower one shows an eye bolt inserted in a hole through the outer pipe. The inner pipe just rests on this bolt. Drill holes at whatever positions you need for height adjustment.

The stand base is simple, as shown. Only four joints need to be cemented. These are the two lower joints on the tee that the vertical pipe fits into, and the right angle joint on the two other tees. The other joints are just slip fit and allow the stand to be easily disassembled for storage or transport.

I used 9” pieces of 1 ¼” pipe and 1 ¼” tees for everything in the base. The pipe end caps are required for stability so the stands won’t rock on the tees.

I used one ten-foot length of 1” and one ten-foot length of 1 ¼” pipe. I cut each in half and that makes the vertical telescoping members of both stands.

A cap on the 1” pipe was used to provide strength so that the pipe didn’t break when tightening the eye bolt that is used to hang the background crossmember. This might be overkill. It does not need to be cemented.

I used a 3” PVC pipe for the crossmember, hung on hooks. I used the large pipe because I rolled the background on it. If the background is on a cardboard roll, you can use a telescoping pair of pipes (same sizes used on vertical members) for the crossmember.

Tabletop Stands

This is the tabletop background set up on our dining table, which is about the only place I have to work.

The vertical members and base are made of ¾” Schedule 40 PVC pipe.

The base was designed to fit entirely on the table. It is stable enough.

The vertical members and inward-projecting members are not cemented and can easily be pulled out of the tees and elbows to disassemble the stands for storage or transport.

There are any number of ways to do this, but I just rolled the background material on a 2” pipe and put holes in it so it could be slipped over the ends of the vertical stand members.

Another way to do the tabletop work is to use the full-size telescoping stands sitting on the floor on each side of the table, with a crossmember of appropriate length (or a telescoping crossmember).