Or make a relief buck! Two molds total. As vacuum pulls plastic into pos the other mold is pressed over top.

How much vaccum pressure u r creating

@@niranjanrawle3488 I evacuate the old water heater tank down to 27" to 29" of mercury for the initial burst when the plastic contacts the mold. The Gast 1065 pump maintains that vacuum level as the plastic cools.

unless you blow hot air into the hot plastic, so it makes a balloon, right after you shut down the heaters, press the plastic down, shut the fan, start vacuuming. voila, no thin sides.

Thanks for the compliment! I believe the oven coils get anywhere from 350° to 400° and the plastic gets close to 325° when it is ready to form. The amount of time depends on the thickness of the plastic. 1:30 for .060", 3:30 for .090", and 6:00 to 7:00 for .125"

Webbing is a symptom of a couple of errors - Heating the plastic so it becomes too stretched out (2:37 - Big Bubble, lot's of trouble!), then the excess is pinched together when applying vacuum. Or, if your mold has vertical sides or hard corners, the plastic will pinch together as it is being drawn down. Add a little angle to the sides of your mold, or use "risers" - the little spacers under the mold. To fix the webbing in the pulled part, backfill the inside with epoxy resin, then sand down the pinched plastic. ABS plastic is more challenging to work with because it forces you to follow good vacuum forming techniques - don't put too many molds on the platen, use plenty of space between molds, and use a timer to consistently heat the plastic. I haven't had as much trouble with webbing since switching to ABS.

The actual vacuum forming table wasn't too expensive to build, maybe around $500 while using a shop vac. The upgrade to a real vacuum pump and tank was another $500. Buying the plastic was challenging since many suppliers have a minimum order and you have to pay for shipping - that's a big financial commitment! Sandtrooper backpacks have been my bread and butter, but I've also pulled Star Trek models and radio control car bodies on the vac table.

Hi Lord of Bees! If you're using ABS plastic, you can create "sludge" by shaving bits of ABS into a glass jar, then slowly adding acetone and stirring with a metal screwdriver until it becomes like pancake batter. Then stuff the sludge into the webbing from the inside, and sand the webbing smooth. If you're using HIPS, you might try filling in with milliput or Loctite Repair Putty.

Saadouni Said 5/7*

I make the initial rough cut with a huge Stanley FatMax utility knife. Score the plastic a couple of times, then flex and snap. Depending on the shape of the part, for the final cut I'll use the score and snap with the knife again, or a Dremel with a large cutoff wheel - watch out for flying hot plastic globs!

+x23pfa Why yes, as a matter of fact I do sell the Sandtrooper Backpacks as a complete kit! Here's all of the components that go into the kit: tk386.com/sandtrooper_backpack_kit/ I'll send you a message with pricing information.

Initially, I tried working with 3mm Syntra, a brand of foamed PVC sheet popular with sign making shops. I was able to use a heat gun to bend it in one direction, but it was very difficult to create compound curves like you would find on a chest plate. By the time I built a vacuum forming machine, I had moved on to using HIPS and ABS. From my experience with Syntra, I don't think you would get any detail to come through. Certainly no detail like the ribs on the white plate at the end of the video!

Yes, the vacuum charge is stored in the hot water tank in the corner. I usually take it down to 29"hg before making a pull. The Proto-Form is a great machine, really well designed and engineered. I have built a newer vac table very similar to the Proto-Form. Since it is an overhead oven, there is a lot of heat loss out of the sides. The major advantage is the plastic doesn't travel through as much air, and comes straight down on your molds. The flip flop style (like in this video) cools the plastic before it hits the table, and it contacts the molds at an angle. This forming platen was made from two sheets of MDF sandwiched together with a 1/8" gap to act as a plenum. Then I placed .020 aluminum on top and drilled 560 holes for the vacuum to pass through. The aluminum sheet was not sealed to the MDF very tight, and the MDF allowed air to leak through as well. I upgraded to a single hole platen made from 1/8" aluminum, and the pulls became much faster and tighter.

The companies that make the smaller machines and especially the DIY plan ones are overemphasizing and exploiting the "heating element mystery" segment of the machines. It isn't THAT difficult to create your own as long as you use sound methods and common sense.

The black plastic is .080" thick, and the white plastic is .060" The oven heats the plastic to around 300° F HIPS is a great plastic to learn how to vacuum form since it will tolerate over heating and still produce a decent pull. Use a timer to get consistent results.

Thanks a lot my friend!!!!!

It sounds like you're looking for an oval dome. I've ordered from this place and the quality is fantastic! www.eztopsworldwide.com/ovaldomes.htm

Usually an air compressor adds pressure to a vessel and is not designed like to extract air like a vacuum pump.

Obrigado!

Yup, industrial vacuum forming machines have a separate valve to shoot compressed air back into the vacuum mold to release the plastic. I haven't figured out how to add that to my machine, yet...

