Adam Savage's Guide to Vacuum Forming! 

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Adam, just a suggestion for your vacuum former. You might want to think about adding a foot switch to turn on your vacuum, being you seem to need two hands to drop your plastic and use your helper. It may help if you use a foot switch to parallel the foot switch with your vacuum toggle switch. To allow you to let off of your foot switch and still keep the vacuum running. ( added thought )

I really felt like the newb at the shop, and the boss said "hey.. Adam is over there using the vac-former.. go.. uh.. LEARN something." And I was like "Hey Adam. Whachadoin?" Now we are just hanging around the former as he casually firehoses a lifetime of knowledge and enthusiasm in between frantic pulls. It was the most natural "you are really there" videos in a while.

Adam, you are an ocean of knowledge. Sharing a few splashes with us is always desperately needed in the amateur making community. A “how to” video from you is incredibly valuable

When I design a buck for vacuum forming, I put it on a tapered pedestal to elevate the part about the bed. I put a bevel on the top of the pedestal to put a cutoff line at the bottom of the part. I can then take a Sharpie, draw into the groove, and that gives me an easy to see cut line. Someone else mentioned having compressed air on hand - you can drill small holes into the master pattern to provide air channels to suck down the plastic into difficult areas. By cutting a countersink on the bottom of the pedestal where the hole exits you have a place where you can put the rubber tip of your blow gun to help with the de-molding process. These air channels do leave small depressions on the part, but they are easily filled, or can be placed in areas that are later cut away. This makes pulling the part off the buck much easier.

The few tips not included (& also upgrade suggestion for mr Savage): - have a compressed air pistol around if you can - you can use it to cool down the plastic faster and also blast air between the blank & plastic if it gets stuck (less destructive than mechanically prying parts apart with pliers etc.) - FOOT PEDAL for suction is such a helpful thing when you're already doing 2+ things with your hands and trying to precision anything. Back in UAS we had this -60'ish industrial 50x50 cm vacuum former *thing* to first learn with and it had massive bent bar for foot "pedal" that moved the parts & jammed them together.

Mr Savage, I adore your work and want to thank you deeply for sharing your wisdom. The joy you show about your work is incredible. All the best for you and your loved ones.

Just like some parts of your audience, i am also interested in vacuum forming; yet don't have any practical experience. I also suffer from ADHD, stumbling upon a video of you covering not just how to do things but also mentioning the background (what to feel when you fail, especially.) boosted my mood in a way i cannot even describe; As i also know the hardships of learning a hobby-job (or in your case, literally art) with a condition literally acts against any sort of progress, I can safely say that what you do here is not just teaching stuff but literally being a beacon of hope. One may watch hours of motivation videos, but nothing will replace your genuine and sincere explanations about your experiences. Thanks for everything.

This dude is just an amazing human being.

I got that 5" x 5" vacuum former for dentists that you mentioned a while back. I've been using the sides of gallon milk jugs to make reusable catfood can lids. Thanks for sharing even more knowledge.

I wish you would make more videos like this, Adam. I understand the hesitation, but you have a unique cross section of skills, and sharing your knowledge and techniques would be a huge benefit for makers everywhere.

I used to make hot tubs, we would vacuum form 9ftx9ft sheets of 5/32 thick acrylic. We formed over negative molds that was made of fiberglass and bodyfiller. They had interchangeable parts that would key in, like head rests, neck jets, or crotch jet.... 1 thing we did was 1/16 drill holes in the inside corners because the vacuum would struggle to pull detail as the air became locked in the voids of parts

When I was studying industrial design I was taught to use thin piano wire cut to a chisel tip with heavy side cutters as a long drill bit. We made bucks from MDF and filler and would drill many small holes in concave edges to help the plastic pull in where we needed it too. Our machine had hand pump vacuums and preformed surprisingly well.

Adam is the reason I built a vacuformer years ago. It’s 30” x 28” platten, de-icing heater elements, an old air compressor tank and a vacuum pump from a printing press. Works great.

The Vac-U-Form machine was made by Ron Charles & Associates (RC Vac-U-Form) in Wilmette, Illinois (Chicago area), circa 1988 to 1991. ​​I recently inherited the smallest sized machine from my old employer, a St. Louis area professional model shop that just closed. That machine was $450 new in January 1990. The 'Deluxe' model allowed for use of 9" x 12" sheet stock (8" x 11" usable space); the 'Deluxe XL' was made for 12" x 18" sheet stock (11" x 17" usable), and the 'Supra Deluxe' used 16" x 24" (15" x 23" usable). The 'Deluxe' model measured 24" tall, and the footprint was 13" x 10.5". It weighed about 35 pounds.

