My artist fishing friend Bill months ago had a great idea about repeating a part of my pieces over again through the use of a vacu-form machine. Last week I finally had time to find and buy the sheets of styrene. We bought a few differnt thicknesses so we could see the level of detail that would be created. After the initial tinkering to get the machine cleaned up and started which had its own learning curve, we were ready to test the first piece.
After loading the reliefs on to the aluminum vacuum table, with the vacuum pump pulling 30lbs and the gas heaters running full blast Bill was ready to lower the very hot sheet of styrene onto the table and open the vacuum valve. After we tried about four test sheets we could see that the .030 thickness styrene sheets were giving us the best results. Only a slight webbing was occurring in the corners, and the detail that the thinnest sheets were more pleasing.
Now back to Piedmont Plastics next week for 12 sheets of Styrene, then we can go into production.... Thanks Bill!
