Making Epoxy / Vacuumed Formed Styrene Shells

[madmacks]

I saw cobywan making an epoxy shell and i was fascinated. I need to do something similar and was curious as to how its done. Anyone know how to do this or to do something similar? Basically i need to make a part and i dont want it to be a solid brick.

[Hiriyu]

I've only done vacuum forms using acetate plastics, but the process for styrene is basically the same. You'll first need to make a male tool of the part you want. Take into account the thickness or guage of your material or your part will be too big. Your tool should be filled in solid on the backside (rice makes a great filler when mixed with epoxy).

Mahogany and 2-part epoxy will work fine for your tool if you're only pulling a couple samples. If you're going into larger production, you'll want to make an aluminum tool, as the heat involved will kill off your mahogany/epoxy tool quickly. Make sure that your tool doesn't have too much back draft on it for the type of material you're going to run (don't want to crack or damage your finished part while trying to remove it from the tool)!

Now you want to take your finished tool, and drill many tiny (say .025") holes in it for the vacuum path. The very slight traces from your vacuum holes, if any, will only show on the backside of your finished part. If you have a vacuform machine, set it on the platten, block off the additional vacuum channels, turn on the heating element and go.

I'm assuming you don't have a vacuform machine, so I'd suggest getting out the yellow pages and look under plastics. Find someone who has the right equipment and let them pull the parts for you. It can be done pretty cheap as long as you do all the tool work yourself. Pattern and tool work is pretty pricey if you have to farm it out.

Hope this helps!

[madmacks]

that helped alot! might be out of my league though