Back when the first LotR movie was going to be released I with some friends made a few orcs for a local convention contest. We spent 3 months with ABS sheets, a vacuum former and heat guns. We used bad pulls of C-3PO pieces to create 2 Moria orcs. We even hand cut and molded the helmets that took two days each. I love how quick yet easy to do with simple stuff. We had a 2'x2' table made out of 2x4"s and steel mesh, pulled with a restricted shopvac. We took first place in the contest and we got to meet Sean Austin in costume.

What I love as some one who's tutored and taught and has ADHD.. is to watch Adam, bouncing around the topics like I do.. I've had some people go 'can you just focus on x'.. not realising that our brains are jumping to the tangents and we will cover everything.. just.. let us go.. you'll get more info than you ever imagined.. unless we have gone full ADHD and forget what we were meant to be doing. Few also understand the full challenges of being a semi functional adult with ADHD.

I used to work for Lockheed Martin on the external tank for the Space Shuttle program. I got to do some vac-form work in the R&D department making test mock-ups. Most people didn't care for it. I thought it was fascinating!!

Hey bro, you don’t have to be the top, the best, the end all be all. In fact the most helpful thing, and the most healthy thing, is to just show one way that works. You have great filming and editing skills, so you’ll make really helpful videos for entry level folks like me. If someone else has a way to improve on what you show, then great! I still want to see several people do it their way.

My first job was at a thermoform plastics company in Auburn WA. They had bottom and top platins. The bottom platin would push the buck up into the plastic and when needed the top platin would have the "helper" box that would come down as the bottom platin was coming up and would meet in the middle and completely eliminate gussets when dialed in. The smallest vac oven was 4'x5' and the largest was 6'x8'. They had a fireman's hat that you would sign when you f'd up the timing and had the whole sheet of plastic melt down into the lower heating elements that were covered with chicken wire to prevent direct melt down into the elements. It was fantastic job for a young maker. They let me go after I complained about bloodborn contaminant risk after a worker horribly cut himself bandsaw cutting uphill and got blood everywhere. Worst bandsaw injury I'd ever seen.

If you have a DLP printer and print a cavity (negative) of the part you want you can get all the surface detail and use a thick 2mm material. I’ve used this process to model up injection formed plastic enclosures for tools and shells for products. Plaster casts of objects works too (how I learned in the 90’s) and the vaccume form can pick up leather texture and stone granular surfaces this way. The best part is any webs you get are all on the inside and you can get pulls that can go straight to paint with no sanding.

This video brought back memories. When I was young, in the. 60's, I had a toy vacuformer. It took a 3 x 3 sheet of plastic. The heater was beside the vacuum plate, with a hinge. When the plastic was hot enough to sag, you flipped it over the form and pumped the vacuum manually as fast as you could.

What you are calling a gusset is usually referred to as webbing. The "helper" is a great idea. I have also been told that if you get a lot of webbing that you can try heating the plastic less. I have heard both let the plastic sag the height of your buck and let the plastic sag half of the height of the buck. Professional machines have thermostats and temperature displays so the exact desired temperature for a specific buck can be dialed in.

I encountered an opportunity to do packaging design for a new product. Knowing of Vacu-forming as a method but, not having enough experience with the methods I needed some good information. As always, Adam came through. In just a few moments of watching Adam, I have enough information to have a first go at prototype packaging for the project. I also learned I can build-out a vacu form rig for the prototype without having to buy a production machine. So WIN WIN! Thanks Adam. Keep up the good work!

Currently an industrial design student and I use a vacuum former for a couple of models for my projects. such an amazing tool.

I spent part of my youth as a sign builder,, we used to vacuum form giant sign faces that was quite an exercise!!

As an orthopedics technician trainee: vacuum forming test sockets from 400x400x15 mm sheets of thermoplastics onto plaster positives is about 1/3 of what I do all day. It's always fascinating. Wonderful to see that basic technique being used for so many different things as well!

This video is very timely. I know you said this isn't a how to video, but this still very helpful to me. I recently start vac forming and learned a lot of useful tips for problem I've encountered. I've mostly been experimenting on stuff from around the house. Small bowls, lids, old phone cases, tent stakes (big mistake), and some small boxes. My favorite has been a tea infuser. A lot of gussets around that one. But now I know a couple of way to deal with those, thanks.

One trick I've used is an alternate version of your helper. A bigger (not taller) ring around the buck under the plastic, so you pull over it. Really helps eliminate webbing.

When you mentioned kydex, that is used to make many different things, especially gun holsters, and some of the ways that is vac formed is just incredible, to include using a vacuum former that has a membrane so you can use smaller size sheets.

