Pulling a taller object, say a 3" cowl for instance may end up creating wrinkles where the plastic folds in on itself.

After some experimenting with various methods recommended by others in the field, I found this one to work the best...

Before you load your plug, be sure to apply a liberal amount of baby powder over it to help release the part after forming.

Heat the plastic till it sags about 2" and then swing the arm over your part and press down without applying vacuum.

Take a Ziploc container like the one in the attached photo and press it over the plastic and your part forcing the plastic to stretch as far as will go and THEN apply vacuum.

The smooth rounded edge of the Ziploc container is perfect for stretching the plastic.

This results in a nice pull with no creases. Attached files

 

One of the things they do at work when getting a crease is to place a small block where the creases form. This stretches the material out in that area and allows the part to pull properly.

Tim

 

Yes, that is what someone else told me too. I tried it by placing 4 small plastic cups on the platen and all that did was cause 4 creases exactly where the cups were and it smashed the cups down to boot. Probably put them too far away from the part? I dunno, but that seemed to make the problem worse.

I also tried putting a ring of FFF I made up around the part, but all that did was crush the ring because it was not strong enough either.

And then I ruined another sheet by getting it too hot. It suddenly plunged and stuck to my heat source before I could say jackrabbit!

There seems to be an art to this. Getting the hang of it seems to require a lot of trial and error.

I made two successful pulls using the Ziplock container method, so at least for this particular part that I am forming, this technique worked very well.

The fact that the sheet is retained in a container that forms an arc as it comes down over the plug introduces some interesting issues as well. Instead of coming straight down over the piece, the plastic is still moving sideways as it comes down over the plug. This is not a big deal when the plugs are short, but the taller pieces tend to want to slide as the arc completes its path.

 

I'll definitely give you that one. I have seen quite a bit of ruined material before getting it right. One other thing I wonder about is if the Phlatformer is a little different from vacuum tables that have holes in the top versus the cross checked pattern. Maybe different techniques are needed.

Tim