LINK
Graber et al, this may be of interest:
LINK
niiiiiiiiice!
good info - thank you sir...
Top marks for that link That is very useful! Seen it done by a guy once and its works well. Made fan belt covers for my baja bug that were see
thru.
Excuse my ignorance but is this the sort of thing one can do at home with a domestic oven, somekind of wooden former and a vacuum cleaner?
We made simple stuff at school (a long long time ago now) with thermoplastics and an oven , hence the question.
Mark
quote:
Originally posted by dern
Excuse my ignorance but is this the sort of thing one can do at home with a domestic oven, somekind of wooden former and a vacuum cleaner?
We made simple stuff at school (a long long time ago now) with thermoplastics and an oven , hence the question.
Mark
For a heat source, you could also use a chipboard cabinet and a bank of those infra-red heat lamps as used in bathrooms, chip shops and poultry houses. They would give better flexibility to jobs that are larger than domestic ovens.
A looong time ago I did this in my parents oven.
Forgot to remove the plastic due to watching TV, melted plastic does not smell good in an oven, and it's virtually impossible to remove.
Lesson learned: get a dedicated oven !
Another link if you fancy forming Lexan...
Click here!
VERY useful, descibes forming techniques, painting, fabrication, cutting, drilling, cleaning, etc, etc.!
quote:
Originally posted by tadltd
Another link if you fancy forming Lexan...
Click here!
VERY useful, descibes forming techniques, painting, fabrication, cutting, drilling, cleaning, etc, etc.!
Margard is the stuff they use for helmet visors and, I suspect, headlamp covers on OEM cars (and will be used on the LMP).
Only problem is - in case you haven't read thro' all the info yet - draping it's easy but getting the optical clarity isn't. You
need a mirror surface tool for the optical clarity, i.e. expensive if you're not going to produce more than one set!
However, the prototype covers on the LMP seemed acceptable enough from toolboard moulds (rough surface).
Graber et al, this book on vaccum forming may be of interest.
Wow. i think I may have to get that.
Thanks RORT-man.
Graber
I bid on that book ^, so no-one else please! 
And what about
this book
for steel tubular structure theory and design?
Way over my head...
I've used a purpose built vacuum former to create poly-prop moulds.... from which you can make fibreglass/carbonFire parts.
Very useful....
For really SMALL things, you can make a wooden plug and jam it into a plastic (PET) coke-bottle (or similar). wedge it in so it's very tight, and
then attack it with a heat-gun or Oven.
The plastic bottle shrinks to fit the plug.. and again, you can use it as a glass-fibre mould.
maybe useful for someone
Bubbles shapes like the canopies for homebuilt aircraft are made by plumbing a piece of plywood for air pressure, then cut another piece into an out
line of the hole the part will cover. Screw the 2 pieces together with lexan in between, and heat the entire assembly. Once up to temp, inflate the
plastic dome to the desired profile and allow to cool.
Presto! a custom moulded canopy.