I know those parts! That's vintage 80s Kenner B-Wing cockpit shell and AT-ST bottom body/neck shell!

As a kid I had gotten (I think it was Mattel) vacuum form machine. It took 4" x 4" sheets so you made about 1:87 scale boats & cars (all I can remember). Big machine, had a flipping sheet holder that sat over the heater, then you flipped the holder over the mold & pressed a built in hand pump to draw the soft plastic over the mold. Wish I had it now that I know how to do vacuum forming right. Would be making a lot of detail loads for my trains.

Love this, Ive been wanting to build a vacuum former for ages. I think the foot pedal idea people have mentioned is a great one. I would also say move the clamp for the frame to another side so it not in your way when you pull the plastic down.

As a part of my R/C hobby I paint and detail Lexan bodies for my cars and trucks. The interesting part is they are painted on the inside, so you have to reverse the process, doing the details first and the main body color last. One challenge is mixing the Acrylic lacquer paint because the factory automotive colors are based on Enamel and nothing matches easily! For example, '57 Chevy Turquoise has FIVE colors in it! I have an old Hot Rod magazine with paint dots all up and down the margins from mixing a batch for a '57 Chevy pickup I did as a "Cameo" (white top). One trick I discovered is to use a "Sharpie" marker to detail panel lines on the outside of the body. Make a mistake and a little rubbing alcohol takes it right off... I worked (briefly) for a vacuum forming company years ago and we used 4x8 foot sheets of ABS and HDPE to make (among other things) golf cart bodies and school bus dashboards. BIG patterns and incredible details!

Every time you mention vacuum forming, it brings back childhood memories. In the early 1960s, the kid next door had a vacuformer from Mattel.

Dude! We would all love to learn anything you’re willing to share. No one is the end-all be-all experts on a subject s, there always something else to learn.

In high school the plastic shop I worked in we used two pizza ovens and machined presses. We did also use foot pedals for the vacuum, I remember when we went to the foot pedals it was so much easier heh.

Past views days I have been making my diy vacuum table - perfect timing on watching something on the same subject.

Thank-you for sharing your knowledge! Every time I watch you using this vacuum former I think it would make it much easier to do solo with a foot pedal to turn on the vacuum.

they way i see it, Adam is more of a town at a crossroad, pulling things in from different places and exposing many things that i would not have found on my own

Maker expertise collision: A fellow maker and skilled saddler saw me vacuforming, and suggested I try a boning tool--like she uses for shaping wet leather over a buck--to reduce buttresses and improve detail. I substituted a tongue depressor first (since I had one on hand), but the boning tool is better because it has different contours you can use, and holds up better. Now one lives in a pocket on the side of my former. But you have to be quick!

I LOVE THE IDEA OF "STEAM" !!! This has to be the standard!!!!!

Adam my mom makes sugar flowers as a hobby and a number of years ago she bought herself a Wilton Cornstarch Duster. It does exactly what your bandana hack does and comes in its own self-contained container.

Fantastic video Thank you for sharing and can't wait to see what's next. Everyone keep yourselves and love ones safe and healthy and remember to SMILE 😊God Bless 🙏

I loved this, more 'guide' like videos would be so amazing! I'd love to have a whole compendium of Adam teaching how he does things and all his tips and tricks within!

Love seeing this. I work industrial maintenance for a manufacturing plant. We produce Togo boxes by thermo- vacuum forming. Seeing the large production at work all the way to this scale is truly unique.

One detail that wasn't covered, that I have noticed doing vacuum forming, was the stages of how the plastic gets soft. First the plastic warps and softens unevenly. Then you'll see it smooth back out nearly to its original shape. This is the start when you can pull. Lastly, it starts to droop. For ABS and other thick materials, you might need to heat it till it starts smoking. Another method of getting a clean edge on the base of the part is to raise it a bit off the vacuum plate then "ride" the vacuum so it doesn't undercut too much. It's crazy the materials and the objects you can vacuum form. I once used 1/8" polycarbonate. We had to heat it up to a crazy amount which expanded the gas inside, creating a cool texter of air bubbles. We were pulling mushrooms for a tree for Meow Wolf, and we had to pull about 30 of them. Our vacuum form was a wreck after that. I've also vacuum formed piles of gold with seashells, skulls, crabs, and chains. Things that you would never vacuum form but if you do it right and a tiny bit of patchwork and a good paint job, it can turn out amazing.

