Steve Weinrebe's Mode Studio

What a beautiful piece of industrial design. This small and powerful tool will drive a staple (really a mini-nail with two spikes) into just about any porous surface. And the staple will hold in place merely from friction against the material it’s been driven into.

For the photographer, the important surfaces this tool can drive staples into include wood, foam core, polywood, textiles, rubber, and many flexible plastics. Entire sets can be tacked together using the staple gun. Unlike nails or glue, staples can be pried back out from surfaces fairly easily and, depending on the surface, without any visible damage.

The most common studio use of the staple gun is to hold down a photo background, such as onto a sheet of plywood or foam core. The background might be seamless paper, a textile, or a greenscreen for video production. Textured vinyl backgrounds (I’ve used several of these for table top sets) typically have a “memory” to their curl. It’s a pesky situation and inevitably the curl will pressure tape, if you’ve used tape, to the point of popping up a corner just as you are about to click the shutter. If you have a carefully arranged still life, that popped up corner may be enough to throw off your arrangement in the set. Staple gun to the rescue! Tack those corners down with staples. You can always pull them out later with a flat-head screw driver or pliers. There is great satisfaction to be had in the “thwack” of the staple fixing the corners of a background into place.

Another tidbit to keep in mind is that most staple guns accept a couple of different size staples. If you have a staple gun in your cabinet, mark the model number down and next trip to the hardware store flesh out your staple inventory with all the sizes your staple gun will take. Shorter staples are obviously easier to remove and may be strong enough for stapling into wood. Longer staples may be needed for softer surfaces, so that the “legs” of the staple have enough friction not to pull back up.

Posted by Steve Weinrebe