Vacuum Forming

I mentioned in my previous post that I'm embracing The Shopping Sherpa's concept of 'Finish it off Friday's' in an effort to reduce almost complete projects and generally give me the kick up the backside I think I need. One of my biggest faults is to jot something down that I have seen and would like to try, and then I pause at the good intentions stage.

It was Snowfern-Clover who first peaked my interest with a post about a DIY vacuum forming machine. Oo, the possibilities I thought, and then almost instantly forgot about it when I didn't have the materials to realise the idea. Since it was the largest of my 'to-do' projects I decided this would be my first Friday post.

 Basically it is a box, with a hole the size of a vacuum hose cut into one side. The perforated aluminium top allows the vaccum to suck air from inside the box and therefore pull anything placed on top of the box, downwards. 

You know the best thing about it? Monique from the wonderful blog - Fabulously Small, always advocates recycling and using the plastic trays that you find in cold meat packaging. Reading her blog gave me the inspiration to try it with vacuum forming and it worked brilliantly. *Happy dance*

It's just a case of clipping the plastic between two frames, heating it until it's pliable and then placing it over the things you want to make a mold of. In my case it was a wooden grid to make a seed tray.

Have a great weekend
Pepper =0)

Additional infomation

I realise that my skills as an instructor leave a lot to be desired so I have made another seed tray and taken photographs at each stage. I hope the pictures explain better =0)

I took the plastic tray from some food packaging, washed it and cut the lip so that I had a flat square, slightly larger than the hole in my frames.

I clipped the plastic between two frames, placed it in the oven and heat it up until the plastic is soft enough that it begins to sag (but not so much that it melts and ruins your oven) It was aroung three minutes at 200 degrees.

I place the softened plastic directly on top of what I wanted to mold with the vacuum switched on. In my case I laser cut a fretwork grate with 5mm squares out of a 5mm thick piece of basswood. You can literally use anything as a mold as long as it a) does not melt or react to the dry heat of an oven, b) does not have any undercuts i.e. a flat coin would be fine whereas a complicated shape like a ball could not be formed.

The last photgraph shows both the item I used to mold and the plastic form once it had cooled. I then cut around the tray with scissors.

Hope this helps

Pepper x