An excellent 'show & tell' about vaccu-forming...or, to borrow a phrase from Star Talk, an excellent 'Explainer'. 👍🏻

I don't know if anyone has covered this but you mentioned especially on the small vacuum forming machines which I now own thanks to you, you can get polystyrene in colors if you want to use solo brand plastic dinner plates. They make them in red and blue for sure and I watched the demonstration of a solo plastic plate being vacuum formed. Obviously someone is making the product for solo.

50 years ago 16 year old me made a vac form with a box and some peg board. Used the oven. But I never could figure out how to get rid of the gussets. Didn't even know that had a name.

There's another kind of 'helper' that is easy to make that you might like to know about: saw up some little wooden trapezoids (4 sided truncated pyramids) and position them near where you expect to get drooping folds. This will give the extra plastic something else to do, so to speak. I used to vacuform plastic hatch covers and other features for model boats and this trick gave us perfect parts every time. Never tried baby powder as a release; thanks for that! 🙂

Thank you for this! I recently got my first vacuum form device, I'm making chocolate molds as my first run with it. I got lucky getting mine. The store my partner works at has a customer friend who regularly goes thrifting and found about ten small vacuum machines at a Re-Store, he bought them all and was selling them for $10.00 to makers who were interested.

Vacuum forming and learn by mistake; I won't forget (probably ever) ruining piece of perfectly good polycarbonate sheet for making a mock-up of a food container back in UAS studying industrial design. Weell.. ruining is one way to describe it - turning it into art is another. :P It was left-over piece that had been sitting on shelf for years so it should had been put into oven over night to dissipate/draw moisture out of it. I however didn't know that at the time, all I knew was that "oh, that's perfect size for my lid" and vacuum formed it as is. It does its job as the lid, sure, but it's also very artistic with millions tiny bubbles that popped up when the sheet was heated up. You know.. invisible water "droplets" that are sucked into plastic in improper storage put under 500+ celsius heating coil for ~30 seconds => very *artistic* gas expansion. All I can say 8 years later is that it was very good demonstration of how plastic really grabs moisture from air in storage - and how happy I am that the piece actually was mostly a scrap piece because how expensive 2mm clear polycarbonate sheet is - got a bit chewed from our teacher for wasting it but overall turned into a learning experience so hey..

As a Sign Fabricator for 40 years your explaination of the TESTD Brand was spot on. the way that I do may not be the best way. You half to find you Own. Human's

My heart jumped when you almost dropped the blaster😮

Love the videos! Can’t wait to get to meet you at the Dallas ComicCon in two and a half weeks!

'Pounce bag' is used also in both handwriting in ink and also musical instrument finishing.

I am so grateful for this ADHD teaching seminar. I bounced around a lot, actually.

Suggestions... 1) Add a foot pedal to start the vacuum with maybe a latching relay/contactor to latch it on and a stop button on the cabinet. 2) Maybe something like a darkroom timer to monitor/control the heat up time. More useful for the thicker materials. Then you can keep notes on times for the various materials. I had instrument cases made from the thicker ABS type stuff and when you mentioned using very thin polystyrene the only thing I could think of were those cheap Halloween masks you wore as a kid.

I love all the different names for moulds, bucks etc Ive always called those ‘gussets’ webbing 😀 Ive often used an off cut of wood to help push the plastic down to avoid them. Can sometimes use a sacrificial bit of wood next to where its forming to slow it down

Considered putting a touch switch on the edge of the base to automatically turn on the vacuum when the plastic is brought down? If the existing vacuum switch is kept in the switch circuit it could allow for manual and automatic modes of turning on vacuum.

Thanks for continuing to share “what happened” videos!

Awesome! I'm always tempted to get one for stuff like aircraft canopies.

I worked making visibility balls for power lines for a few years, brutal HOT work. ABS sheets go into oven the size of a car, while its warming up we hop in the form and wipe down the mold to keep it cool, jump out before the oven opens and plastic comes out, form comes together on the plastic vacuums engage, pull it out load another. easier than working at the woodmill throwing 2x4 and plywood all day

you had my heart skip a beat seeing the blaster fall then you caught it 😤

"Just a ring from my box of rings" sounds like a GODAWFUL relationship ballad!

We used to form with ABS and HIPS and we found that hips would sag, tighten then sag a second time. The second sag was the golden spot. Our vacuum former was an oven and a mdf side dresser with a hole drilled in it and an old vacuum cleaner fitted in it. We used off cut tiles to raise the form off the dresser as to not plug over the vacuum hole. Was still an effective vacuum former though

Brings back memories of Vac-Man, Creepy-Crawlies and the Easy-Bake-Oven (For kids) Along with erector set and chemistry sets and that thing from Radio Shack when you connect wires it does things.

A vacuum former is on my list of things I need to build myself. It would be great to make a nice body for radio control vehicles and be able to easily just make a fresh one when it gets too beat up.