It would depend on the complexity of the molds. Also, I found working with acrylic to be rather challenging - either it cooled too fast before I could get a good pull, or I overheated the sheet which the created lots of bubbles in the plastic. Send a message to crashtoob@gmail.com and we can talk about the project further. Thanks!

The song is composed by Ian Bryden and is called Nitrogen. I like the bass line :-) Thanks for the compliment on the vac table!

ABS can be very tricky to vacuum form, and the rubber content makes it want to shrink more than HIPS The shrinkage is just something you need to compensate for. My parts do not require that level of precision, so I don't worry about it.

You need to vacuum form with larger platen area to compensate for the shrinkage..plus do all you can to ensure equal heating all over the sheet. If that means adjusting your heating element or more numerous smaller hearing units then do that. But uniform heat is the key.

The oven is running on 110V at 20 amps. At 0:52 seconds you can see some notes for heating the plastic: HIPS .060" takes 1:30, & .080 takes 3:15. I've upgraded from the stopwatch to a kitchen countdown timer. Now if I'm distracted with trimming parts, the alarm helps me to avoid burning the plastic :-)

crashmannn Ah I see the times now. Didn't catch that until you mentioned they were written down. Thanks for the repy

The large box molds are made from MDF, with birch wood strips on top. The white parts are HydroCal plaster. The gray radio faceplates are BCC Kwik Kast two part epoxy resin. You definitely need holes to help evacuate the air through the molds, especially for the detailed parts like the radio. You can get a lot of pulls from the molds - 100's! But it also depends on the shape and thickness of the mold, and how difficult it is to extract from the pulled plastic. I usually bang the plastic on a piece of foam or rubber floor mat to cushion the landing when the mold pops out. A light coating of tire shine (use the cheap stuff) eases the extraction as well :-)

Thank you so much!

The large brown molds are made from MDF glued together, shaped and sanded. The white molds are HydroCal plaster which can break if you're not careful during extraction. The gray radio faceplates are BCC Kwik Kast urethane resin, specifically designed for vacuum forming. Depending on the shape and how vigorously you bang on the plaster molds, they could go for 100 pulls. The MDF and urethane are still going strong today - hundreds of pulls! To get in the nooks and crannies of the molds, you must have air holes. Otherwise the plastic will not be drawn down into the concave space.

It depends on how much air you need to vacuum out and if you are using a surge tank - highly recommended for that much volume! The Gast 1065 will vac 8.5cfm and get down to 28 in-mg

It depends on the final shape of your project. If there are nice flowing organic curves, then plexiglass should work. However, if you have sharp angles, then plexiglass would not give you the detail you need.

crashmannn hmm.. that means we must use abs or hips because of details and textures on surface. Thanks a lot..

It depends on the precision/quality required for the 1300 squares, and how quickly you need the pieces made. If you're talking about flat squares, then have a plastic supply company cut them for you. To build your own system would take quite a bit of time. Sure, you could put together the system quickly, but don't forget about the time and cost of learning how to use it, tune it to heat the plastic, and also the space required to build the machine and store the plastic. Vacuum forming works best with objects that have tapered sides. Vacuum forming is not good for making objects with vertical sides and corners. You will run into trouble with webbing on the corners, where the plastic gathers, then pinches together ( similar to 2:37). Plus you'll spend more time trying to extract the mold from the pulled plastic than actually heating and forming the parts!

That makes sense. Ugh! I need another way to make molds then. It's either that or buy my own 3-D Printer.

Razendra Bahadur There's loads of ways to make vac formers for near no money and use a vac cleaner to suck the air out, you can heat the sheets with a paint stripper gun, easy.

Razendra Bahadur There's loads of ways to make vac formers for near no money and use a vac cleaner to suck the air out, you can heat the sheets with a paint stripper gun, easy.

The vacuum pump is a Gast 1065 that can draw 14.4 m3/h www.gastmfg.com/product_detail.aspx?ProductID=135&ProductTypeID=21

I prefer ABS plastic since it is more durable than brittle HIPS, but heating too long will cause an orange peel finish. Go with thin .060" if you need a lot of detail to come through in the pull. Otherwise, .090" is a nice balance between durability, weight, and cost. .125" is good if you plan on banging heads with other folks :-p)

Thank you

@1:12 you can see the vacuum is down to 24" of mercury and continuing to drop. Usually it is down to 29" when the plastic is ready to be formed

The Gast 1065 vacuum pump will pull 8.5 cfm (cubic feet per minute). It will evacuate the 50 gallon hot water tank down to 29" of mercury in about 5 minutes - pretty quick! Some folks have used air conditioner vacuum pumps that run a little slower, but are just as effective. Good luck with your build!

crashmannn thank you very much, in this video you have used the 8,5 CFM pump or it is higher? what is the size of the vacuum table, i will build the same vacuum as the yours, thank you very much for replying.

The frame for the plastic is 32"x24" and you can get 6 pieces from a single 4'x8' sheet. You can read all the sordid details of how I started the table with a shop vac here: www.tk560.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=193&highlight=#193

0:15 Mount a plumbing flange connector on the bottom of the platen, under the hole in the center. Then use standard plumbing fittings leading to your control valve and vacuum pump.

