Vacuum Forming Plastic Thickness

One of the most difficult features in thermoforming is the three sided sharp corner in a female mold.

Vacuum forming plastic thickness. Engineers often do not really understand plastic forming processes. Vacuum forming plastic choices styrene high impact poly styrene hips generally the best version of thermoforming plastic for modelers. Often confused with injection molding and rotational molding thermoforming processes are. All thermoforming techniques are stretching processes.

The thicker the plastic the stronger but the less detail. Thermoforming is the forming of heated plastic on a mold to create a desired shape. Each plastic material has a variety of different properties and they form at different temperatures. This vacuum forming material selection guide is part of our free help with vacuum forming it lists most common vacuum forming materials their basic properties in standard grade some advice on costs typical uses for formings made from each material type.

Thermoforming vacuum forming and pressure forming are considered thermoforming processes. Because all vacuum forming starts from a flat sheet the wall thickness of the formed part will have a variable wall thickness as the material is. Vacuum forming thin plastics works best they will adhere and take in better detail but 90 abs plastic is what everyone uses for stormtrooper armor and other props when they vacuum form i think westerfields armor uses 65 thick not sure though. The stretching of a flat sheet of plastic material into a larger shape results in a larger surface area and a corresponding reduction in the sheet s original thickness.

These features are typically needed to allow for part strength retention of material thickness and or esthetics. Vacuum forming material selection guide. Because the plastic is fairly low density it is easy to work with small hand tools. Description of vacuum forming simply stated vacuum forming is the process of taking a flat sheet of plastic and changing it into a contoured shape.

This is accomplished by putting a piece of plastic into some type of clamping mechanism heating the sheet up to a forming temperature. The key to good part design in thermoforming is understanding the need for a proper size radius or chamfer. This plastic is very friendly to and its use is well known by the modeling community. The thinning down of the sheet s original thickness is not necessarily uniform.