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RayburnGuy

making stencils

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Been trying to figure out a good stencil method ... and from what I've seen and read here I think I'm going to try the Vac Form method.

After watching the You-Tube video it looks straight forward enough. Going to build it this weekend.

Got a question for ya RayburnGuy ... do you have to place the styrene in the oven before forming? Or is there another method of heating it?

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The thing that worked best for me was to put it in the oven. Keep in mind that you need to watch it closely as this only takes a few seconds. I actually used the broiler function instead of "bake mode". If you watch it you will notice the plastic will begin to sag. This is when you need to take it out and place it on your vacuum table. You will need something to hold the plastic in while you are heating it as well as when you place it on the vacuum table. If you don't hold the edges of the plastic it will tend to curl up on you and make a simple job difficult. The way I did this was to cut 2 plywood squares. Measure your vacuum box and then cut these squares large enough that you will have a 2 to 2 1/2 inch border around your vacuum table when you slip the jig holding the plastic down over it. You sandwich the plastic between the two plywood squares and hold them together with small bolts with wing nuts on them. Might have forgot to tell you to drill holes around the edge of the cutout, but you get the idea. All this does is hold the edges of the plastic while it's being heated and formed. You will need to make the cutout in the plywood squares a little larger than the size of your vacuum table so it can slide down over it. This does two things. It not only holds your plastic, but it gives enough weight to hold it in place while forming. You might want to place some wooden blocks on the side of your vacuum table so the frame will only go down so far. You will probably want to have a heat gun and some type of smooth edged tool handy. This is to help form the plastic around the very edges of your mold. Just depends on how tight a stencil your trying to make. If I can help with anything else feel free to ask. Once you get into it you will figure out what you need pretty quick.

Rg

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