Using Heat To Form Plastic Sheet

Bending shaping plastic with hot air gun heat gun.

Using heat to form plastic sheet. Works the other way around too if you want to use pressure to work the plastic against the inside of a mold. When it s ready you ll find it flexible when you try to pick it up. Thermoforming is a manufacturing process where a plastic sheet is heated to a pliable forming temperature formed to a specific shape in a mold and trimmed to create a usable product. Use these plastic sheets along with with our hobby vacuum formers and a kitchen oven to thermoform homemade plastic parts with results that rival expensive commercial machines.

We re updating our site. Basically the sheet is secured into the frame with some screws heated in the oven and when reaching the soft temp placed over the mold. If your account on our website was created before may 1 2020 you will need to set up a new account. Kydex can reduce the number of individual parts needed in many applications thereby reducing assembly costs.

Make your own plastic prototypes clamshell and blister packaging custom molds scale model parts and movie props. The sheet or film when referring to thinner gauges and certain material types is heated in an oven to a high enough temperature that permits it to be stretched into or onto a mold and cooled to a finished shape. Place the plastic sheet on a cookie sheet and place in an oven set to 250 f. Using standard tools kydex thermoforming sheets can be drilled vacuum formed brake formed or punch pressed.

While the other techniques are mostly limited to making linear bends with thermoforming complex 3d designs are possible. Work on a smooth glass surface as the heated plastic won t stick to glass. It is because the whole sheet is open to alteration within a controlled environment. Preparing hot air gun w.

Its simplified version is vacuum forming. In its simplest form a small tabletop or lab size machin. Ideal for perspex acrylic plexiglass polycarbonate. Thermoforming uses heat and a combination of pressure or molds to transform a sheet of polycarbonate into a desired final form.

Thermoplastic sheets are easy to melt and shape into your creation just heat the sheets above 150 degrees f for 2 3 minutes until they turn from translucent to clear using a heat gun. Once soft mold them into any shape you desire. A vacuum sucks out all the air and forms the sheet perfectly onto the mold.