[hackerspaces] Anyone built a vacuuform before?

[Deech]

Disclaimer: I have yet to build mine.

However, I have been planning on building one for a while now and have read
many, many plans on how to do it and played with several.

How much space do you have to devote to it?
This determines if you want to make the "flip" style, or the "drop" style
(my names for them). The flip style has a flat heating surface that faces
up, a hinge in the middle, and the vacuum table on the other side. You heat
on one side, then flip the sheet over, like turning a page of a book, then
hit the vacuum. The drop style is where your heat source is at the top, you
push the plastic up, heat, then drop it down. I've seen these build sort of
like the flip, just folded to about a 45 degree angle, or stacked like a
tower, where you have four corner rods that support the heat source and a
frame for the plastic that slides up and down the rods. Or, if you have an
old oven, you can just build a table and put the frame the oven to heat,
pull it out and push it on the table. Each takes up different amounts of
space. Also, remember that heat rises, so the flip style tends to heat
faster and more evenly, the 45 degree style tends to heat the top edge
faster, unless you have a good heat source, and the drop style seems to heat
the slowest.
I'd recommend making your table to either fit a standard size sheet,
(several choices there, just find a supplier) or a half or quarter of a
standard size of sheet, so you can easily cut your larger sheets in
half/quarter and save material. The plastic isn't cheap. :)

I'm personally looking at building the flip style, it seems easier to make
happen mechanically, but that's just me. There are several books and plans
on the net, but really, the concept is really very simple and once you look
at a few plans it should make a lot of sense and you can probably just
design your own for your own needs rather then buying someone else's plans.

-Deech


On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 4:53 PM, Nathan Witt <wittnl at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm researching building one myself now and wanted to see if there's any
> suggested plans to try or caveats.
>
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