I am wanting to make some vacuum form molds of prints I make. Just wondering if anybody has done this and knows if the ABS will hold up under the short-term heat of vacuum forming?
I'm pretty sure you can vacuum mold ABS. If you're thinking of making the mold itself out of ABS then I'd imagine it would depend on how long it's exposed to heat and how close its situated to the heating element. I'd like to be able to do something similar. Maybe if you use a plastic with a lower moulding temp than ABS?
No, the mold would be out of HDPE which is usable for epoxy molds with no release agent. As soon as the hot HDPE is applied to the printed part a vacuum is activated that also cools the parts. It's 5 seconds at temperature at most.
Well I ran a quick test with a sheet of thin styrene (don't have any HDPE yet) and it worked fine. Did not distort the ABS part at all. It did pick up some of the ribbed detail of the printing so I will smooth the parts before molding.