Loved this, would love to see you do more of these "guides" for other bigger tools

Adam, you should sign all of these test vacuum molds and sell them as limited edition art on your website. Thanks for sharing all of these great tips and tricks. Nicely done.

I've been thinking about making my own vacuum former and naturally this video comes up lol

I've never even been interested in vacuum forming an I find this super interesting, it looks so much simpler than I expected. I understand using thinner sheets makes it a lot easier to get good looking fine details, but what's the downside? If I had to guess, it makes the plastic tear more easily if you pull it down too hard over a sharp shape?

I added a magnet to my plastic frame and a reed switch to the vac-u-form machine so as soon as the frame is pulled down the heat turns off and the vacuum turns on as soon as the magnet is in place.

Perfect time for this video , I was just messing around trying to vacuum form a blister pack for a custom figure I made. After a few fails i should be getting some more plastic today for attempt #2. Thanks for the tips

I would love to see a video showing various ways of which the vacuum formed pieces are used. I always see videos of how to form, but never this is how we used the piece in our project.

I worked in the dental industry for years and we used vacuum forming all the time. There's lots of different materials you can use if you look into it. Also they use smaller form factor vacuum machines in dental that you can find secondhand every once in a while for cheap.

For working with the black plastic, check out Welding Silver Pencils. They are a silver leaded pencil, great for laying lines on dark surfaces.

Adam you are always more of an expert than you think you are, but the real gold is in your enthusiasm and the way you know how to balance output quality vs production efficiency. So many "how to" resources focus entirely on the quality of the result, but for most makers the law of diminishing returns cuts in quite early. We mostly need to achieve a result that's 'good enough' to move on to the next step with the minimum investment of time and money. Your experience has allowed you to refine this like nobody else, so quit apologising and keep sharing with us 😁

Fantastic video. I love learning and adding information to my potential builds.

You know how FUN it would be to have Adam as a shop class teacher in High School!... I wouldn't ever wanna leave that class haha. Feel like every student would graduate as masters of that art after only taking his class for a year

Depending on what the buck is made out of, pre-heating it with a heat gun or a hair dryer can significantly increase detail since it doesn't cool the plastic on contact so quickly.

Oh hey! I was wishing for this during the Homeworld build and here it is! This is awesome!

now that I've been working at a horse farm, 'mucking it up' has a deeper meaning; great exercise tossing 30 gal muck tubs though! p.s. I'd Red Green the cart with some brackets; 'it's only temporary unless it works!' I think is the saying? :) Adam has such a beautiful personality it brightens up rough times.

Hey Adam, awesome guide! Some additional information about models, though. As an avid model builder NOT all models are PS! I have quite a few that are ABS. Definitely check what material the kit you're modifying is made with when you make your plan of attack. It's usually indicated somehow in the manual or on the runner itself.

I made blisters for a small product with A4 clear PVC sheets... works, it was the stuff I had laying around... you really need to ventilate well there.

Note! Pounce was done hundreds of years ago by calligraphers. It was made with finely ground cuttlefish bone.

For a number of years I worked with a fluid cell press in making aircraft skins and parts. Though that is obviously a little more complicated than vacuum forming, the concept and process is identical.. Good job here and good tips as well. :)

Adam....while I appreciate you saying this isn't a "how-to" channel, I have found your videos on scratch-building and van-forming with polystyrene plastic to be immensely interesting and helpful when it comes to model building. I still find both intimidating as hell, but your videos have given me a bit more confidence to at least try some new techniques as opposed to just building model kits out of the box.

You were definately in the zone there!! nice video

That "engine nacelle" is actually the tail end of the Star Wars B-Wing rotating cockpit.

Oh yea, and Have that exact little mini vacuum former. Great little machine

You can 3D print very durable bucks. 1% infill, then fill the print with plaster. The mass of the plaster will prevent the surface from melting and deforming. You can also just drill air vents for the concave details.

I'm not a maker, and I can't think of any reason I would use this machine. Having said that, I want to vacuu-form so badly I can't stand it. It looks so cool, fun and satisfying to do.

I love when Adam brings up something that you can remember from Mythbuster's.

In the Netherlands, we always talk about Polystyrene as the thermoplastic, Styrene is the rude liquid of which Polystyrene is made...

One of my goals in life is to have a shop like Adam’s

Adding a foot pedal to turn the vacuum like the one on your drill press would free up a hand, might be worth looking into.

"God of acedem", I learn so much new english from this channel..

Now make the cardboard backing for the blister pack, complete with model and other details and include a hanging hole. "New from Tyrell!"