Formech On Tour

We look forward to seeing you over the coming days and weeks.  We invite you to join us and meet the team at these various events.

Atlanta, Georgia,  USA22nd Annual Thermoforming Conference September 9 – 12, 2013 Booth 204
Chicago, IL, USA	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA September 23-25, 2013 Las Vegas, Nevada USA Visit Us at Booth 5246 Question? E-Mail Us		Düsseldorf, Germany, Europe October 16 – 23, 2013 Hall 3 / Booth F46

SET AN APPOINTMENT NOW TO MEET WITH OUR EXPERTS AT ANY OF THESE SHOWS.

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Case Study: Formech & University of Iowa + Special Offer for Schools

Students in the University of Iowa’s Environmental Design Program design and create products with an emphasis on sustainability.  They are especially interested in the future of sustainable plastics.  Environmental Design focuses on human interaction with the interior and exterior environment.  One class was asked to redesign things that are used on a daily basis to better suit specific tasks using the school’s Formech 1372 vacuum former.

Their first thermoforming project was to design and create a bowl with a particular food in mind.  Some students created shapes designed to hold kiwis, Chinese dumplings, and more.  One student’s design for a bowl with three “nodes” (below) was created out of a love for M&M’s.  The idea being people sitting around a table would gravitate to their own node without the need to pass the bowl.  The bowl’s dynamic curves allows one to get a handful without spillage.  The tri-node bowl was created using the Formech1372 machine with an ABS 3-D print for the mold and a sheet of PETG (which is safe for use with food) for the form.

Angela Regas, Instructional Services Specialist at University of Iowa expressed, “From the very beginning, we were impressed with the quality of design of the 1372 machine.  The size allows us to work at a human scale.  We’ve been able to work closely with Formech, which has helped a lot as we introduce a brand-new component to our program.”

Those in attendance of Formech’s visit to the University of Iowa included:  Charles Romans, 3D Design grad student; Allison Holden, 3D Design grad student; Yi Xie, 3D Design grad student; Monica Correia, 3D Design professor; and Angela Regas, Instructional Services Specialist.

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SPECIAL OFFER FROM FORMECH TO ALL INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING

Formech has a variety of vacuum forming machines to suit the thermoforming needs of any design or trade program.  Click the image below to download and view our full catalog.  Then follow up with a call 312-396-4072 or email: sales@formechinc.com to discuss with our experts the exact requirements for your group.  Just as we’ve done with the University of Iowa and other schools, we look forward to being a hands-on ally with your machine purchase and implementation into your curriculum.

 

Formech Vacuum Forming Guide Online

Everything you want and need to know about vacuum forming is in this handy guide from Formech, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of vacuum forming, thermoforming, and packaging machines.  Check the link for your free download and if you still have any questions, feel free to send them to us!  We’re always happy to share with you what we know.  

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Case Study: The Idea Shop at the Illinois Institute of Technology

 

The idea shop is a 13,000 square foot collaborative learning space and digital fabrication lab for the IIT community. It is located in the University Technology Park, an incubator for start-up companies. By bringing together people from different backgrounds and areas of expertise and providing materials, human resources, technology, equipment, all in one place, the Idea Shop is an ideal space for generating and disseminating good ideas and coming up with great solutions to real-world problems. The Idea Shop also  provides opportunities for the surrounding community through workshops, seminars, outreach activities, summer programs, and more.

       “We (The Idea Shop) purchased our Formech vacuum former to complement the other digital fabrication equipment. Using AutoCAD our CNCs, our 3D printers and our traditional wood working tools we are able to easily create a wide rang of molds to use in our vacuum former. This gives our inventive students many options and the ability to create professional final products. The students in the Idea Shop are finding answers for the problems facing people all over the world. We have a team working on an incubator for premature infants in developing countries. The team is using easy to find parts and the are putting together a build it yourself kit to be shipped all over the world. The team plans to use the vacum former for molding the half dome of the incubator and for securing the vital components that must be protected.

