Done. I have 20 white pieces of styrene.

Laura and manaf came for the final one so I could show them the process. It’s pretty cool to see the plastic get sucked down into the shape.

The vacuum form machine had far too much compression and completely obliterated my hydrocal mould! I had 2 casts, and after 3 hours of sanding, hearing it shatter as the plastic came down on it with insane force, wasn’t the happiest moment in my day.

There were a few options at this point, most very expensive alternatives to plaster, but to make a long story short it was a few hours and rob was there with me helping and keeping my spirits up and I couldn’t have made it through this process without him, so thanks!! (now die).

Eventually after long frustrating-ness (?) I said “Fuck it”. (I said a lot more than that actually) and like always I just did it my way (rob and phil had already suggested a clay or wax backing, so I put that in) and I simply put all the shattered bits back together, and vacuum formed.
Is it perfect? Hell no, you can see where it cracked. With each cast it got progressively worse and chipped a little more. (it shattered on the very first cast remember) but I just treated it as nicely as I could and with a little patience, and some clay in-between cracks, got 20 done. By the end of the night I was getting pretty fast and doing 1 every 15-20minutes.

The heater is massive tho and by 9pm I was sweating, and stumbling everywhere, I just couldn’t take the heat anymore, even with drink breaks between every cast. I was glad to go home.

It was interesting to see how wasteful the process is. I’d forgotten. To make a piece approx 9.5x12 I needed a 20x20 piece of styrene. More than half of the plastic I paid for and used, will simply go into the trash, not cool at all. Styrene can be recycled and printed back into new sheets, I can only hope they send the scraps back to the company…