Forms for Vaccum Forming

[Urban]

If I was wanting to make some forms for say, bazubands and demi-gauntlets, what would be something I could make the forms out of? I´ve heard carved wood, but somehow I think I would botch that. Would something simple like a ball on a tube be sufficient to get the general shape (bazus)? Thanks in advance.

Folcric

[Halberds]

A half ball on a half tapered tube form, mounted to your vacuum machine plate would work.

You will have to adjust for the trimming operation as well.

I have done quite a bit of vacuum forming, and I think it is a great way to make stuff.

Best of luck and be sure to post some pics.

Hal

[Sean Powell]

When I used to do vaccume forming for work we would make our prototype molds out of pine, foam and wood-putty. We would drill holes in the concave corners using lengths of piano wire. It has a rectangular cross section and is treated surprisingly hard. If you clip the tip at a 30 deg angle and chock it in a drill it will auger it's way through soft material surprisingly easily. It can be reshaprened by cutting a new tip with end nippers and you can drill very small diameter holes very long distances very cheeply.

With that said, I wouldn't be pursuing vacume forms for SCA grade armor. To get appropriate thicknesses to form takes more then 14.7psi. I prefer to shape kydex in a concave mold by heating it until it's floppy and the 'dishing' it with my hands in good winter gloves. I get pretty good conformity to the mold when I pay attention and can easily re-heat and re-shape if not.

Now if you meant bazubands for LARP or storm-trooper armor where the material can be thinner then go ahead. Sounds like a great plan. You might even consider starting a a 'Newel' post for stair railings. They are already turned into a taper. Find the section that matches the general arm size and shape you want, cut that out and either file away at it, splice in sections or build up and blend with putty. I have done kydex greaves and vambraces around the newel posts I used to build my first camp bed.

Sean

Sean

[Chris Gilman]

We thermo- form things all the time and you can use many different types of material, wood, fiberglass, metal, foam and even clay.
I would suggest a “maleâ€

[Urban]

Awesome! Many thanks for the advice and instructions. For the time being I just want to make myself a pair, but if the process is not too costly and time consuming I might consider cranking out a few pairs to sell, if there were people interested. I´ll post pics when I get around to doing this.