MSRaynsford

I haven't been using the vacuum former very much and when I do use it it's been largely for cake based projects. When I mentioned I was dropping custom work (and therefore cake based work), I was asked if I was interested in selling the vacuum former. As it went for the price I paid for it and I know where it has gone too it seemed to be a pretty good deal to me. Then of course lock down happened and things all became much more difficult so now finally, with the easing of restrictions, they were able to come and collect it. This leaves a sizeable space in the garage for moving things around. Since the schools closed I have spent a large amount of my time homeschooling. My orders haven't slowed and in some cases they've definitely increased (who knew that the US running out of jigsaw puzzles would lead to an increase in sales of fractal puzzles). All of this means less time for projects and less enthusiasm for blogging, it's hard to pick up pace again but hopefully I...

Not everything can or should be laser cut, but the laser can usually help you make the right tools for the things that can't. This ley line crystal is a perfect example. From Shadows asked if I could make a large crystal prop that represented the crossing point of several ley lines. I had a serious think about my options and almost completely forgot that I actually own a vacuum former  which is nearly perfect for this job. I could simply vacuum form two half shells of a large gem, paint them and stick them together to form a suitable prop. The vacuum former is a great tool for turning plastic sheets into fancy shapes but you need something to form over, if I could go down the shop and buy the right thing to form over I wouldn't need to be doing any of this at all, this is where the laser cutter comes into it's own. I found a suitable looking 3D model of a gem online, from there I used Pepakura  to unwrap the model into 2D flats with tabs in the appropriate pla...

Another build for 'From Shadows', this time they wanted a device that could be used to track down other devices scattered around the field. I came up with a solution that used the ESP8266 to create a wifi network (nodes not shown) and these gadgets that scanned for wifi networks and reported the RSSI. The closer you are the stronger the signal strength and you know you're heading in the right direction. The gadgets were supposed to have a modern mystical feel so I made them from fluorescent perspex, the sheet was sprayed with black and the details cut through. The whole front panel was lit from behind with UV led's so the glow only shone through the cuts. I also felt it would be good if the gadgets had to be held in both hands, under the thumb prints are two tactile switches which need to be firmly pressed to keep the device on. I think this might have caused a bit of thumb ache from the players while they were initially looking for the nodes, it certainly ma...

I put the vacuum former  to some serious work this week. I had a good run of making car body shells and owl heads, a little bit of practice and I could turn round each new sheet pretty quickly. Obviously making the owl heads and cars themselves has taken up a little bit longer and it has delayed the next ESP8266 tutorial while I try to figure out DNS. In other news I managed to turn my kitchen into a parking lot.

With my wooden mould complete  I was able to use the vacuum former to create a plastic shell that matches the shape of the owl heads. I'm going to cast that shell with a silicone compound to make an exact replica of the wooden mould and I'll be able to make two shells from a single sheet of material. I used a large block of foam to fill some of the void in the middle of the cast, this reduces the amount of silicon I have to use. Last time I tried this though I forgot that the foam would float in the silicon. This time I laser cut a base board for the mould, once filled the foam will float up against this and be held in place. I put some pour holes in it so that I can fill it from the reverse, but due to a combination of the foam obscuring the holes, the holes being in the wrong place and me being generally rubbish at pouring I ended up making quite a mess of the board. It was all good fun though, you can see that the silicon copy came out well and has been already pres...

About 2 months ago I was talking about getting some parts vacuum formed so I had a quick look on ebay to see how much vacuum formers were and found one very local that was going cheap (comparatively). It needed to be gone by Monday morning, I found it Saturday morning, and it was a big industrial beasty that would probably need a van with a tail lift to move it. A few quick emails/phone calls later and I'd booked a van, spoken to the sellers, found a friend to help and things were all set for Monday morning. I'd gone from thinking about vacuum forming parts to owning a machine in the space of a few hours. Moving day was fun, the machine is indeed big, heavy and very industrial. The machine had been unused for a while and the previous owner had it wired directly in to the wall because high currents kept blowing fuses. It was fair to say I was nervous about what I'd just bought but worse case I could just sell it again on ebay (and not being in a rush I would probably ma...