Vacuum Forming, Dyeing, & Tinting a Master Chief Visor 

THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT! WOOOOOOOO!

Are we having second thoughts about this comment

If you have some friends in germany you could send it to them, might be cheaper and less of a problem with import duties.

Way more nuanced and complex than this dye technique. Ask me how I know. Dying a visor is almost idiot proof.

I just tried with PLA (my friend printed it) and while everything worked great 4th time the visor mold bended inwards probably because of the PETG sheet's temperature. I recommend trying a higher temp plastic like ABS or PETG or maybe bigger infil using PLA but that means more plastic and I'm not sure if it will solve the problem. Good luck!

if youre still interested ASA is the best matetial for it because of the high themperature and easy smoothing with alcohol

It was printed, smoothed, then casted in smooth on 65d

PETG

.06 inches thick

Clear filament would be a nightmare 😬 You could potentially cast the visor in clear epoxy. Otherwise you might be able to find someone who would have access to a larger format printer and request that it would be printed with Siraya tech’s ultra clear

You can in theory vacuform other plastics yes, but this one (PETG) has an ideal mix of properties for the job. Most other plastics would behave very differently, and honestly it would probably just create a mess. Other plastics used for vacuforming is PS (polystyrene), PC (polycarbonate) and ASA (acrylonitrile styrene acrylate). Normal PET (soda bottles) is closely related to PETG and shares many properties, so thats an easy sourfe of some material for some basic experimenting with the principle. You can turn them into sheets without too much work. Building a good vacuforming rig is not a trivial job though. The cost of some proper plastic blanks are pretty trivial in comparion.

Amazon baby!

@@astrophysicistguy Size? Thickness?

@@buckytheelk .06" thick petg. Size of the sheet depends on the size of your vacuum former but a 12" x 12" is plenty big enough if you use the model of the buck that comes with the GA helmet files. Of course you need to make the buck out of something that will withstand heating petg to the proper temp so you make the 3D printed buck out of PLA, then make a mold of that using Smooth On silicon and then make the buck out of resin from that mold. The resin buck will withstand the heated petg when you vacuum form over it