My colleague was looking for a way to remove and add rolled textiles for storage onto a rolling wooden rack. As it existed, it wasn’t terribly user friendly. The initial solution was to purchase a ‘speed flange’ from an online retailer that would fit the diameter of the wooden poles that the rolled textiles on archival tubes were rolled.

I was able to create a quick 3D model, and print it that evening. The resulted model hardware will be stress tested for use, and printed in ABS, which is widely accepted as safe for use around museum collections. The cost for the flanges by from the online retailer would have been close to $24 per piece, with the rolling storage needing around 8 - 10 pairs, or upwards of $240 in hardware. The cost to print the flanges I modeled in ABS would be under $1.50/pair, or a savings of almost 97%.