@@matthewstrait5182 I have an air compressor, does it fit for the vacuum system

@@h.s76 Not usually. Air compressors are designed to add pressure. Vacuum pumps are designed to draw air out of a system.

www.polymershapes.com/ has all the varieties of plastic you could possibly desire!

I'm not sure I understand your question. The original forms (also known as "bucks") are created using a variety of materials. MDF wood glued together, then cut with a saw and sanded smooth. Or PVC pipe from the hardware store. Or, hard foam shaped with saws and files, sanded smooth, then covered with fiberglass resin. However, if the master is made from hard foam, I will vacuum form the plastic over it, then use that to create the production mold from two part resin. The gray nipples and mushroom caps were created in that manner. Hopefully that answers your question :-)

crashmannn Oops, my current bucks are made of two part resin. In the video above, the molds for the white mushrooms, nipples, and Twinkies are cast in plaster (Hydrocal). The gray radio faceplate buck was originally created using plastic rectangles and clay. I made a silicone mold of the master, then poured two part resin to create the gray bucks for the vac table.

crashmannn 1 gün önce · Herkese açık olarak paylaşıldı How to get a positive (the real work) from this mold ? Çevir 3 YANITTAN TÜMÜNÜ GÖRÜNTÜLEYİN crashmannn 21 saat önce +crashmannn Oops, my current bucks are made of two part resin. In the video above, the molds for the white mushrooms, nipples, and Twinkies are cast in plaster (Hydrocal). The gray radio faceplate buck was originally created using plastic rectangles and clay. I made a silicone mold of the master, then poured two part resin to create the gray bucks for the vac table. Devamı · Çevir SuperPicasso05 11 dakika önce +crashmannn so sorry for my unintelligible question. we named the mold "negative" and the finished work "positive" in our art school :)) As I understood at the end; black materials you vacuumed (polystyrene sheet?) are original parts you used on clone troopers. I thought they were molds! We have some original clay works. We want to get molds with that vacuuming technic. And want to get finished works from these molds with the same technic. But the last step is the problem. I think we can't use vacuuming to get a male (finished work) from a female mold. We must not vacuum the air, we must compress it into the mold. What do you think? thanks for answers..

SuperPicasso05 It sounds like you need to create a "female" mold. Read the discussion here to learn the various ways to make the mold: www.starshipmodeler.net/talk/viewtopic.php?t=100977&sid=03d5f118a15ed49406092cb826efb7a0 The danger is that you may lose your original clay master when making the mold. The benefit is you will have great surface detail when drawing the plastic down into the mold. I've used this technique with Star Trek spaceship models.

crashmannn thanks. That's what I look for.

+Dylan Harris Sabic Polymershapes in Jessup Maryland (301) 604-3623. Ask for Andrew and tell him Charlie sent you!

+crashmannn does he ship state wide?

Dylan Harris Certainly! Sabic Polymershapes is a nationwide company, and they have production facilities across the US. They will cut the plastic down to the size you specify for your platen, then ship it via FedEx or UPS.

+crashmannn thank you for telling me about him, hopefully I'll get some plastic from him soon.

Unfortunately I do not sell the system, but if you go to tk560.com, you can find all the information to build your own.

Hola! The brown rectangles are MDF wood. The white circles are plaster. The gray rectangles are special urethane resin - BC8009 Slow-Kast

I'm using HIPS (high impact polystyrene) and ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene). Polypropylene can be vacuum formed, but it is resistant to solvents and glue, which is needed to assemble the Sandtrooper Backpack. Check out Wikipedia to compare the three different types of plastics.

Friend, what is the thickness of the ABS card you use? Want to use a millimeter, but here in Brazil is hard to find. Hugs. Raul.

Raul César Del Priore The white ABS is .060" thick, which converts to 1.5mm. Good luck in your quest!

The black plastic is .090" HIPS (high impact polystyrene) and the white is .060" ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) What kind of help do you need?

How much vaccum pressure u r applying

@@niranjanrawle3488 I usually pull 27" to 29" of mercury with the vacuum pump and water tank vacuum chamber

Look up the specs on the Gast 1065

in coming 9canzur community on 3... 2... 1...

The white HIPS in the video is .060 inches which converts to 1.5mm - pretty thin. The black HIPS is .090 which converts to 2mm

Are you asking about the molds, aka "bucks?" They were custom fabricated using MDF (the brown wood), sculpting foam, or clay. We based everything on screen captures of the Sandtroopers from Star Wars.

Oh thank you :D In my school is a vacuum forming machin. Maybe i can do something like this too😃

yep

Yes I do!

I most certainly do have Sandtrooper Backpacks for sale! You can find me on MEPD.net, or send a message to crashtoob@gmail.com. Thanks!

Hi randallace, I"m not finding a way to PM you through KZfaq, so just shoot me a message using crashtoob@gmail.com. Then I'll send you all the information about my current sandtrooper backpack kits - lots of parts have been improved!