How to buld a vacuum forming rig!!!

im going to show you how to make a vacuum forming rig to make bodies and what not.

ok Step 1, grab a pen and paper. you will need at least a 10 foot strip of 1x4 pine wood, depending on how big you make your rig the more/less you will need. Next you will need some 1/4" thick fiberboard atleast a 2 foot square (really cheap, so i got more then I needed in case I make another rig). Next metal "L" brackets (hinge department) you need 8 of them. You will also need 2" long 8-32 machine bolts along with 8-32 wing nuts. The last thing you need to get your rig going is a pack of adhesive weather stripping foam.

*Note this is just the RIG, so im not putting plastic, Shop vac down, but you will need both if you want to make things.

*And another thing, you need screws to get your L brackets down, make sure there not to long, dont want them to go in one side and out the other!

Ok so now that you have both of your frames and have them traced, with the foam on there, put the 2 frames on top of each-other and drill 2 holes on both sides of the long pieces (about 1/4 inch from the out side of it) and 1 on each of the shorter pieces. No take your screws and wing nuts and slide them thru. In the end it should look somethign like this:



Ok now you need to make your "picture frames" I cut the long sides 16" and the short sides 7" long (size varies, the bigger the more wasted plastic, but not big enough its not going to form right)

One you get 4 of each sides cut, attach them with your brackets (i only had 4 so i used a couple blocks of wood, ill just use this frame for the top part, and the one with the brackets for the bottom):




ok once you get at least one of you frames done, trace it on your fiber board. Then put the weather stripping around it:




Ok now that you have both of your frames and your fiber board all set up, put the frames on top of each-other and drill 2 holes on each of the long pieces, almost in the middle, but a little further out side. Only do 1 for the shorter pieces. Just like this:





The last thing you will need to do is driller your hole for your vacuum hose to fit in. Mine is 2 inches wide, so i took a 2 inch bit and went to work, its a little loose but ill wrap some tape around the end of the vacuum to get it nice and snug.

*Note: See where the hole is? Your mold shouldn't be over the hole, a little can be over but try not to get to much.

Thats it your rig is now complete. Once i get plastic ill post part 2 "how to make molds/forming" up!

Dude thats dirty , I might have to try that one post pics of some product

yea I will, still need to order some plastic and grab more brackets.

I updated it and showed how I made my rig!

looking good where you finding the plastic for this ???

Jombo sent me a link to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] im going to get some .04 and .03 thickness for the micro bodies. I wont be able to do much for the next week or 2 for surgery, so theres no point in ordering it now, ill wait till I feel better. Plus i scored a RC18T for $140 with a mamba, futaba servo, and some alum. parts from bthurz on GP, should be here next week I hope so that will keep me busy wile im recovering.

Looking forward to seeing you're creations
Hope you don't have any over melts in the oven

Our prayers go out to you on you're surgery.
Hope it helps you to feel better

+1 /\/\/\/\/\/\

but can you make somthing little more stram lind or a biger rc