I’ve made the below gizmo to test making some simple vacuum formed parts from disposable plastic plates. The basic process is to turn on the vacuum and put the vacuum end of the tubing over the inlet of the vacuum (the vacuum holds it snugly in place). Place the desired object on the screen on the top of the vacuum box. Place the plastic plate bottom up over the object on the box. The vacuum sucks the plate down on the object. Heat the plate with the heat gun in a circleing motion starting toward the outside of the plate keeping the gun ~6" away from the plate. slowly work toward the inside being careful not to overheat the plate causing holes to form. I only had 5 plates to experiment with, so with more plates I’ll see what else can be done.
Parts:
7"x11" baking pan $1 at Dollertree
2’x2’ 1/4" plywood sheet $3.22 at lowes (cut 11"x13" for box, 3.5"x3.5" for vacuum cleaner piece)
hot glue gun and glue sticks $5 at Walmart
plastic plates 8 for $1 at Dollartree
1/2" plastic tubing scrap
scrap window screen material
heat gun $10 Harbor Freight
strong vacuum cleaner
drill and bits for drilling holes
saw to cut plywood
Just an update. Below are pix of trying to vacuum form objects that are taller than the plastic plates being used. These plates were heated with a heat gun and not put in an oven, which would provide for much better uniform heating of the plastic before pushing down on the form. The first pix is of a ~6" saucer where the plastic plate was held by a cutout 9" round pie pan. A round wooden holder would be much better. The second pix is of a fairly tall ~6" bowl that used a square plastic plate in a square wooden holder. The wrinkles in the plastic are somewhat caused by not getting the plates uniformly soft before pushing down the mold. The third pix is bottom side of another larger vacuum table made from a 9.2"x13.2" cookie pan ($1 at the DollarTree store) and an ~13"x19" piece of 1/4" plywood. The bottom pix is of the wooden square plate holder setup on a pizza pan so I can try heating the plate in the oven. I’ll probably try the plate in the oven soon to see how better heating of the plate works.
I think some of the wrinkling may be solved by using an oven to get the plastic uniformly soft before pushing it on to the mold. The plates are not flat and already have a molded shape, which may or may not be useful. Just using a heat gun is pretty tricky as the plastic will go from very stiff to soft to melt thu very quickly, and uniform heating is difficult. You can see melt thru points on the edge of the plastic bowl. I expect heating in an oven would produce better results. The formed parts are stiff and light weight.
