24 inch Vacuum Forming Machine

[Charles (Upstate NY USA)]

I have been busy in the home shop over the holidays building a new 24 inch vacuum forming machine, thought I would share some pics. Everything rides on bearings and she's all oak and poplar.





http://home.nycap.rr.com/mda/pics/vacm1.JPG

[kt315]

good stuff! when this engine will be ready to take off an order, Charles?

yours.

[Al Arens]

Looks very impressive. Are there any sketches to look at for the construction?

[Carl-NC]

Very nice! I just got the Robinair pump you suggested, so I hope to start on my machine soon. Still got a number of other priorities to finish.

- Carl

[Charles (Upstate NY USA)]

Carl I found a vac forming site and based on their pump recomendations I plan to buy a second Robinair pump and run 2 pumps on my new machine. If you are building a smaller machine than I am you may not need two pumps. My single pump molds some plastics like polystyrene just find and does an okay job on .060 ABS on a 28x28 inch table but not as good as it should. I think if you are planning on building a 24 inch table and you want to form ABS you should probably plan on two pumps. Keeping the volume in the table low also helps a lot.

[Charles (Upstate NY USA)]

I plan to post lots more photos and some plans I drew with measurements on the website I'm building on the side. I'll post a link here when finished.

[Charles (Upstate NY USA)]

I'll be busy with some other stuff over probably the next month before I can get back to wrenching on the machine.

[Al]

Hello Charles,
I'm sure that many folks will be interested. I'm also from UPSTATE NY, Vestal (near Binhamton)to be correct. Glad to see another NY'er on this site.
Al.