Why I got a Vacuum Former, What Can it Do

today we're going to learn about vacuum forming yo come along as we check out this machine learn how to vacuum form find practical and unpractical uses for it Identify some of the thermo-formed products we come across on a daily basis I try my hand at making some actual products and take a look at some other vacuum forming videos and what others are using their machines for I will be up front and say that vacuum forming wasn't even on my radar especially with how busy my own business has been lately I have even temporarily closed down my Google and Etsy to try to slow things down a little bit but I must say things are still moving pretty fast but vacu Q 3D messaged me and asked if I would like to try out one of their machines and I was eager for the opportunity as it's a whole new set of skills to learn and boy do I have lots to learn the vacuum former was delivered in a wooden crate by one of my normal delivery drivers straight to my front door right out of the crate all you have to do is plug it in power it on and you're ready to start vacuum forming simply put you're heating up a piece of material until it's pliable pulling it down around an object then pulling a suction to conform it to that shape popping it out and then you have your vacuum formed piece of plastic this is a lot like if you remember the days when we would jump into trash bags grab a vacuum cleaner and well you know the rest settings were already set for the type of plastic that was sent with it this turns on your heater starts heating up to your desired heat you can see I can change that there it's going to 260. I can change my timer there with the arrows it's really really simple heater off vacuum on so simple and it's all just ready to go right out of the crate and this vacuum former has four different heating elements which seems to give it a nice even distribution of heat along the entire sheet of plastic so here is my first attempt using the vacuum the vacuum former I'm going to put in a smart watch a key and one of these wooden coasters that I'm making so it's at 230 degrees I'm gonna go ahead and lift it up into position and I'm gonna set my items in here 22nd and it looks good turn off the heater turn on the vacuum [Music] that was super cool oh I wish you could have seen what it was doing I believe before disengaging those I can lift it up that helps to get it unstuck and then I can take these up and I should be able to lift it up out of the way oh it came out oh that is so cool I'm really excited being able to create professional looking packaging with this the piece of wood was engraved with the laser and you can see how it sucked in all those letters that is really cool that I was able to do that it's got a good strong suction and I can remove it oh that's that is pretty cool that has given me a lot of ideas since we can change the color of the plastic like that that really expands the opportunities that you would have with a machine like this I uh I definitely let the plastic get too hot there and it created wrinkles that's my fault because I was playing with the camera I think I'm gonna try it again and see if I can keep from overheating it this time [Applause] that looked much better than the last one okay oh it couldn't be any better everything fell right out I mean man you could literally sell molds just like this to Candy makers or people interested in doing things like that and I was just checking the cost of a sheet like this if you're ordering it off of Amazon it comes to about a dollar seventy per sheet which is a pretty low cost of goods all right this is probably going to push it way past its limits but I wanted to try to make a very tall box this is a box that I made with my laser I did drill vent holes here on the bottom to help the suction pull it down in because this is probably three to three and a half inches tall I'm really impressed with how well it sucked into the box I did not expect that you can see these sharp edges here that's to be expected with an object as tall as this with such sharp Corners so I don't know if you can see how far down into the box it went I just tore through so it essentially turned into a sarana wrap right there I think it's gonna be stuck here's another thing you can think about is leaving an item encapsulated in plastic like this I mean I could just straight cut it off there and my box is now protected by a film of plastic this is where draft angle would be very helpful this box had a slight inward angle to it it would pull out much easier that is pretty cool though I mean it looks kind of like a bathtub for squirrels and you can get different thickness plastic I am using a plastic that is 0.5 millimeters thickness it's transparent p-e-t-g this time I'm gonna do the box upside down let's take a look at this with this technique it's like a single walled box before it was a double walled box kind of like a tub so I don't think we're gonna run into thin spots on this one wow there it is oh way I essentially just made a lid for this box check it out made myself a transparent lid just the opportunities with a machine like this really just come down to me figuring out what is possible with it it's a lot like when I got on a Blazer at first I just didn't know what to do I knew I wanted to laser everything but the more I work with it the more I realize what it can be used for and I could even make a jig like a box like this that would make it easy to cut a straight line on this piece of plastic to make it look more professional one of my kids food bowls and drilled a hole through the bottom [Music] I didn't realize I was encapsulating it a little bit too much so the draft angle is absolutely in the wrong direction yay you'll see how clear that is that is how I should have done it right there that's the draft angle we want guys I came right out I think vacuum forming products are all around us and I think we Overlook them and don't even realize it for example my Invisalign is vacuum formed so I just picked up some lunch and once you know it vacuum formed lid pretty sure that's vacuum forms too I'm curious to see how these factories are cutting the edges though I wonder if they have dyes or what it is to get those Great Cuts I'm pretty sure these cups are vacuum formed definitely the lids look at that p-e-t-e so similar to the plastic I'm using I'm using p-e-t-g I'm telling you vacuum forming is everywhere I just braved the crowds over at the old