Save thousands by making your own vacuum former! construction plans and parts are now available to build your own high performance vacuum forming machine. one set of plans shows you how to build a machine with your choice of size: 2 x 2 foot (.6 x .6 meters) 2 x 3 foot (.6 x .9 meters) 2 x 4 foot (.6 x 1.2 meters). Download the free google sketchup plans for a nice vacuum former design from http://www.seafax.co.uk/. Before i set out to build my own vacuum former i did alot of research on various diy sites. i found alot of helpful tips and designs. ultimately i settled on components from several different designs. my design is by no means perfect, but it gets the job done, and was fairly cheap to build.
The vacuum system consists of a small harbor freight vacuum pump and two air compressor tanks which give a combined volume of 16 gallons. this is about the lower limit recommended in the plans, but we have seen people get away with a single 11 gallon tank so this set up should be good for the foreseeable future.. My goal was to create a simple and cheap vacuum former. i knew the sheets of material i would be forming would be 12in x 12in and so i would design the vacuum former around that . i came up with this design that follows similarly to many other diy vacuum formers out there. design a base board would have a hole in it for a household vacuum hose. The thermapress vf-1 is the most versatile and most advanced bench top vacuum former press ever built. works with membrane or without membrane using the optional direct forming kit. it is the last vacuum press for kydex holster making you will ever need..
