Thread: Custom Plastic Pieces

At school, we have 2 vacuum formers, which basically melts a sheet of plastic , covers the mold with the sheet of plastic, then a vacuum sucks all the air out of the machine and the plastic is pulled down over your mold where it then cools and hardens in the shape of your mold. Keep in mind though, that this method is not good for making 1 solid piece, it doesn't handle gaping holes very well, and if you hvae negative draft (here is a quick ascii drawing: positive draft=/| , normal=|, negative draft=\| ) it will be next to imposible to recover the mold and you will most likely damage the final formed piece of plastic.

Other methods are making a silicone mold, concave/inversed and pouring some plastic resin, such as hdpe or something of htat nature into the mold and letting it harden over night to form a solid piece.

THose are but a few of the methods we used at school for some of our industrial design projects.

If you have any other questions about it, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

And despite what some of my other classmates would say, balsa foam does work as a good molding material for vacuum forming, youjust have to lube it up well with baby powder or vasoline so you can recover the mold, or else the top layer of hte balsa foam will melt to the inside of your plastic piece.

Most are probably using Fiberglass to mold thier dashes.