Walmart so I can go get some chocolate to test out on these molds [Applause] this says microwave method heat Wafers and microwave safe container at half power or defrost setting for 30 seconds stir thoroughly if not completely melted continue to microwave at 15 second intervals all right oh it is not very flowy well let's see this one a smack did you see that magic like I've seen someone do this before I don't know maybe that'll work I don't know I don't know what's going on put some white right there spread it out come on get over there get into that corner go on go get in that corner all right I think now we'll go put this in the fridge let it cool down and see if we can pop them out 10 minutes later oh and it looks like they're already separating I am a little nervous about breaking these because they're pretty thin we broke the tip off of that guy whoa but check that out it did get bent looks like it went through a bad nut making quench okay I really don't want this one to break please don't break oh yes come on wrenchy oh yeah oh look at how adorable I mean I feel like I just need to do a full set of wrenches not bad I see a lot of potential in this so I'm scouring the internet for iconic images so many choices oh well at least people from my generation and older would recognize the Atari logo that's perfect so let's take that and put it into light burn all right I've got it in light burn turn it into a vector hit control U to break it apart the background and this will be what will be vacuum formed half inch thick Oak plywood [Music] these will go to the vacuum former white opaque acrylic [Music] all right the cut is all done this this is what we need right here ooh I need those two pieces and I know a lot of you are probably wondering why is your laser so dirty and just so you know this is in a wood shop and I use this laser daily to run my business I mean this machine for me has been white the money maker it wasn't for this CO2 laser here I don't know where my business would be but it would not be as successful as it is today and this thing has been a Workhorse and it just keeps on kicking even with how much abuse I put this thing through again I know this is kind of shameful but you can see what the machine has to deal with I do clean it from time to time I just don't clean it very often so we need to go get these vacuformed there we go foreign let's just see make a bunch of these and they should stick through yeah and glue in like that all right I'm gonna get the breast cut out and see if we can jam it in there [Music] oh no that are definitely has an issue right there that really skinny spot all right I think I'm just gonna slit down the middle here oh oh that's cool it kind of self-held itself there kind of just went over it I also don't have the right colors yeah it should be bright red it's gonna be tough to paint the insides I should have left them in the sheet form we're painting and then cut them out uh face palm I have a lot of learning to do as you can see you can get pre-colored Plastics and I think that would be the better fit for this you can also dye your Plastics with dies and things like that which I've been seeing some really cool examples of people doing that but there's actually look better than I thought they would we should be able to pop all these pieces in the back here now of course if I was making this from someone else I would do it right I would glue it in and all that jazz I think I'm just going to tape it in place for now foreign it's looking pretty good let's get those little pieces in there okay let's see if that works push it all the way in okay yeah well that'll do for now the big reveal that is sweet I mean I gotta say that came out better than I expected you can see the uh the wood grain on the letters so that's interesting if I was to remake this because this is Atari you think more like I would probably use MDF as my bucks or sand that wood down nice and smooth so you don't end up with all that wood grain pretty cool let's take this outside and get some shots that's what I get for hanging up by the tape okay that's better that's not better dang it now since I am a complete novice with only a few days of experience let's take a look at what some others are doing with their machines first we have Pacific mold design I love what he is doing because he is casting on such a large scale he's filling up an ABS plastic mold with alumalite urethane and it only takes three hours for that to harden even at that much thickness then we get to see his large vacuum forming machine make yet another mold of that piece that he just casted out of urethane Bill Duran a punished props and he has lots of videos on vacuum forming it seems to be a tool that he uses a lot in his prop making shop I highly recommend checking out the work that he is doing this video he is showing how you can tint your plastic using dies but he has much much more Alexandre Chappelle shows something I really really wanted to do but I ran out of time he uses his 3D printer to create the forms for his vacuum forming machine not only that but he uses a cool material called jessamite to cast some spectacular colored home decor items I also found ccxrc using a vacu queue 3D machine also and he uses it to create RC car bodies that he then can recreate and fully customize I am still brainstorming new ways to use this technology I feel like there is still so much more to be explored I'm curious as to what ideas do you have for me to use with vacuum forming leave a comment to share your ideas I would love to do a follow-up video strictly focused on practical applications for a machine like this and if I use your idea I will give you a shout out in that video I want to give a huge thank you to my patreon supporters Dr Larry Anderson and Woodland iron who give me the encouragement I need to step away from my business and share videos like this with you but for now that's all

Channel: Chads Custom Creations

Views: 928,270

Keywords: vacuum forming, thermoforming, vacucu3d, formart2, formart, plastic, petg, prop making, making, etsy, business, sign making, atari, laser, 3D printing, buck, mold making, RM laser, Raymind laser, Chads custom Creations, Chad's Custom Creations, Chad Dowdell, mayku, centroform, WR moldpress machine, formech, belovac, vaquform, formbox, kydex, abs, pvc, acrylic, polycarbonate, polypropylene, hips

Id: ML4PlrzCY84

Length: 18min 55sec (1135 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 23 2022