Cool man thank you for your support The clear coat is a great idea! and I had four cans of sitting in the shop for the MKII painting project, why didn't I think of using that I have vacuum formed over the 3/4 in blue foam and it works fine. I did that clear prop like that, but the second time I tried it the plastic was too hot and it melted the foam. You could always paint some styro pray 1000 on the foam and that should help. Or maybe epoxy. On thing that works great is to make a plaster of Paris cast from the carving and then you can use it over and over. Its nice because it picks up every detail! Mark
I was wondering if it would be too hot to form over foam I use Ultacal30 plaster for my castle building projects It is much stronger than plaster of paris If you like building things out of plaster than check out this site http://www.hirstarts.com/ I plan to vacume form some of the blocks that I get from the molds in clear plastic in order to make glass for the windows.
Sounds cool Travis and that site has some really cool ideas. When I am looking for mold making I go to this site http://www.smooth-on.com/ mainly because they are close and they have pretty much anything you can think of in that department You can get a sample pack from them pretty cheap and experiment with a few of their materials Mark
Hi, New member here. Just reading through the posts on the Phlatformer machine and I sort of lost track of the part where you wanted to put a pressurized membrane on the back side of the mold to get better detail. It looks like you were having some trouble finding a thin and cheap rubber that would work for you. I noticed that my dentist has these very stretchy silicone rubber dams that they put in your mouth when doing fillings. They are VERY thin and stretch like crazy without ripping. You'd need to find larger sizes than the 4" squares they use, though. Hope this helps, Keith Waiting for a Phlatprinter design hefty enough to cut boat parts from 1/4 and 3/8 full plywood sheets.
Hello Keith, We experimented with the rubber sheet material for a while but it looks like its better suited for female molds so that the details are pushed into the face of the plastic. As it turns out if you use a male mold without the rubber, you can get the detail by pulling over the part, and the nice feature of doing it this way is that you can use it either way male or female. Thank you for your feedback and help we are always looking to source new materials and may use this rubber sheet for another project in the future so its good to know where to look. Thanks again Mark and Trish
The MKII can fit you needs right now! Since the new PhlatScript includes the ability to do incremental "step cuts", I can see no reason why this machine wouldn't handle 1/4 and 3/8 ply. The examples of light ply that were cut with a 1/16" bit using the step cuts were every bit as crisp as a laser cut (but without the burn marks). I bet Mark can point you in the right direction for an upspiral bit that will fit your needs. Oh, and BTW, does my PhlatFormer purchase make me a LEVEL III forum member?
Hay Crash... Mark and Trish are still only level IIs. So until they get bumped, I don't see it happening for you
:mrgreen: We are working on that one. We would like to have special areas of the Phlatforum set up for each level soon. dart70ca, Mike is right, the step cuts are the way to go. Even on larger mills you still need to step cut. With the speed of the MKII it makes it go quick. There are accounts on here where some of the guys are cutting thick woods with the MKII
Mark, I guess you are hard at work cutting out all those Phlatformers ? I have yet to get a heating element for it. I guess i will wait until it arrives, so I can get a feel for how big it needs to be. Have you tried vacuum forming thin foam, that would be something to see.
Hi Travis, You know it We are getting the kits together and working out the best process to get them shipped. Its a lot of work to be sure. As for the foam, I did try 6mm depron and after melting a few sheets I figured out the right timing and go a pretty good mold pulled over that plaster boat hull! :mrgreen: Once everyone gets there Phlatformers I am sure we will figure out just the right timing we need to get foam pulls and that would be sweet! Mark
Good morning everyone. We have been working hard getting the Phlatformers cut and packed. As of last night, we almost have 8 ready to go. We were going to push ourselves to get them shipped by 12:00 today when the post office closes but have decided not to rush it and wait until Monday. There are a few finishing touches we want to make and since this is a new project, we feel it's best not to rush it and instead take our time this weekend and be sure everything is right. We hope you understand. It won't be long now! Thank you, Mark and Trish
Thanks for your understanding Shaun. Check out this pic. The mail lady is going to be busy this week! Attached files
7up, they know us by name down at our local post office. In fact, sometimes they call and ask if we have any shipments. It's pretty cool but we do feel bad for the mail lady on days (and weeks) like this one is going to be. Cool guyz. Glad to hear it. You will be happy to know, Gerahren and crash5050, that you are both in the first batch! We were able to get 6 completed with all necessary components. We are going to continue to work on these while we wait for a few items to arrive soon. Then, we'll be shipping many more. We will keep you all updated with our progress. Thank you, Mark and Trish
You guys are going to have to quit dedicating your 8 hour days to those pesky jobs, and start doing the Phlat thing full time.
Why did you have to bring that up? I have the phlatty, the 2x4, the dust collector and now the phlatformer...Where am I going to put it?
Can't wait to get my shipping info :mrgreen: So excited to get this and start phlatforming...... Peter
Shipping info?!?!? I only got to leave fingerprints on the one in the Toledo booth when M&T had their backs turned to me. (They don't know, so don't tell them.) Where is mine? I bet they're holding back on mine until they get enough practice making and shipping the "practice" ones. Yeah, that's the ticket! :mrgreen: