Vac-formed river sluice

[AusFX]

So my mini highbanker didn't really work out, I thought I would step back a bit and try something a little simpler.

I spotted some vac formed PVC river sluices at EE Day when I was buying my 705 and figured it would be a pretty simple and cheap build.

I didn't have any regular PVC sheets on hand, but I had some green foamed PVC. Not as durable but for the test run it should be fine.

So I built a quick buck in two parts to form over (couldn't fit the entire thing on the vac table)

(part 2 of the buck)

Then I fired up the Vac-form machine:

And the final thing assembled:

It's tough to get a really nice sharp edge with this machine (It doesnt suck as much as it used to, and sucking is a good thing!) But I think it will catch some of the good stuff.
If it does I might revise my design slightly and made a few of them from something more durable.

Total build time about 1.5 hours, total materials cost, $0... Gotta love having heaps of scraps around

 

[MJB]

That's brilliant AusFX

Look out Angus Mackirk...I would buy Aussie made any day.

Good work

 

[AtomRat]

Excellent mate! I have attempted this as well, I found that using the side of an old wheelie bin to be perfect HDPE plastic for the vacuum mold. Another idea you may want to try is HDPE expanded mesh using the other side of the bin, cut horizontal pattern slits with a hot knife and use a small car jack / press and jig to stretch it while at 100'C. You dont want it to sag like vacuum forming @ 180'C. I use my kitchen oven and my shop vac for all my HDPE molding. Check out how to make a plastic welder as well

 

[AusFX]

Hmm interesting. I can get HDPE in sheets from 1.5mm to 15mm, never tried it for vac-forming however. I'll try it at some point.

I've been meaning to build my own Vac-form machine at some point, with a bit more kick than the one in the uni workshop.
I'll have to check out the plastic welder!

Thanks Atom

 

[AtomRat]

Best way to is to make temporary vac form jigs for each project rather than one box. I usually whip up a wooden frame, hole in the bottom, perf board on top, connect to my Aldi wet / dry industrial vac. And as I mentioned you can use the kitchen oven for a nice fruity smell in the house, or take a look at on YouTube "XRobots" hdpe warming / melting setup using an old bar heater, wood and foil.

Something else you might want to try out at some point, crush or chop up HDPE, place it onto an oven tray with wax paper, heat it 180'C until it starts to fuse and use a rolling pin to flatten it. Fold it and repeat the heating and rolling and you will have a nice sheet of your own homemade plastic sheet, multi color, swirls, or plain color!

 

[AusFX]

I've already got plans in my head for my vac-form, I have for years haha. When I do make one it'll be a large bed, maybe a smaller one to accompany it or just reduction windows. Just need to wait till I have the space for my own shop, till then I'll just use the excellent workshops being a prop maker tends to provide

Thats interesting, could be useful for injection moulding. Hope you wear proper PPE and that oven is in a well ventilated area when melting that stuff. haha

 

[AtomRat]

HDPE doesn't release much of an odor, nor vapors, nor does it make too much of a mess if you keep it around 180'C. As for anything, use common sense and general safety tips supplied with information, gloves probably your most important friend. Plastics are the least of my worries, my rocketry and metal smelting projects are on a whole different safety scale

I tested some dodgy injection molding using an old soldering iron heating up a clay extruding tool, like a giant garlic crusher. I didn't get any further as I am still working on my CNC for making alloy die's for extruding into. It's all possible to do at home, keep it as simple and safe as possible, you don't need a massive machines for anything

You wont need reduction windows either, you can 'mask' it off using blu-tac gaskets. Hmm, the way I wrote that doesn't even make sense to me, to youtube you must go for a better explaination on this :8 Feel free to ask questions anyway though

How you make your sluice is exactly the way I had attempted it as well, so thumbs up for that!!

Oh, as for needing more 'kick', you can really use any cheap vac, its more to do with how you use the area of your plastic, minimizing room for excess air getting in and how you control that air space. If you have it sealed enough, properly softened the plastic till it sags and had big lungs, you could suck it out. It doesn't need big vacuum.

 

[G0lddigg@]

nice built there ausfx, as has been said above wed all love to buy aussie made

those AM are great and theya re patented so I wouldn't go taking their design using the core principles.... thats ok but be carfeull. USA loves a good lawsuit.

anyway those riffles need a good belt sander over them to make them flush, they work much better with a flat hard edge dropoff