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Ello chaps and ladies,
I was wondering if any of you have any experience on vacucum forming. I am looking at a fast way to recreate a bunch of emblems that I want to make for a chaos army that I am going to start without having to cast them individually. I was wondering if any of you have any idea as to what level of detail that I can expect from the forms and what not. Thank you for your time....

I'm not sure if mass-reproduction like what you're talking about is a violation of IP laws or not. I'm not casting any ethical stones here, the decision over whether that is right or wrong is between you and your conscience, but if it is, then you may face a derth of responses, culminating in a locked thread. Just a heads-up of the possibility.

That being said, I've no experience with vacuforming. (Beyond seeing it done on Face Off ) It seems, from what I've seen, that it requires some specialized equipment. Do you have the equipment to do it? If not, it may not be worth the investment.

My apologies on not being clear. I'm going to custom sculpt the designs my self. Just wanted to make, say ten, and then vacuum form those to make a plastic cast instead of having to sculpt ten more. I kniw I can make gs molds and latex molds but since I have access to a vscuum table for cheap just was wondering as ti the level of detail I can expect.

Oh, sorry. My guess would be pretty detailed, but I can't speak from experience. The concept of the vacuum form seems to lend itself towards high detail, at least in my mind. Can you give it shot with some kind of test sheet? (Say, a set of engravings in increasingly finer detail?) Would that do you any good you think?

Level of detail depends upon the thickness of your polystyrene sheet and the depth of detail in your master. They will NEVER have the same detail as a resin cast, but can do basic details well.

My mate has a vacformer. Admittedly, it was kitbashed from an old BBQ (gas) and an air-hockey table (air compressor replaced with a vacuum pump) but it worked well enough for fabricating ["well known SF franchise"] armour and helmets.

As GW's last lot of vacformed terrain proved, it's not always as good as intended (the planetstrike stuff. Looked "soft" on detail compared to the masters they used to get orders).

Detail will be soft as material 'sags' over the master in vacuum forming, instead of filling a mould as with casting. Depending on thickness it'll lose a lot of detail. For shoulderpads, I'd guess it's not gonna be much use. You'd be better off with resin, or just make a pushmould of the iconography for use with green stuff.

I honestly don't think vac-forming is the way to go, for this. It's great for larger forms or when general shape is more important than textural detail, but, as mentioned, material thickness softens sharp details (they'll be better reproduced on the inside than out), which is likely all you want out of these icons (unless they're massive pieces for terrain work). Using a sufficiently thin plastic sheet to retain detail is going to make the forming process more difficult (increased likelihood of sheet tearing during forming, breaking the vacuum seal), as well as making successful casts very weak (requiring back-filling with putty, or the like, increasing the required time, effort, and materials).

If you don't want to bother with silicone molds and resin casting, I'd use GS/flexible mold putty/InstaMold and make push molds, reproducing your icons in epoxy putty. It's by far the simplest and cheapest option, and one that's well-documented, should you need advice or troubleshooting.

Agreed, vacuum forming is not what you want to do. Look up Smooth On, they have tutorials and great molding products.

Thank you all for your insight. I too have come to the conclusion that vac forming is not the way to go. Iwill instead be making 10 or so unique shoulder designs and cast from them.

Shoulderpads are a fairly easy, one piece mold, item to cast. As with the others, I think that's where you're going to need to go with this.

You'll need platinum cure silicone (the smooth-on stuff is cheaper, but it isn't as good with fine details, imo), and some urethane resin or alumilite. You'll also need some dixie cups, stirring sticks, etc. If you decide to go with this method you'll find no shortage of help here.

http://www.smooth-on.com/Silicone-Rubber-an/c2_1115_1131/index.html

Keep in mind that Smooth On sells both platinum and tin cured silicone...and theirs is cheaper than TAP IIRC.

Hmm. I can't speak for S-O's platinum cure, I've not tried it.

It is as good as any other silicone I have used.