You can easily build something that will work. The way I did it was to
take a piece of masonite and a piece of pegboard, both the same size, and
build a box with onextwos on the sides. In the inside, it needs more
onextwos that have air channels (in other words, these supports don't go
end-to-end, but have gaps. These keep the frame from distoring when the
vacuum comes on. To accomplish the same purpose as the grooves in the
expensive condit easel, all you have to do is block the holes that aren't
covered with your printing paper. It is helpful to have a variable leak
control to use just the amount of vacuum you actually need. There are
numerous ways to do this. On one unit, I built a little slider valve,
but Rainbow vacuums have a leak control device on the hose.
The hardest part is to devise a fitting for the hose connection. Old
vacuum cleaner hoses from Goodwill might work. I used PVC parts.
These easels can be really great, and also work for vacuumforming.
Larry Bullis