We used our vacuum former to help us keep the project work we require our students to do organized. In the summer we run programs that involve many teams working on many different projects at the same time. Our vacuum former has helped us to create custom trays to keep they parts for our rocket project and our robotics project protected and organized. To create the custom trays we start by creating a drawing of what we want in AutoCAD. From there Joe Luciani, the Idea Shop Lab Manager, does the tool pathing in Visual Mill, then the form is cut out of wood on the CNC. (We could also do it from aluminum) Once the form is out Joe sands it down and drills in air holes. Then Joe places the newly milled mold into the vacum former and in moments we have a usable tray custom designed to fit our needs. Joe releases the mold and uses our 50 watt laser cutter to make a clean edged cut.”

– April Welch | Manager | The Idea Shop at IIT

Photo of the project below:

DIY: Creating Molds for Vac Forming

Formech: Forming to Perfection Over the course of doing business we have advised many customers on the specifics of developing custom tooling for their various applications. Here we demonstrate a few commonly used techniques from the do-it-yourself to the utilization of high-end machinery. Easily Create Molds for Vacuum Forming The first step of the vacuum-forming process is to create your mold, also known as ‘tooling’. If you have an easy-to-use, professional grade vac-forming machine then this step is probably going to be the most in depth part of the process. It’s easy, and Formech successfully advises our customers on this initial step quite frequently. There are several ways to create a tool for vacuum-forming, and which one you use will ultimately depend on what you are attempting to achieve, the resources you have to achieve it, and how long or how many runs you will need the tool to last. Here are a few suggestions on common mold types: §  Cast | Plaster, Clay, or Resin: To the right we have an example of a plaster mold utilized by our customers at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. You can actually form right over the plaster, as demonstrated with the mask below, courtesy of our friends at the London College of Fashion.                                                      American Museum of Natural History Workshop   Here we see course leader Caroline Gardiner using a plaster tool to make a foam mask with the Formech FM660.   This ‘Azote’ foam is handy for mask making applications and maintains excellent shape after cooling. NOTE: One thing to definitely keep in mind when using plaster or clay is to periodically remove excess dust before and after forming. Otherwise, debris will build up inside the pump over time. Also, plaster or clay may only last for a few runs but aluminum or mineral resin tools are more permanent. Mineral resin ‘paint tube’ tooling utilized for packaging If necessary, you can always duplicate your brittle molds by forming a part and then using that negative mold to pour a mineral (or some other type of resin) into the cavity. More is explained in our Vacuum-Forming Guide Email us at info@formechinc.com if you’d like a free digital copy. Another method is just to sculpt the tooling out of resin as demonstrated in this video by Mr. Andrew Ainsworth with Shepperton Studios. You may know him a little better as the creator of the original Storm Trooper outfit for Star Wars. Here Mr. Ainsworth walks his audience through exactly how he created the Storm Trooper molds from scratch and then shows how he forms the real-life costumes on his Formech 660 machine. More on creating vac-forming molds with an additive manufacturing machine – click here.  The above 3-D printed tool came courtesy of Stratasys – www.stratasys.com §  3-D prints: Did you know that you can also use your 3D prints as tools for vac-forming? Also, if you print them as ‘sparse fill’ you won’t need to drill any holes for the air to pass through. The ABS plastic will typically hold up for quite a few runs but if you need something more permanent, then you can use the resin trick listed above. Here is a video of the process §  CNC. This is another commonly used method to create tooling. The durability of the mold will depend on the material that you use and can range from foam block all of the way up to aluminum. A really neat material on the market today is called Metapor, and it is a porous aluminum material that can easily be cut with a CNC machine. Its porous qualities make it ideal for vacuum-forming. More on Metapor here Those are some of the main methods of mold-making but there are many more. For instance, you can also form right over an existing object in order to replicate it. Need to make a soft wrench or a hammer for stage or film? Form right over the wrench or the hammer and pour silicon right into the cavity. §  Here’s a good example of how Chef Pilon at the Mandalay Bay utilized a toy starfish to create a chocolate mold: Questions? We have answers so don’t hesitate to get in touch, we are here to help! info@formechinc.com ©2012 Formech Inc | 1 S. Dearborn St. Chicago, IL http://www.facebook.com/formechinc  https://formechinc.wordpress.com/