Response by: guest, July 17th 2006 3:39:59 pm

I'll try to give you some solutions that worked for me. On my bed I glued one side and left the short side and one open side loose. Then, after placing my subject, I roll a small wooden dowel rod about 1 1/2 turns around the loose edges and secure it with clips. It holds well and provides a good seal. A standard zipper leaks air like a screen door. A way to get around that is to glue an extra strip along the outside edge of the outter sheet over lapping the seam. glue your zipper to the original sheets. The added strip will be sucked down into the zipper as the vacuum builds. Reinforcement is easy, just use some extra sheeting and glue in place where the holes are to be, it doesn't take much. Do this around both the vacuum hose hole and the breathing tube hole. Also you can reinforce the corners this way or other wear points. As for holding a vacuum without the machine running is hard to do, you need an airtight valve, assemble it to the pvc pipe. It won't last long no matter what you do as latex is simi porous. But it will last long enought for some fun. Hope this helps and good luck with your project.