Can anyone provide me with some tips on molding clear styrene? I’m building a 1/12 scale Super Blackbird for a friend as a gift and he has changed the windscreen to an aftermarket windscreen which is taller, has more of a square shape and is tinted, I tried molding it in hot water with bad results, any advice would be greatly appreciated
Bender
The only way I do it is by vacuforming… Btut you might consider draw-forming, in which you make a mold and then make a frame to hold the clear plastic tightly all the way around, then you heat the plastic in the oven, at about 120 degrees,until it gets really rubbery, but not to whee it sages in the fram. Then you remove it and quickly pull it down over your mold… Hold it for a few seconds to allow it to cool enough to remove it without deforming it…
I’d use clear acetate for this method though, rather than tyrene…
There’s also the “Squash” method, in which you make a female mold half and a male mold half… Heat the plastic as before, but when you pull it out, you place it on the female mold and quickly push the male half down into the female half. Leave it there until it cools…
Smoke a cigarette afterwards…[;)]
I use a Mattel Vac-U-Form machine though, I got it on Ebay… I don’t know if the machine is big enough to do your canopy thiugh, since the frame on that thing is only three and a half by three and a half inches… 1/12th scale is probably too big…
Hi Hans
Thanks for your response, The windscreen size is roughly 1 1/2" x 2" so it would fit, now if I only had a vaccu form machine, any tips on how to build one? I don’t really have to put to much bend into the styrene so making a mold maybe the way to go.
Thanks Again
Bender