Using Heat To Form Plastic Sheet

Tutorial for how to.

Using heat to form plastic sheet.

We re updating our site. When it s ready you ll find it flexible when you try to pick it up. Work on a smooth glass surface as the heated plastic won t stick to glass. Preparing hot air gun w.

Wait about 10 minutes for it to warm fully. Kydex is a machinable thermoplastic that can be molded to form fit just about any shape imaginable without expensive tools and machinery. If your account on our website was created before may 1 2020 you will need to set up a new account. Its simplified version is vacuum forming.

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. Using standard tools kydex thermoforming sheets can be drilled vacuum formed brake formed or punch pressed. Once soft mold them into any shape you desire. Kydex can reduce the number of individual parts needed in many applications thereby reducing assembly costs.

It is because the whole sheet is open to alteration within a controlled environment. In its simplest form a small tabletop or lab size machin. 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. While the other techniques are mostly limited to making linear bends with thermoforming complex 3d designs are possible.

A vacuum sucks out all the air and forms the sheet perfectly onto the mold. Make your own plastic prototypes clamshell and blister packaging custom molds scale model parts and movie props. Bending shaping plastic with hot air gun heat gun. 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.

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. Thermoforming uses heat and a combination of pressure or molds to transform a sheet of polycarbonate into a desired final form. Works the other way around too if you want to use pressure to work the plastic against the inside of a mold.