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How Velcro really works

A few days ago I was playing with my macro lens. The weather outside was horrible and I couldn’t think of what inside deserved attention, so I started playing around with some macro shots. One of my favorite pastimes with the MP-E 65 lens is to aim it at everyday subjects and then see what they look like in detail. One of the things I grabbed that day was a pair of my older son’s shoes – which use velco. Now I had never really given much thought to how Velcro works – other than it is rather cool. What I thought was even cooler though was how the photographs showed how exactly Velcro works.

Here you can see that the bottom layer of Velcro consists of a number of loops, each with a cut made in it. The top layer is made up of wires. When you push the two together, it is inevitable that some of the wires will catch on the hoops. When you pull Velcro apart, you must exert enough force to pull the wires off of the hooks. Obviously as you can see in this picture that is quite difficult to do when pulling straight up, which is why you must peel Velcro off. By pulling from an angle you make it more likely the wires will go back through the entrance in the hook without much additional force.

Here is another shot.

Here, none of the loops have attached to the hooks in focus but you have a better picture how this is likely to occur with just a bit more force.

To take these shots I opened the Velcro up slightly. Because at this magnification the picture is very dark and it is difficult to focus, it was difficult to tell at the time of the shot exactly what I would get. OK, so these aren’t the most exciting shots in the world – I still love learning new things when taking photos. Just wait until I get the equipment to hook my camera up to a microscope. J

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Tags: macro, photography, velcro