I am going attempt to vacuum form my product which is an ice bucket. I am confused as to what type of mold material I should use. I need something that is cost effective yet will still let me get a good number of pieces out of it. Any suggestions? Do you know of any companies that make reasonably priced molds? Also, I am looking to purchase a used vacuum forming machine that can form a piece that is about 16″ deep and 8″ round. Do you of any resources that list that sort of thing? Any help you can give me would be much appreciated. Thanks.

I purchased 2 ABS sheets to use for my DIY vacuum forming, one is around .06″ and the other is .09″.

I am afraid that .09 may be too thick for my DIY set up. I just want to know how thick I could go with the sheet.

You, personally, can’t control the color. It’s all done at the manufacturing end… the used plastic is ground up into small beads of resin and then dropped in a hopper and pushed through some kind of die or mould to form its shape.

That said, there are some recycled plastics where the manufacture hasn’t separated the various colors and out comes a mosaic or marbled look.

As far as vacuum forming, you’re generally restricted to these plastics:

Acrylic
Polycarbonate
PET G
Special grades of Nylon
Special grades of HDPE

Look in the yellow pages under PLASTIC SHEET, ROD, & TUBE – you’ll find a distributor who can help you out getting stock…

i have many question about recycle of plastic .
how they can do that ?
when the recycle finish how the product look like ( column or small peaces ) ?
if i need to use this recycled plastic in new forming where i can go to do ?
and can i make control with the colour ? and can i make it healthy for use ?
i need to know every thing about hyow i can use the recycled plastic and the prices of forming …..

many question i know but that cus i like this idea and maybe i will make different in this field

thanks alot

I used to use an industrial vacuumformer back in university, but since i’m unable to access this machine anymore, i built my own a while back.

If you are looking for easy material to work with (like for castingdyes), PolyStyrene is a good choice; it is not super tough, but very easy to form, because it can be welded using TriChloreEthene (TRI) it is what i use for molds, models and prototypes most of the time.

If you are working on a vacuumformed endproduct you might want a more specific plastic; ABS is very strong, while PolyCarbonate (PC) and Acrylic (PMMA) are perfect if hardness is required. PolyPropylene (PP) can be used for a more flexible product.

Plasticguy is right in the fact that PETG can be used as well.
However, as far as i know, PETG is a type of PolyEthylene and not a polyesther.

Polyesther, is a “thermoharder” (a category of plastics that, when heated, will NOT soften or melt, before burning). Thermoharders are unsuitable for vacuumforming since they cannot deform.

Vacuumforming requires any kind of “thermoplast” (when heated, these plastics will soften and melt prior to burning so they can form around your dye. PS, PC, PMMA, PP and PE are all thermoplasts.

Good luck on your project.

or are you talking about actual concrete structural forms? these are made from polypropylene

typical vacuum form materials are PETG (copolyester), Acrylic, and Polycarbonate

but it all comes down to the application

if your going to be banging out the end-products then I’d try polycarbonate BUT you have to dry out the moister before you pull down the material